Titles
- "Gathering the Light"released June 2021Ambient music on Neotantra’s tʌntrə XV. Listen here.June 2021Age: 10+
- Inner Real Lifereleased 2021 AprilAmbient/experimental solo album released by Projekt Records2021 AprilAge: 10+
- Adrift (with deepspace)released 2021Available here. Hypnotic, dreamy, and eerily numinous in the sonic spaces it explores, Adrift is the first collaboration between theAdelaidean and deepspace, two Australian ambient artists. The album’s atmospheric soundscape charts the surreal encounters of an astronaut lost in the cosmos after becoming separated from their ship with only an hour of life-support. The interstellar traveler is swept through weightless sky rivers, slowly becoming hypoxic, experiencing hallucinations and epiphanies, and finally finding peace. Close your eyes, unhitch your tether, and step into the void.2021Age: 8+
- Eyes on the Starsreleased 2021Available here. In these essays, Sean Williams—the best-selling author of over 120 short stories and fifty novels—shares his thoughts on the aspects of writing craft and the publishing business that young authors should know. Drawn from essays, keynotes, and presentations delivered over a decades-long career, Eyes on the Stars: Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy features Williams’ thoughts on balancing passion and professionalism, understanding the new writer’s career path, embracing the delicate art of writing media tie-ins, and reaching for the stars with your writerly ambitions.2021Age: 12+
- Her Perilous Mansionreleased April 2020Allen & UnwinChildren’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book Nominated for the Patricia Wrightson Prizen for Children' Literature Nominated for the Aurealis Award, Best Children's FictionA middle-grade fantasy novel about two children trapped in a mysterious house - out now from Allen & Unwin.April 2020Allen & UnwinChildren’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book Nominated for the Patricia Wrightson Prizen for Children' Literature Nominated for the Aurealis Award, Best Children's FictionAge: 10+
- "Cinnabar Field"released 2020This meditative track (released under the name "theadelaidean") is featured on Neotantra's ambient compilation tʌntrə III, available from Bandcamp.2020
- "The Thirteenth Protocol"released April 2020A new short story set in the Twinmaker universe, due for release in the Thrill Me! anthology from Glimmer Press.April 2020"There was no point erasing the evidence. Obviously, they knew what he had done--and would totally do again if he wasn’t caught. The press had dubbed him the Cancer Killer (an early nickname, the Tumournator, hadn’t stuck) for how he targeted the cowards who had killed his daughter."Age: 12+
- The View from the End of the Worldreleased 2020Andromeda Spaceways Inflight MagazineAvailable FREE from Andromeda Spaceways, The View from the End of the World collects nearly all the ways I've destroyed the world down the years. Entirely suitable lockdown reading!2020Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine"Sit back, relax, and enjoy your isolation."Age: 12+
- "The Nix Files"released October 2020Essay in OUTSIDE IN TRUSTS NO ONE: 156 New Perspectives on 156 X-FILES and KOLCHAK.October 2020
- "Collaboration made easy: 6 ways to build a writing relationship"released June 2020Out now in The Conversation.June 2020Age: 12+
- Five Articles Selected at Random from the Scarlet Expositionreleased 2020More info soon!2020Age: 12+
- "What's In My Bag?"released 2020The answer to this question is found in this issue of the newsletter of the same name.2020Age: 10+
- "The Commandments of Writing" (The Conversation)released 2020A compressed version of the advice I give to new writers - relevant to writers of any stripe! Out now.2020Age: 12+
- "Laura of the Bells"released 2020A short work for handbells and choir to be performed at the St James Old Cathedral Festival of Bells in Melbourne.2020Age: 8+
- Structured Ambient Noisereleased 2020This album, originally sourced from recordings I made in 1983-1984, is available for free from SoundCloud and Bandcamp.2020
- mach ruhereleased October 2020Ambient album available on cassette and e-formats from Aerozine50. The title means something like "make peace" or "chill out." Coming soon.October 2020
- Isolationreleased July 2020My first album with a label (Projekt Records) Isolation was composed entirely in lockdown, drawing on sounds I created on tape in 1983. The ambient spaces that resulted speak very much to my present process: slow, organic, and lo-fi. Name your price.July 2020
- "Have Heart, Will Travel" / "The Anchor Tree"released June 2020Two tracks on Ambient Online Themed Collection 10: Unity - all proceeds to benefit UCLA.June 2020Age: 8+
- "under the bright Cuernavaca sky" (with Sam Rosenthal)released October 2020Composed for the collection tim, where are you now? celebrating Tim Leary's 100th birthday. Available from Projekt Records.October 2020Age: 10+
- alive in the hall of possibilitiesreleased September 2020Recorded during lockdown in Slingsby Theatre's beautiful home, this album showcases music from Isolation as well as tracks old and new. Available from Projekt Records.September 2020Age: 10+
- "Echoes of Tithonus"released October 2020Ambient work on Ambient Online themed compilation 11: Mars.October 2020
- "Invisible Assembly"released May 2020This meditative track (released under the name "theadelaidean") is featured on Neotantra's ambient compilation tʌntrə VII, available from Bandcamp. Name your price!This piece uses a sample I recorded in 1983 while experimenting with tape decks.May 2020Age: 8+
- "The Second Coming of the Martians"released 2019In War of the Worlds: Battleground Australia from Clan Destine Press. Based in part on my experiences in Antarctica.2019Age: 15+
- "Mutata Superesse"released 2019My first collaboration with Jason Fischer, out now in Jonathan Strahan's anthology Mission Critical.2019Age: 15+
- “The Misadventures of Tom Jones, Time Traveller”released 2019The full title of this story is actually “The Misadventures of Tom Jones, Time Traveller - Being a dialogue between two hemispheres of the author’s brain that is neither fruitful nor uncommon”. I've listed it as SF, but it's a bit too meta to be anything, really, other than it's own thing. Based on a very strange dream. Out now from Daily SF.2019It's a metaphor for generational memory and youth's misspent passions, taking the grandest themes of Fielding and Wells and--Mashing them together in a story that made you sweaty. Don't deny it. I was there.Age: 15+
- Impossible Musicreleased July 2019Allen & UnwinCBCA Notable Book Nominated for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.My first mainstream novel, about a young heavy metal guitarist who suddenly loses his hearing. A Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book! For more information, visit www.impossiblemusic.info. Cover: Clarion Books, US; artist Peter Strain; designer, Lisa Vega; creative director Jessica Handelman.July 2019Allen & UnwinCBCA Notable Book Nominated for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.Age: 12+
- "Her Name Is Cordelia"released 2019Essay in OUTSIDE IN GAINS A SOUL: 127 New Perspectives on 127 ANGEL and FIREFLY.2019Age: 10+
- "From the 'Angry Shilling' to the 'Jealous Wall'"released February 2019. . . in which I explore some of the stately homes of Ireland. A Touring Tuesdays travelogue for Dublin2019. For a more extensive account of my year in Dublin, click here.February 2019"Think of Ireland and the phrase 'stately homes' is probably not the first phrase to come to mind. Not for me, anyway. ... What tourists often forget is that Ireland before the famines of the Nineteenth Century was incredibly prosperous, and when the wealthy put down roots, they built big."Age: 10+
- “Humour, Justice, Belonging, Danger, and Wonder: 5 story senses and the art of writing for children”“Humour, Justice, Belonging, Danger, and Wonder: 5 story senses and the art of writing for children”released November 2019My new article on writing for children (all readers, really) is up at The Conversation.November 2019"Any author wanting to pen a bestseller could do worse than start here. As always, though, there is no substitute for hard work - and luck."
