Titles:
Behind the Black Mask, Dead Red Heart: Australian Vampire Stories (2011). Australia, 1879. Stanhope O’Connor and his Aboriginal trackers follow the blood trail of the outback’s most notorious killer.
Awards: Honourable Mention, Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4 (2011).
Review: “Ned Kelly surfaces again in ‘Behind the Black Mask’ by Jacob Edwards, the depredations of his gang explained as the deeds of a native vampiric entity, a threat that only aboriginal trackers can effectively combat, the story melding history and weirdness to striking effect.” Black Static (April 2012)
Bindman’s Bluff, Cheer Up, Universe (2011). The year is 50 BC (Beyond Cremation). Gaulaxia is entirely occupied by the Terromans. Well, not entirely… One small variant of indomitable Pranksters still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Imperial Agents who gallivant with fortitude in search of these most mischievous and fun-loving foes…
Reprinted: Polluto 8 (In Space No One Can Hear You Dream).
The Breakup, Perceptions (2020). She spent two weeks in misery, trekking around the beautiful South Island. With her spirits low, with love lost in the endless downpours, perhaps only a ghost can save her…
Desert Tango, Crossed Genres 25 (‘Celebrations’) (December 2010). Dawn, and with it, death. With water scarce and people eeking out solitary lives at home in their giant termite mounds, the Australian desert plays host to an engagement party murder mystery.
Reprinted: Crossed Genres Quarterly 1 (December 2010 – February 2011).
The Failed Redemption of Michael Ostrog, Crossed Genres 26 (‘Opposites’)(January 2011). For many years the killer had no name… When DI Robert Baxter attends a performance at the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel Road, he finds himself caught up in an obsessive quest to bring down the curtain on one of history’s most notorious dramas.
Reprinted: Crossed Genres Quarterly 1 (December 2010 – February 2011).
Humpty Dumpty, Aoife’s Kiss XI.1 (June 2012). When Big Frank Mack has one drink too many, he finds himself 300 years out of time and playing away to the limeys of King Arthur.
Incapable, Tales of the Unanticipated 32 (2018). Superheroes beware: sometimes you save the day; sometimes you’re ensnared by your own security system and wake up naked in a rubber duck dinghy.
An Insidious Soliloquy, Masques (2009). With death foretold—however cryptically—there seems little point now in making gestures of defiance; the futile shaking of one’s spear. Better, perhaps, to trade banter with the spirit of predestination.