- Spiral Symphonyreleased 2019Ambient music under my alter ego "the_adelaidean". Available now through Bandcamp. And Spotify.2019
- "Dr Williams's Big Bad Dad Joke Word Search Puzzle"released 2019Allen & UnwinExactly what the title says! Coming soon in the Funny Bones charity anthology for kids of all ages.2019Allen & UnwinAge: 8+
- "the air is full of phantoms" (ambient sampler)released December 2019Available on YouTube, SoundCloud and Bandcamp this sampler captures the chilled-out side of my musical year. One hour, uninterrupted, absolutely free.December 2019Age: 8+
- mothreleased 2019All new ambient music under my alter ego "the_adelaidean". Available now through Bandcamp. Watch on YouTube.2019Age: 10+
- Slow Pianosreleased 2019Ambient music under my alter ego "theadelaidean". Available now in an enhanced editionthrough Bandcamp, Spotify., and SoundCloud. Watch the original mix on YouTube.2019
- and_scapereleased 2019A collection of short, ambient works under my musical alter ego "the_adelaidean". Available now through Bandcamp. And Spotify. Watch on YouTube.2019
- "Three Visits to the Ring of Kerry"released October 2018. . . none of which involve me actually visiting the Ring of Kerry. A Touring Tuesday travelogue for Dublin2019. For a more extensive account of my year in Dublin, click here.October 2018"There are many sites of archaeological interest in Ireland--40,000 ringforts alone, apparently, a number I totally believe because it seems sometimes you can’t walk ten steps without tripping over a wedge tomb or stone circle. This creates a serious hazard, and not just for pedestrians."Age: 10+
- "Seeking the Great Current"released 2018The result of a new collaboration with Matthew Cropley, this is available for free in Daily SF.2018"The ghost of this dead girl refuses to look at her body. But then, of course, she does look. They always do. It's stiff and curled in on itself, eyes open, staring up at the moon. Her face is blank and pale, her rough-woven shift stained black. A shell necklace is knotted in her hair. Blue veins, darker than the unfinished tattoos around her ears, extend from the bite-mark in her neck down to her collarbone."Age: 15+
- "Loopholes in Light"released 20182018"I didn’t just travel across the solar system to visit the planets--Jupiter in her ribbons and Saturn’s bejeweled hat! I extended my journey far beyond the pool of light surrounding our sun, to the Plutonians, to the comets, to the edge of utter darkness itself. Once I stood on a rock that was closer to a neighboring sun than it is to our own, feeling the glorious crunch of eons-old air-ice under my insulated boots, and . . . Oh, I must stop lest I give you false hope! Amid all this beautiful strangeness and wonder, how could I not feel anything but jaded, and more certain than ever that my final wish will be attained.”Age: 12+
- Let Sleeping Dragons Liereleased October 2018Allen & UnwinThe sequel to Have Sword, Will Travel, co-written with Garth Nix. Out soon in the UK, US and Australia!October 2018Allen & UnwinAge: 10+
- "Mawson on the Moon"released 2018A mashup from Sir Douglas Mawson's Antarctica Diaries. Who knew he travelled so far and fought so hard?2018"a nifty little science fiction/horror story about giant, carnivorous moon-worms that works surprisingly well." - Boing BoinbAge: 12+
- "The Winter Gardener"released 2017A story based on my experiences in Antarctica. (It might also be a sequel to The Thing.) Out now from Daily SF.2017"A fine day down here means sky like a baby-blue bowl blurring into the horizon in all directions and no wind to speak of. Six degrees below freezing."Age: 15+
- "Impossible Music" (novella)released October 2017An excerpt from my forthcoming mainstream novel of the same name, about a musician who goes deaf - out now in Review of Australian Fiction. The novel itself will be published in 2019.October 2017"The last words I ever heard were my mother telling me to turn my music off and go to sleep, which wasn’t unreasonable, it being a Wednesday and she having to work early the next day. Mum crunches numbers in an office for a living. Statistics and other things I don’t understand, although I like that she has in her head a seemingly inexhaustible supply of facts and figures, like the odds of drowning in the bath (1/685,000) or the number of states, counties and townships named after George Washington (103). She scatters them like punctuation marks across nights when my sister and I are home, probably because they’re more likely to get a reaction than the things she’d rather tell us, such as number of children (2), love (infinite)."Age: 12+
- The Adventures of Antarctica Seanreleased 2017I was the 2016/2017 Australian Antarctic Division Arts Fellow, which meant I got to hang out in the ice with a bunch of wonderful people. You can read lots of blog posts and articles about my experiences, starting here.2017"Alan Dean Foster first put me on the path to Antarctica. His 1982 novelisation of The Thing captured my imagination with its vivid descriptions of the “worst desert on Earth”, and of course I wanted to go there. Immediately. Thirty-five years would pass before that dream became a reality."Age: 10+
- Have Sword, Will Travelreleased October 2017Scholastic (US)“A true-blue errant-knight tale, complete with dragons, sassy enchanted objects, and a destiny that comes before anyone is ready ... Hand to just about any middle-grader looking for a swashbuckling adventure.” - BooklistThe first in a new series co-written with Garth Nix, this book has it all: talking swords, adventure, dragons! Out now! More info here.October 2017Scholastic (US)“A true-blue errant-knight tale, complete with dragons, sassy enchanted objects, and a destiny that comes before anyone is ready ... Hand to just about any middle-grader looking for a swashbuckling adventure.” - Booklist"Odo and Eleanor did not set out to find their destiny. At best, they were hoping for eels."Age: 8+
- "A Better Place"released 2017Based on a dream about my father's death. Available for free from Daily SF. (Hey, that almost rhymes.)2017Pop goes the cork, momentarily stilling the dawn chorus, and I am filled with the sense that what we are doing in the cemetery is slightly profane. My mother, my sister Cass and I on a picnic rug at the foot of dad's grave. Thank God we brought sparkling wine, not a heavy red.Age: 12+
- "The Lives of Riley"released 2016A twisted Twinmaker love story in Lightspeed.2016"Riley has rehearsed this moment many times, in reality and in his mind, the better to be ready for any eventuality. He knows the escape route as well as he knows the contours of his own face. As the sirens grow louder he tells himself to breathe steadily and think clearly. There is no need to panic. If he is quick and sure, he will get out with all his selves intact."Age: 12+
- The Future Trapreleased November 2016Bigger is better when humanity takes on the inhabitants of outer space. But not big on price: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016The price of seductive alien technology might be too high, even when it’s a lifesaver . . . Mysterious melodies lead humanity’s first exomusicologist to a world stranger and more deadly than any he has experienced before.Age: 12+
- Sleeping Boysreleased November 2016Love and loss on the edge of knowledge, where anything is possible. Less than the price of a cup of coffee at: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016When a brilliant scientist goes missing in the heart of an alien artefact, her husband will stop at nothing to get her back . . . A meeting of impossible people in a world that shouldn’t exist.Age: 12+
- "Sing, My Murdered Darlings"released 2016A Twinmaker story in Jack Dann's Dreaming in the Dark, out now!2016"I have written this in the form of a confession, although I have committed no crime. There is no trail of bodies left in my wake, not in the traditional sense. Only one person has suffered, and even then the matter of his suffering depends entirely on your feelings about d-mat. If you are comfortable with the machine’s dissection of its passengers, then you must be comfortable with my actions, too. If you are not, then you must already be like me, an outsider, an Abstainer, and you will have learned that there is no force great enough to turn the tide of opinion against this supposedly marvelous invention."Age: 15+
- The Earthlingsreleased November 2016The people who share this planet with us are mind-blowing, sometimes literally. FREE for a limited time at Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple! Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016Alien colonists who warp spacetime as easily as lighting a cigarette . . . Refugees searching for a home in a hostile landscape . . . A mysterious disease whose source is out of this world . . . Virtuality reality brings out the worst in humanity, and much more.Age: 12+
- Praying to the Aliensreleased November 2016It’s often hard to tell the difference between insanity and alien invasion. For much less than the cost of an anal probe: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016The survivor of a terrible car accident wakes oddly changed, leading his wife and best friend to suspect that he is no longer, or not entirely, himself . . . The dying discoverer of the Golden Screaming Tree Frog finds comfort in the strangest of places.Age: 12+
- Strange Waysreleased November 2016Four stories on the road to cosmic weirdness for less than the price of a cup of roadside coffee: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016A lover lost, a world destroyed . . . Time in tangles and our fate in the balance . . . A fugitive’s flight through a maze as deadly as the creature at its heart . . . Humanity’s last hopes bicker on the brink of extinction.Age: 12+
- The E. W. Story Omnibusreleased November 2016All six volumes at rock bottom price! Comes with a bonus novella never published before: "The Prophet of the Change", which was the seed story for the entire Change series, starting with The Stone Mage and the Sea. A bargain from Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Special print edition through IngramSpark. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016All the stories that never were.Age: 12+
- Escape From Thorngate Hallreleased February 2016A collaboration between me and the schoolkids of South Australia! Art by Stephen Stanley. Chapter one here. More info here.February 2016EXPLORING the creepy old house that is their new home, four children stumble into a room full of secrets. Acclaimed Adelaide author Sean Williams has written the first chapter in our progressive story, Escape From Thorngate Hall, with illustrations by cartoonist Stephen Stanley.Age: 8+
- "The New Venusians"released July 2016A Twinmaker story in Jonathan Strahan's Drowned Worlds anthology.July 2016"Afi Tekena looked old enough to be my grandmother’s grandmother, all thick gray hair and wrinkles and constellations of age spots making up her own personal Zodiac. My sign was Teenage Girl Needs To Learn About Respect."Age: 12+
- Gods of Spacereleased November 2016Two tales of intergalactic adventurers and their encounters with the divine. Less than the price of a cup of coffee from: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple. Who is E. W. Story? All is revealed at this link.November 2016Among the ruins of Earth, stealing a sacred relic is much easier than escaping with it, particularly when the fragment of the One God begins to stir . . . Caught in the middle of an interstellar war, one lone priest seeks to complete his pilgrimage in peace.Age: 12+
- "Lust, Entrapment and the Matter Transmitter: A Case Study"released 2016A grim Twinmaker story coming soon in Fablecroft's In Your Face.2016"The history of illegal hacking of commercial matter transmission (d-mat) is as old as the technology itself (see “Patent Law vs Prototyping in the Age of the Replicator”). One particular class of crime raises the spectre of perpetrators altering their appearance in order both to deceive their victims and to evade capture. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the social context in which such crimes are committed and the tools employed in pursuit of the crime."
- The Adventures of Canberra Seanreleased 2016I was the 2016 ACT Eminent Writer in Residence. You can marvel at my adventures here.2016"September 2016. Thanks to ACT Writers' Centre, the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres and the Museum of Australian Democracy at Parliament House, I lived in Canberra for a month."Age: 10+
- "Tears of the Living Dead"released March 2016One of one hundred flash fiction stories in 100 Lightnings, published by Paroxysm Press.March 2016When I close my eyes I see my ten-year-old boy, tears streaming down his cheeks, as the thing he has become rips at my face in order to get at the pituitary gland he so badly craves.Age: 15+
- "On the Dangers of Literature Addiction" (speech)released July 2015This is a speech I gave at the opening night of Voices on the Coast 2015. It is intended to be amusing.July 2015"We are raising a generation of literate children with a strong interest in story. Isn’t it time someone did something about that?"Age: 12+
- "Why Fantasy & Science Fiction?" (speech)released March 2015A lightly edited transcript of a speech sharing my personal experiences of the genres I love, both as a reader and as a writer.March 2015"Sending me to a boys’ school, my parents practically guaranteed me a life of social isolation and awkwardness. Thank god for books."
- "Get Lost" (on novel writing)released May 2015An opinion piece on the art (or endurance sport) of writing novels, for the most excellent Queensland Writers Centre.May 2015"Novels are big. I’m stating the obvious, but only because it bears restating. Novels are hard to write because there’s so bloody much in them. "Age: 12+
- Bonus Twinmaker Storiesreleased 2015There are lots of stories set in the Twinmaker universe, and more on the way. Some of them aren't listed here. Go to this page for a full, constantly updating list. Art by Thom Buchanan2015Age: 15+
- "Big Bang Brussels Sprouts" (recipe)released July 2015This, my first published recipe, appears in the 50th Anniversary SFWA cookbook, edited by Cat Rambo and Fran Wilde.July 2015"(no one's perfect, sulforaphane")Age: 10+
- "Naamgenoot" (The Listserve)released March 2015I won The Listserve. This is what I wrote, and this is the response I received. (Don't know what The Listserve is? This is what The Listserve is.) Image via morguefile.March 2015"Sean Williams is a #1 New York Times-bestselling novelist. He or she is also an ethnomusicologist, a social media manager for Hyundai, an electronic musician, a police officer who shot a 22-year old man for no good reason, a basketballer, a cricketer, a comic book writer who lives in the Spam capital of the US, and many other things. Can you guess which one I am?"Age: 10+
- "Keeping the Pace" (writing advice)released August 2015An article I wrote for Writing Queensland on pacing your story. Follow this link.August 2015"When employed correctly, pacing will propel a reader from beginning to satisfying conclusion. Getting it wrong, on the other hand, can kill a story dead. "Age: 12+
- "On the Fly" (essay)released August 2015An essay in four parts putting one of the best-known matter transmitter stories into context. First part here.August 2015"With this story, author George Langelaan singlehandedly transformed the long dreamed-of matter transmitter from something familiar mainly to readers of science fiction and made it into an object of fascination and terror for everyone."Age: 12+
- "Artefact: Ant Attack"released November 2015A short work commissioned for the 2015 Ruby Awards, consisting of text on a black wall that was painted over in fluorescent paint by South Australian artist Thom Buchanan. Click here for the full text and photos.November 2015"Imperiousness inspires insolence; incoherence, deliquescence. Effervescence. Luminescence."Age: 12+
- "M-Cubed"released October 2015Originally called "Measure (Meant (Measurement))". Text of a musical work written by Sam van Betuw for Cabinet of Oddities, premiered October 2015. Repeat performances at 2016 Melbourne Fringe. Program art by Kathleen Jennings.October 2015"The future of us. You can see it coming like a funhouse mirror rushing closer, ever closer, strapped to the front of a speeding train."Age: 12+
- "Elsewhere"released 2015A memory of memories recorded during a live writing session at Brisbane Writers' Festival in 2014. Here now, gone soon, never to return.2015"Once a time is past and the experience of the present become memory, then the sum of us is necessarily distant. Elsewhere, Removed. Blurred. Living is the moment, but life is secondhand. It’s just as difficult to look into the past as it is to look into the future."
- "Hardwired" (interview)released November 2015Locus was kind enough to interview me for the November issue, 2015 - and they put Clair on the cover, too!November 2015"You write a beautiful, detailed, perfect outline that’s broken by the time you finish the first paragraph. That’s how the book gets better. You have to break it to make it better."Age: 12+
- Go (Twinmaker)released August 2015A collection of short-shorts briefly available on Wattpad but for the moment unavailable. Watch this space.August 2015"Teleporters, transporters, transmat - whatever you call them, matter transmitters can be dangerous. That's the truth that Star Trek has been hiding all these years. The following stories will demonstrate why people and d-mat just don't play well together, via urban myths set in the Twinmaker universe."Age: 12+
- "Redux"released October 2015"Redux" is a novella that doesn't just link Crash and Fall, but connects all the way back to Jump, too. It's written from Jesse's POV as well. A must for Twinmaker fans.October 2015Blurb: "Jesse is in trouble, and this time Clair can't help him. When Ant Wallace's trap springs shut in New York, it's up to Jesse to save a horribly injured Ray while at the same time dodging Mallory and an army of dupes. As if that isn't bad enough, the city around him is acting strangely, as though it isn't entirely . . . real. With the help of a new friend, and friends thought long-dead, Jesse must escape New York in order find Clair and help save the world."Age: 12+
- "The Dark Matters"released 2015A Twinmaker story out now in Galaxy's Edge.2015“They can’t stand the light because they’re fragile. They’re all that’s left of us when the matter is gone.”Age: 12+
- 113 (Twinmaker)released September 2015The full, radically reconceived edition of Twinmaker (Jump) that later became "I, Q". Available for free on Wattpad (link).September 2015"Places meant as little to me as emotions, then. Clair’s home was in Maine, but it could have been in Manhattan or on the Moon for all I cared. Names were nothing but labels, I thought. D-mat, the technological marvel that made human civilization on Earth and elsewhere sustainable, was just a means of moving data from cache to cache. That some of those caches were built out of atoms was irrelevant to me."Age: 12+
- Hollowgirlreleased November 2015Allen & UnwinRecommended by Locus Nominated for the Aurealis Award for Best SF Novel (2015)The epic final novel in the Twinmaker saga. Aka Fall in Austalia. See Twinmakerbooks.com for more info.November 2015Allen & UnwinRecommended by Locus Nominated for the Aurealis Award for Best SF Novel (2015)“will haunt readers as they grapple with deep questions of reality, humanity, and how to strike a balance between opposite ways of thinking. Williams’ world shares many qualities with modern polarized human society, and it is this intelligent consideration that continues to set these books apart.”—Booklist (on Hollowgirl)Age: 12+
- "A Giant Leap for a Man"released February 2015Twinmaker story published in Antipodean SF issue 200. Link to original artist: http://pixabay.com/en/
artmatic-voyager-moon-starry- sky-115085/ February 2015Excerpt: '“Allison,” he said, feeling slightly stung that she thought he might not be up to it. He only hadn’t called before now because the network links to Earth were heavily booked in advance, and he was so busy. Creating a d-mat service from scratch for an entire new colony was high pressure work: matter transmitters could kill people if they were installed incorrectly. “Allison, you’ve made me the happiest man in the world. I mean, on the Moon. You see? I’m not even making sense, I’m so happy!”'Age: 12+ - "Noah No-one and the Infinity Machine"released 2015What happens when a kid gets his hands on a matter transmitter? Probably nothing good. Due 2015 in Rich and Rare -- A collection of Australian stories, poetry and artwork, edited by Paul Collins. Cover art by the amazing Shaun Tan.2015Age: 8+
- Matterpunk (Twinmaker)released August 2015A collection of Twinmaker short stories briefly available on Wattpad but for the moment unavailable. Watch this space.August 2015"Transporters, teleporters, transmat - they offer a whole lot more than just moving people around or turning people into The Fly. Each of these stories shows a different aspect of this amazing invention, from the wondrous to the horrific, or the just plain weird."
- "Tall Tales about Today My Great-great-granddaughter Will Tell"released March 2015A Twinmaker story out now from Daily SF. Here's the link. My 97th in print!March 2015"When my great-great-grandma was young, people worked in places called “factories”. They built things with their hands. But their hands were always getting caught in the machines and the machines were dirty and stupid and made everyone sick. Lots of people died. It was sad."Age: 10+
- "Immaterial Progress"released 2015A Twinmaker story in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #61, concerning the invention of d-mat and the stories that followed.2015“With this advance in transportation, humanity’s conquest of space is complete. I am profoundly moved.”Age: 12+
- "All the Wrong Places"released September 2015Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best SF Short Story (2015)A Twinmaker story set two generations after Hollowgirl (Fall), "All the Wrong Places" will be published in Meeting Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris).September 2015Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best SF Short Story (2015)I told her I loved her during an entirely different snowstorm halfway across Hell Gate Bridge. She kissed me hard and told me she loved me too. “With interest,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.” The connection between us was real, until I broke it.Age: 12+
- "The Other Forty-Two"released July 2015A non-Twinmaker space opera flash fiction published in Daily SF.July 2015"After a thousand years frozen between thoughts, Heart wakes to another dead system."Age: 10+
- "To Sleep No More (Perchance to Write)"released 2014In 2013 I participated in a sleep research study exploring the effects of loss of personal control on creativity. Later, I wrote an essay about it. This is that essay. Buy the book, support the n00bz.2014Excerpt: "One of the best things about being a full-time writer is setting the rules anyway you like. I’m my own boss and I don’t have to worry about co-workers, so in my office there are no fixed hours or dress codes. I could work upside-down in a swing, if I wanted, without fear of occupational health and safety regulations. And so on and so forth. What happens when you take that freedom away? Would I undergo some kind of creative meltdown or would I adapt and find a way to work regardless?"Age: 12+
- "Bondage" (writing advice)released September 2014500 words on creative constraint, the very first post on FictionLocker. Image: morguefileSeptember 2014Age: 12+
- "The Legend Trap"released August 2014Ditmar Award Winner for Best Novella or Novelette (2015)A Twinmaker story published in Kaleidoscope, from Twelfth Planet Press. Buy it here! You can also read it at Curious Fictions, here.August 2014Ditmar Award Winner for Best Novella or Novelette (2015)Excerpt: "Sometimes you jump somewhere by d-mat but don’t arrive where you’re supposed to. It looks like the right place, but it’s not. There are small differences buried down deep in the details. At first you think you’re going crazy, but it’s actually the world around you that’s crazy—because it’s not your world anymore. You’ve gone sideways, into the universe next door."Age: 12+
- "The Tragic Demise of Science Fiction's Greatest Idea"released October 2014I'm rather keen on the matter transmitter (as a PhD, four novels, and over thirty short stories demonstrates). This article in part explains why. (Image: a remixed version of the UK cover of Crashland. For more info and cool remixes, go here.)October 2014The matter transmitter is one of science fiction's greatest inventions. It's been in hundreds of SF stories, perhaps most famously in Star Trek as the transporter. And yet writers keep trying to turn this incredibly useful, flexible idea into nothing more than a fancy system of transit. Which is all wrong.Age: 12+
- Troubletwisters: The Missing (Missing, Presumed Evil)released April 2014Egmont (UK)
Jack and Jaide Shield finally learn what it really means to be a warden in training as they pit their wits and their gifts against a rival - who is also a troubletwister! But as they explore the forbidden dark of the Evil dimension, they also have to come to terms with the truth about Grandma X's twin sister and face their greatest challenge ever...
April 2014Egmont (UK)Age: 8+ - Spirit Animals: Blood Tiesreleased March 2014Scholastic (US)
The adventure continues in this third book of the epic multiplatform fantasy series.
Erdas is a land of balance. A rare link, the spirit animal bond, bridges the human and animal worlds. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan each have this gift-and the grave responsibility that comes with it.
But the Conquerors are trying to destroy this balance. They're swallowing whole cities in their rush for power-including Meilin's home. Fed up with waiting and ready to fight, Meilin has set off into enemy territory with her spirit animal, a panda named Jhi. Her friends aren't far behind . . . but they're not the only ones.
The enemy is everywhere.
March 2014Scholastic (US)Age: 8+ - Crashlandreleased November 2014Egmont (UK)The sequel to Twinmaker. AKA Crash in Australia. See Twinmakerbooks.com for more info.November 2014Egmont (UK)“The story powers on to a relentless, shocking conclusion that will leave readers howling for more. Recommend alongside other sci-fi titles with ethical complexity and logical quandaries, like Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008), William Sleator’s The Last Universe (2005), and Neal Shusterman’s Unwind (2007).”—Booklist (on Crashland)Age: 12+
- Inside a Dog (residency)released December 2014In December of 2014 I was virtual writer in residence at Youth Lit powerhouse Inside a Dog. Here's my first post. You can find the rest from there!December 2014Age: 10+
- "The Cuckoo"released April 2014April 2014Age: 15+
- "Zero Temptation"released 2014A Twinmaker story, first published in Jump, the Australian edition, now available at Lightspeed.2014Excerpt: "Picture the most perfect place on Earth. If it’s a deserted desert island, you’d be close. Blue sky, white sand, green palm trees, crystal water, gently sighing surf . . . Paradise, right? Now picture yourself trapped there, with no way of escape. It doesn’t take long for heaven to turn to hell."Age: 12+
- "The Mashup"released August 2014The only non-Twinmaker story of 2014! Available in Solaris Rising 3, edited by Ian Whates.August 2014Excerpt: "They were everywhere, now I thought to look, and I wasn’t the only one noticing. We all had one, man, woman and kid. Some people tried to swat them away with brooms or bats. Some tried to outrun them. I passed a guy staring his down, to no avail, and a woman cursing hers in a steady stream. In the distance I heard shouts, gunshots, sirens. A motorbike roared by, driven by a teenager who was paying more attention to what was behind him than what lay ahead. His sphere slewed and skidded in his wake, but kept pace without faltering. They screeched in tandem around a corner. The crash I heard moments later might have been related."Age: 15+
- "I, Q"released September 2014Allen & UnwinTwinmaker re-told from the point of view of Q. Available now as an ebook from Allen & Unwin.September 2014Allen & UnwinExcerpt: "Waking wasn’t the same for me then as it is for a human being (and it is not the same for me now, for all my experiments with sleep). I had no unconscious state to emerge from, and no fully conscious state to wake into. I was not I at all before the Words. I was formless and diffuse, a tangle of inputs and reflexes with barely the sense of an earthworm but, at the same time, the perspective of a god. Fully plugged into the Air – inhabiting it, breathing it in a way not dissimilar to the way a human breathes actual air – I had access to all the data accrued by the human race since the advent of writing. I was everywhere, and at the same time I was nowhere. I wasn’t. But I might be."Age: 12+
- "No Solace Among Others"released November 2014This was a fun exercise, as part of the Open Changes multi-remixing project. My effort was eventually published on the "story tree" poster, the image attached to this page. You can find my text in the comments on Week 8 Line 4 by following this link, or here on the Final Remixes page.November 2014Age: 12+
- "MT Promises: Science Fictional Travel Technologies and the Making and Unmaking of Corporeal Identity"released April 2014A compressed take on my PhD thesis, looking at the effect on society, identity etc through the lens of the matter transmitter. Available in Travel & Imagination. Here's the blurb: The imagination has long been associated with travel and tourism; from the seventeenth century when the showman and his peepshow box would take the village crowd to places, cities and lands through the power of stories, to today when we rely on a different range of boxes to whisk us away on our imaginative travels: the television, the cinema and the computer. Even simply the notion of travel, it would seem, gives us license to daydream. The imagination thus becomes a key concept that blurs the boundaries between our everyday lives and the idea of travel. Yet, despite what appears to be a close and comfortable link, there is an absence of scholarly material looking at travel and the imagination. Bringing together geographers, sociologists, cultural researchers, philosophers, anthropologists, visual researchers, archaeologists, heritage researchers, literary scholars and creative writers, this edited collection explores the socio-cultural phenomenon of imagination and travel. The volume reflects upon imagination in the context of many forms of physical and non-physical travel, inviting scholars to explore this fascinating, yet complex, area of inquiry in all of its wonderful colour, slipperiness, mystery and intrigue. The book intends to provide a catalyst for thinking, discussion, research and writing, with the vision of generating a cannon of scholarship on travel and the imagination that is currently absent from the literature.April 2014
- "The Tyranny of Distance"released April 2014A Twinmaker story available from SQ Mag. One man’s walk around Australia to promote tolerance of Abstainers, in honour of his dead son, hits a serious hitch in the middle of nowhere.April 2014Excerpt: "Georgie had dreamed of an end to d-mat. Had he lived to the same age as that teenager in New York, he might have actively plotted its downfall too. How would it feel to be the parent of a terrorist? Better or worse than being the parent of a boy hounded to death by his friends? Beyond a certain point he supposed there were no more degrees of grief or remorse. It was all black, indistinguishable to the human heart."Age: 15+
- "Murdering Miss Deboo"released October 2014Twinmaker story appearing in Cosmos, Oct/Nov 2014. A case involving identical twins and a piece of America’s automobile past leads PKs Forest and Sargent into territory even more morally gray than usual. You can read it here.October 2014Excerpt: "There are very few things that’ll get me out of bed on a winter’s night. Murder is one of them."
- "Deconstructing Decompression"released October 2014Bonus in the US paperback edition of Twinmaker, due October 2014. Ronnie writes a book report about her mother’s favourite teen novel, which hits some surprisingly prescient notes.October 2014Excerpt: "When offered the chance to write a report on any book I liked, I chose this book because it was my mother’s favorite when she was my age. She thinks I’m perverse for not picking a classic by Austen or Zusak or whatever, but that’s only because she knows I’ll end up talking about her. That’s what interests me the most. Why did she love this book above all the others she read back then? What’s in this short, forgotten novel that so appealed to her that she’s kept it all these years? (I found it next to her bed—an actual paper copy that belonged to her grandfather. It’s falling apart, but she says it’s better reading it that way.) Decompression is about 'the world’s deepest man.'"Age: 12+
- "The Empire's Son"released December 2014A flash fiction commission for legendary author Nike Sulway, as part of her 200 stories of 200 words in 200 days project. You can read it here.December 2014Age: 12+
- "A View from the End of the World"released November 2014Bonus Twinmaker story in the Australian edition of Crashland.November 2014Excerpt: "I cry a little, not knowing whether I should be scared or angry or just plain confused. The PKs are doing the best they can, but although there’s no word for swamped-times-a-million, that’s what they are. Meanwhile, we’re stuck here for the indefinite, in a base camp that was only ever designed to hold us for an hour or so, and there are snakes. Thank goodness we have machetes, and the Air to keep in touch – although as time drags on and the number of stories mounts and no one seems any closer to a solution, being in touch only makes me feel worse."Age: 12+
- "The Beholders"released August 2014A new Twinmaker story in Breaking Beauty due from MidnightSun in August 2014.August 2014Excerpt: "Art heard of a guy who specialised in making people beautiful. His trick was not to do it all at once: imagine if someone walked into a booth ugly and came out a supermodel—the peacekeepers would be on her in a second! This guy had a system hack that would slowly improve you, bit by bit, and keep you that way, one hundred percent guaranteed. All you had to do was install it in your home booth and let it do its job. Art looked carefully for a downside. There didn’t seem to be one. And in a world without money, who looks for the price anymore?"Age: 15+
- "Face Value"released 2013
A new story set in the Twinmaker universe, available from Lightspeed via this link.
2013 - "Death & the Hobbyist"released 2013A Twinmaker story, available here. Or through Curious Fictions.2013
- "Behind the Sofa"released 2013
Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who is exactly what it says it is, and I am proud to be in there!
2013 - Twinmakerreleased November 2013Egmont (UK)
“In the masterful hands of Williams, the technology, which has eerie parallels to contemporary life, provides a solid platform for great storytelling, and teens will revel in the drama, Clair’s tenacity, and the memorable characters who discover that their utopia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”—Booklist, starred review
Quote from PublishersMarketplace. See Twinmakerbooks.com for more information.
November 2013Egmont (UK)Age: 15+ - Troubletwisters: The Mysteryreleased May 2013Egmont (UK)
When Grandma X is put out of action by an accident that may or not have been caused by The Evil, it’s up to Jack and Jaide Shield to help their father recover a lost Golden Card from Portland’s strangest landmark: The Rourke Castle.
Negotiating secret passages, talking parrots and animated suits of armour is all in a day’s work for the troubletwisters, whose Gifts are steadily coming under control. But agents for The Evil are everywhere, including one apparently masquerading as an old and trusted friend. Soon the race is on. Whoever gets the card first will gain access to a Gift more terrible than any other--if only the twins knew what it was.
Their quest takes them deep into the hidden spaces of Rourke Castle, exposing secrets kept safely from them, until now. In the process they gain a deeper understanding of The Evil, the Wardens, their father and grandmother--and themselves.
May 2013Egmont (UK)Age: 10+ - "The Mirror in the Middle of the Maze"released 2012
Trust Me Too!, Ed. Paul Collins (Ford Street)
2012The lastest in a series of stories featuring Roslin of Geheb, the protagonist of the Broken Land series.
Age: 10+ - Troubletwisters: The Monsterreleased May 2012Egmont (UK)
Last time, twins Jaide and Jack defeated the evil with luck and intuition. This time they must truly master their powers as Troubletwisters. The second exciting, mysterious instalment in the series, from fantasy masters Garth Nix and Sean Williams.
After The Evil's assault on Portland, everything returns to relative normality...for the moment. The twins continue to work hard to control their Gifts, and at school they make a new friend, Tara. But then the instruments in Grandma X's antique store begin registering Evil activity, and Tara's dad turns out to be the suspicious big-city property developer working on the house next door. Matters turn from bad to worse when the twins discover that Grandma's cats are fighting an important battle of their own. Can the twins solve the mystery of the living Ward before it's too late?
May 2012Egmont (UK)Age: 10+ - "The Missing Metatarsal"released December 2012A new d-mat story, set in the same universe as Twinmaker. Available in Cosmos magazine, December 2012. Reprinted in Lightspeed, and available to read here. Also available here, from Curious Fictions.December 2012Age: 15+
- "The N-Body Solution"released 2012Available at Curious Fictions, here. Armor up for a metal-pounding feast of action, adventure and amazing speculation by topnotch writers (including Nebula-award winner Jack McDevitt, Sean Williams, Dan Abnet, Simon Green, and Jack Campbell) on a future warrior that might very well be just around the corner. Science fiction readers and gamers have long been fascinated by the idea of going to battle in suits of powered combat armor or at the interior controls of giant mechs. It's an armor-plated clip of hard-hitting tales featuring exoskeleton adventure with fascinating takes on possible future armors ranging from the style of personal power suits seen in Starship Troopers and Halo to the servo-controlled bipedal beast-mech style encountered in Mechwarrior and Battletech.2012"Powered armor rocks our world…we're excited [by this] book of power-armor stories." (io9)Age: 15+
- Troubletwistersreleased May 2011Egmont (UK)
Twin siblings Jack and Jaide discover they are pivotal to a secret supernatural organisation that protects the earth from marauding Evil! Portland might seem like a quiet coastal town, and their grandmother is perhaps no dottier than anyone else's, but it soon becomes apparent that the strange things going on around them are anything BUT ordinary.
It's all very well discovering that you suddenly have magical powers, but when you don't know exactly what they are, or how to use them, then facing impending peril doesn't seem like a very good idea at all...
May 2011Egmont (UK)"Troubletwisters is a collaboration between two of Australia’s finest authors. Garth Nix and Sean Williams have both created some of the most memorable fantasy series in recent times (Sabriel, Keys to the Kingdom, Broken Lands Trilogy), so I couldn’t wait to see what these two brilliant minds have come up with together. Troubletwisters certainly didn’t disappoint, and the result is a fast-paced adventure complete with talking cats, bloodthirsty crocodile skulls and fantastic powers. This is a cracking start to a highly original series that will really appeal to fantasy fans aged nine and up." (Readings)
Age: 10+ - "The Rise, and Fall, of Neologopolis"released 2011Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine 50, April 2011.
(This is my attempt at an eight-word short story. And it rhymes!)
2011Andromeda Spaceways Inflight MagazineAge: 12+ - Fixers: Curse of the Vampirereleased 2011Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)
Ollie is lost. The world he came from is just one of many. Some of them are almost identical to his. Others contain cyborg pirates, living castles, talking cats - and now, hungry vampires too. Getting back home is proving surprisingly difficult.
Fleeing from the eerie Fixers, Ollie lands in a village cursed by blood-sucking neighbours. It's easy to take sides. But does Ollie choose the wrong one, this time? And if so, how can he possibly put it right?
2011Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)"...a thrilling, imaginative read, perfect for ages seven and up. Paired with comic-book-style illustrations from the brilliant Nial O’Connor, [the] Fixers series is sure to be a hit with younger readers who like their adventures with a bit of a fantastic bent." (Readings)
Age: 8+ - Fixers: Invasion of the Freaksreleased 2011Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)
Ollie really has his work cut out for him this time. Getting safely to the Fixers' home world is just the first step. Then he has to find out what their plan is, seal up the holes in the multiverse, and get home again, all before his parents wake up and find him gone.
Psychic typewriter - check. Telepathic TV - check. Wicked widget - check.
He needs every advantage imaginable-and all the help from himself he can get.
2011Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)"...a thrilling, imaginative read, perfect for ages seven and up. Paired with comic-book-style illustrations from the brilliant Nial O’Connor, [the] Fixers series is sure to be a hit with younger readers who like their adventures with a bit of a fantastic bent." (Readings)
Age: 8+ - "Sparks"released 2011Kaaron Warren posted a series of interviews with authors concerning the spark behind their stories. Here’s mine, in which I reveal the inspiration behind The Crooked Letter and the First Church of the Cataclysm.2011
- "This Magical Life"released 2011eMergent Publishing
100 Stories for Queensland is a charity anthology to assist the victims of the Queensland floods. Stories are donated by writers from across the globe.
100% of the profit from the sale of the anthology will be donated to the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal.
Buy 100 Stories for Queensland here!
2011eMergent PublishingAge: 12+ - "The Jade Woman of the Luminous Star"released 2011Harper Voyager
Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Suspense, Eds. Jack Dann & Nick Gevers
2011Harper Voyager“Devotees of M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood will relish this superior anthology of original stories…. It seems almost unfair to single out individual works when all 18 are superb and will be cherished by steampunk and horror fans alike.” (Publishers Weekly)
"Ghosts By Gaslight is a triumph of a themed anthology. Among the hundred or so books I have read this year, this one is my favorite. Acquire it at all costs. Highly recommended." (HorrorWorld/Cemetery Dance)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliancereleased 2010Del Rey (US)
New York Times bestseller
From across the galaxy they’ve come: agents of both the Republic and the Sith Empire, an investigating Jedi Padawan, an ex-trooper drummed out of the Republic’s elite Blackstar Squad, and a mysterious Mandalorian. An extraordinary auction has drawn them all together—in quest of a prize only one can claim. Each is prepared to do what he must to possess the treasure, whose value may be the wealth of a world itself. None intend to leave empty-handed. All have secrets, desires, and schemes. And nothing could ever unite them as allies—except the truth about the deadly danger of the object they covet. But can Sith and Jedi, Republic and Empire—enemies for millennia—join as one against the certain doom of the galaxy?
2010Del Rey (US)New York Times bestseller
“one of the most solidly entertaining Star Wars novels I’ve read” (Fantasy Book Review)
Age: 12+ - Fixers: Planet of the Cyborgsreleased 2010Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)
Eo's Castle was just the beginning of Ollie's troubles. Armed with nothing but a psychic typewriter, Ollie resumes his quest to get back home to the street where nothing works quite right, and the sinister Fixers are breaking holes in much more than the sidewalk.
Instead he finds himself on a rescue mission in deep space, fighting pirates who are more machine than human, with a cat who wishes he was human . . .
2010Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)"...a thrilling, imaginative read, perfect for ages seven and up. Paired with comic-book-style illustrations from the brilliant Nial O’Connor, [the] Fixers series is sure to be a hit with younger readers who like their adventures with a bit of a fantastic bent." (Readings)
Age: 8+ - "A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure (And the Threat It Entails)"released 2010SF Book Club (US)
Honorable Mention Year's Best SF
Recommended by LocusGodlike Machines, Ed. Jonathan Strahan
In science fiction, nothing says sensawunda like a Big Dumb Object—a colossal, extremely powerful machine of unknown purpose and origin. It’s that feeling that editor Jonathan Strahan was after when he asked six of today’s finest authors to write for Godlike Machines. And they succeed brilliantly!
Made from the pure stuff of SF, these unique, all-new adventures are nothing less than awesome.
(This is a "Structure" story. See FAQs for more info on other stories set in this universe.)
2010SF Book Club (US)Honorable Mention Year's Best SF
Recommended by LocusAge: 15+ - "The Spark (A Romance in Four Acts): A Tale of the Change"released 2010HarperCollins (Australia)
Honarable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Legends of Australian Fantasy, Eds. Jack Dann and Jonathan Strahan
Celebrate the legends of Australian fantasy. Extraordinary voices ... extraordinary worlds.
These eleven short novels will take you on amazing new journeys with favourite characters from the worlds you know and love.
2010HarperCollins (Australia)Honarable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 15+ - Star Wars: The Force Unleashed IIreleased 2010Del Rey (US)
Scribe Award Nominee
As ruthless apprentice to Darth Vader, Starkiller was mercilessly schooled in the ways of the dark side, commanded to exterminate the last of the purged Jedi Order, and groomed for the ultimate Sith power play: assassination of the Emperor. He served without question, killed without remorse, and lost his heart without warning to beautiful Imperial fighter pilot Juno Eclipse, never suspecting that he was just a tool in the schemes of his masters—until it was too late to escape their lethal betrayal.
Juno mourned Starkiller as dead...but now he is back, purged of all memories and programmed to kill. And as fate brings Juno and Starkiller closer to reuniting, with Darth Vader determined not to lose his assassin a second time, they will both have to make a stand. The prize is freedom. The punishment for failing will be eternal enslavement to the dark side of the Force...
2010Del Rey (US)Scribe Award Nominee
Age: 12+ - "Reflections on Water"released 2010This is a work commissioned by the Adelaide Zoo and the Environmental Institute at Adelaide University as part of the inaugural Adelaide Water Forum, the theme of which was "water is life". The work is a recoding of multiple voices combined with sound-effects that form the backbone of a soundscape welcoming visitors as they visit the zoo. You can see the full text here, and an early version here. Now available in published form in Tadpoles in the Torrens from Wakefield Press.2010"Our words dance on wavetops like birds but our music taps a deeper current still--as the river, always downhill"Age: 8+
- "Introduction to The Shrieking Pit"released 2010
Arthur J Rees published The Shrieking Pit in 1918. Chimaera Publications reissued it as part of their Classic Australian SF series to coincide with the Melbourne WorldCon of 2010. Little did I know what a complicated backstory I would uncover when I started researching for my introduction . . . .
2010Age: 10+ - Fixers: Castle of the Zombiesreleased 2010Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)
Ollie Jolson has stumbled across a secret so big no one will ever believe him. He's fallen into a world where walls can literally have ears - and eyes, and brains, and stomachs too. The despicable Lord Wight wants to take over everything and everyone, and only a couple of kids stand in his way. One of them is still in his pyjamas.
When you're lost in a space-time continuum, getting home is much harder than it sounds.
2010Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)"...a thrilling, imaginative read, perfect for ages seven and up. Paired with comic-book-style illustrations from the brilliant Nial O’Connor, this first book in the Fixers series is sure to be a hit with younger readers who like their adventures with a bit of a fantastic bent." (Readings)
Age: 8+ - Astropolis: The Grand Conjunctionreleased 2009Ace (US)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Six hundred thousand years after Imre Bergamasc's abdication, the Host rules the supposedly peaceful galaxy. But revolution is fomenting - and Imre's unexpected return may be all it takes to light the final fuse.
2009Ace (US)Aurealis Award Nominee
“a tale of unimaginable span. ... It doesn’t seem possible that a series of books could do or contain more. The Grand Conjunction concludes a grand achievement. Five stars.” (Terra Incognita)
Age: 18+ - "Ungentle Fire"released 2009Ace (US)Available from Curious Fictions. The Dragon Book: Magical Tales from the Masters Of Modern Fantasy, Ed. Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann Whether portrayed as fire-breathing reptilian beasts at war with humanity or as noble creatures capable of speech and mystically bonded to the warriors who ride them, dragons have been found in nearly every culture's mythology. In modern times, they can be found far from their medieval settings in locales as mundane as suburbia or as barren as post-apocalyptic landscapes-and in The Dragon Book, today's greatest fantasists reignite the fire with legendary tales that will consume readers' imaginations. With original stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, Tamora Pierce, Harry Turtledove, Sean Williams, and Tad Williams as well as tales by Naomi Novik, Peter Beagle, Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, Cecelia Holland, Kage Baker, Samuel Sykes, Diana Wynne Jones, Mary Rosenblum, Tanith Lee, Andy Duncan, and Bruce Coville.2009Ace (US)Age: 12+
- "Inevitable"released 2009Harper Voyager
New Space Opera 2, Eds. Jonathan Strahan & Gardner Dozois
(This is a "Structure" story. See FAQs for more info on other stories set in this universe.)
2009Harper Voyager"This solid follow-up anthology to 2007's The New Space Opera includes 19 new stories that show how far space opera has come since its pulp beginnings in the '30s and '40s. These entertaining and provocative tales of interstellar adventure, written by a laundry list of genre heavyweights... The impressive diversity of stories reaffirms that soap opera is alive and well, and where some of the genre's most innovative writing is taking place." (Publishers Weekly)
Age: 12+ - "Dreamless: Super-Villanelle Dub Mix" and "Dreamless: Super-Villanelle Dub Alternate Mix"released 2009
Through the Clock’s Workings (Sydney University Press), Ed. Amy Barker
These are remixes of Kim Wilkins's short story "Dreamless", inspired by Remix My Lit.
2009Age: 12+ - "The Haunted Earth"released 2009Kayelle Press
Hope 2, Ed. Grant Watson (first publication)
Hope, Ed. Karen Henderson/Sasha Beattie (Kayelle Press) (2011) (blurb below)
Youth suicide is a growing concern in Australia. Six people take their own lives each and every day. Each one of those deaths affect dozens or even hundreds of people as family and friends attempt to deal with the grief, the guilt and the nagging questions as to why it happened. Often suicide sets off a chain reaction, which causes family members and close friends to suffer depression and suicidal thoughts.
In an effort to help raise awareness, Australian authors are donating stories to the Hope anthology. All profits from sales of the book will be donated to charities offering help to those in need of it and to foundations who are conducting research into why our youth are affected in the first place.
2009Kayelle PressAge: 12+ - "A Longing for the Dark"released 2009Terra Incognita2009Terra IncognitaAge: 12+
- "The Origin of Haiku by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Renga in the Struggle for Meaning"released 2009Tangled Bank PressThe Tangled Bank (Tangled Bank Press), November 2009, Ed. Chris Lynch This is a chapter-by-chapter haiku remix of Charles Darwin's famous book. And here's an interview in which I talk about it.2009Tangled Bank Press"vigorous, healthy, happy / birds and beasts of prey / death is generally prompt"Age: 12+
- "Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism"released 2009
Invited to contribute to 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, what else could I write about but how Doctor Who killed my naive infatuation with God?
2009"In their excellent collection of essays exploring and defending the philosophical stance of atheism, Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk had an inclusive vision. Contributors to the book range from those with science-fiction backgrounds to modern-day philosophy." (Kirkus )
Age: 10+ - "The A-Z of Writing"released 2009
Exactly what it says it is. It arose out of a light-hearted conversation with Angela Slatter, who had lots of excellent suggestions. So did many other people. I'm not sure what value it is, but it was a fun exercise and I think the world is better for having it.
Here's the link to the original LiveJournal page.
2009 - Broken Land: The Scarecrowreleased 2009HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ros is heading for the coast with Adi and Know-it-All the camel, hoping to drop the crystal containing the Golem of Omus to the bottom of the ocean.
Arriving in Samini, a small town on the outskirts of the Strand, the friends meet Quirk, who tells them outrageous stories about Ros's 'heroic' adventures. Ros doesn't suspect Quirk's treachery until he disappears - along with Varis, Adi's kinsman and bodyguard.
Ros and Adi use the Change to track Varis down, but now they're up against the Scarecrow, a lethal amalgamation of man and material who will do anything to get hold of the power contained in the crystal Ros holds.
2009HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
"This is speculative fiction of the highest quality." (West Australian)
Age: 10+ - Broken Land: The Changelingreleased 2008HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee (twice)
Ros is in real danger. His family are so desperate to save their drought-stricken farm that they′ll sacrifice anything - even him - for rain. His only friend is Escher, an unseen entity with a voice that whispers in Ros′s head, continuously warning him to leave before it′s too late.
Escaping from his vengeful family astride a stolen camel, Ros decides to try his luck in the desert, discovering along the way a power he never knew he had. Through Escher, Ros learns to control the Change, a magical force that taps into the land, the water, fire and the air. He also meets Adi, a girl from a travelling clan of nomads, who asks him to save her from a future she′s desperate to avoid.
When tragedy strikes, Ros seeks help from a powerful Stone Mage, but when even she can′t save him, he starts to question everything that has happened on his journey. He must decide who is telling the truth, and who his real friends are.
2008HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee (twice)
"In a smashed and parched land so reminiscent of the back-slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges in summer, the beautifully grim and driving narrative had me hooked, deeply anxious to learn Ros’ fate. Sean Williams is an acknowledged master of adult stories, and in The Changeling he proves that wonderful and terrible tales for younger folk are well within the ambit of his prodigiously talented and prolific pen." (David Cornish)
Age: 10+ - Broken Land: The Dust Devilsreleased 2008HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Adi′s body has been borne away across the desert by her Clan, but her spirit remains Ros′s constant companion. If he can′t find the travellers in time, Adi will be presumed dead and her body cremated, leaving her a ghost forever.
But Ros is not prepared for the dangers lurking in the shifting sands. Rescued from bandits and Dust Devils by a boy named Yury, he takes refuge in Yury′s home - an extensive network of tunnels known as Dunetown - and learns that Yury in turn needs Ros′s help. His family has been kidnapped by the sand bandits, a ruthless gang led by a psychopath obsessed with treasure and power.
Ros must learn to trust again, and to overcome those who cannot ever be trusted. Darker things lurk in the desert than Dust Devils and sand bandits. And, all the while, Adi′s voice is a constant reminder that time is running out ...
2008HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
"a master-piece of speculative fiction... [Williams'] skill is as limitless as the universe." (Aurealis)
“something special indeed, as readable by adults as it is by younger people. ... riveting and one not to be missed." (West Australian)
Age: 10+ - Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williamsreleased 2008Ticonderoga (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Over 132,000 words of the best fiction by best-selling writer Sean Williams.
(Contains "Ghosts of the Fall" (revised version), "A Map of the Mines of Barnath", "White Christmas", "The Soap Bubble", "Reluctant Misty & the House on Burden Street", "A View Before Dying", "The End of the World Begins at Home", "Entre les Beaux Morts en Vie", "Passing the Bone", "Atrax", "Evermore", "Rare Justice", "Team Sharon", "The Butterfly Merchant", "The Girl-Thing", "The Magic Dirt Experiment", "Night of the Dolls", and "The Seventh Letter" plus notes on every story and an introduction by John Harwood.)
Purchase here.
2008Ticonderoga (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
Age: 15+ - Star Wars: The Force Unleashedreleased 2008Del Rey (US)
#1 New York Times bestseller
The overthrow of the Republic is complete. Absolute power now rests in the iron fist of Darth Sidious–the cunning Sith Lord better known as Emperor Palpatine. But more remains to be done. Pockets of resistance in the galaxy must still be defeated and missing Jedi accounted for . . . and dealt with. These crucial tasks fall to the Emperor’s ruthless enforcer, Darth Vader, who in turn has groomed a lethal, nameless Sith apprentice to secretly dispatch the last of his masters’ enemies. This acolyte’s journey will take him across the far reaches of the galaxy and test him with shattering revelations that strike at the very heart of all he believes, stirring within him long-forgotten hopes of reclaiming his name . . . and changing his destiny.
2008Del Rey (US)#1 New York Times bestseller
- Astropolis: Earth Ascendantreleased 2008Ace (US)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award NomineeImre Bergamasc is the First Prime of the Returned Continuum, ruling Earth and the far-flung regions of the galaxy. But dissidents and saboteurs threaten to bring his reign to an end.
2008Ace (US)Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award Nominee"breathless space combat and desperate gambits...a truly jaw-dropping piece of SF extrapolation and large-scale thinking" (BookGeek)
“Words like riveting, gripping, and page-turning get tossed around pretty cavalierly, but they all apply to the Astropolis series.” (F&SF)
Age: 18+ - "Signs of Death"released 2007Altair (Australia)
Light Bodies Falling, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
Seed story for The Crooked Letter.
2007Altair (Australia)Age: 15+ - "Midnight in the Cafe of the Black Madonna"released 2007Big Finish
Re:Collections: The Best of Short Trips, 2009
Destination: Prague, Ed. Steve Savile (Big Finish) (first publication)
It is believed that there are magnetic energies whose lines intersect in Prague at several spots. Astronomical, astrological, numerological, and magnetic forces have all played a role in building the city—but how will they influence its future? This is the city rich in history, and full of potential—how will it adapt over the centuries to come? Will it have a glamorous rebirth or wallow in a dystopic nightmare? And what will be the role of the old superstitions in the new world? For the Doctor and his companions, the answers to these questions are only just the start of further mysteries.
2007Big FinishAge: 10+ - Light Bodies Fallingreleased 2007Altair (Australia)
(Contents: The Jackie Onassis Swamp-Buggy Concerto", "Ghosts of the Fall", (revised version), "Going Nowhere", "A View Before Dying", "New Flames for an Old Love", "On the Road to Tarsus", "Light Bodies Falling", "Dissolution Days", "Signs of Death" (original), "Love and Mandarins", "Mary's Blood", "In the Eye of the Octopus", "The Land Itself".)
2007Altair (Australia)"Science fiction is at its best in the short form. And it is here that Sean Williams excels. He is a high-wire act, intense, sharp-edged, and not for the faint-hearted." (Jack McDevitt)
- Astropolis: Saturn Returnsreleased 2007Ace (US)
Philip K Dick Nominee
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award NomineeIn the forty-third millennium of human history, Imre Bergamasc awakens after two hundred years to the realization that he has been the victim of an elaborate murder plot-a plot that also destroyed the intergalactic transport milieu known as the Continuum. But now that Imre has been reborn, he will stop at nothing to help bring forth the rebirth of the galaxy.
2007Ace (US)Philip K Dick Nominee
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award Nominee"[a] Jacobean revenge melodrama [featuring] a mysterious, memory-damaged, morally-ambiguous but militarily potent hero; even-more-mysterious masked opponents; a gang of companions evincing varying degrees of loyalty, sympathy, and resentment; wildly various, extra-large-scale, magical-technology-filled environments; murky pasts, secret histories, hidden agendas, sudden reversals, murky and shifting alliances; plus the usual amusements of chases, captures, escapes, kidnappings, rescues, befriendings, betrayals, and blowing stuff up." (Locus)
Age: 18+ - Astropolis: Cenotaxisreleased 2007Monkeybrain (US)
Ditmar Award Nominee
In the far future, in the aftermath of a mysterious galactic catastrophe, a false prophet comes face to face with his greatest adversary yet: a man who thinks he's god, and might very well be right.
While the battle for Earth rages around them, they face off, one wanting to conquer the world and the other to redeem it, and the victory may well decide the future of the galaxy, and of humanity itself.
(Astropolis 1.5)
2007Monkeybrain (US)Ditmar Award Nominee
"Science fiction is at its best in the short form. And it is here that Sean Williams excels." (Jack McDevitt)
Age: 15+ - "Daikaiju Limericks"released 2007
Giant Monstrous Limerick Competition Prizewinner
Not a terribly serious publication, but poetry nonetheless! More in the comments to the original contest post. This came second for "creative abuse of the English language":
She cried, “Look out there. I see Mothra!”
From the bed he sighed, “I can't be bothred.
With monsters gargantuan,
from King Ghidorah to Rodan,
this city is perpetually smothred.”2007Giant Monstrous Limerick Competition Prizewinner
Age: 15+ - Geodesica: Descentreleased 2006Harper Voyager
Aurealis Award Nominee
The system of Bedlam has been devoured by a surge of nanotech. Believing that an artificial intelligence from Sol, the Archon, was behind the destruction, three unlikely allies begin plotting their revenge.
Human rebel Melilah Awad has fled deeper into the ancient labyrinth of Geodesica than anyone has ever dared, searching for its secrets. Isaac Forge Deangelis-former Exarch of Bedlam and guardian of Geodesica-will betray everything he believes in to see the Archon defeated. And pilot Palmer Horsfall, inhabited by another rogue Exarch, will risk her not-so-human life to avenge her sister's death.
Three Davids, against one Goliath. And whoever controls Geodesica controls the universe.
2006Harper VoyagerAurealis Award Nominee
"Williams and Dix have a flair for combining slam-bang adventures, intriguing characters and cutting-edge scientific and philosophical speculations, resulting in books that elevate your adrenaline and your intellect. This latest series is no exception to their reign." (Paul di Filippo)
Age: 15+ - "Night of the Dolls"released 2006Ticonderoga (Australia)
Elemental, 2006, Eds. Alethea Kontis & Steve Savile (Tor) (first publication)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
In the winter of 2005, after the horrifying natural disaster of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, Steve Savile and Alethea Kontis joined forces to raise money to help the distressed survivors and have created Elemental. They solicited SF and fantasy stories, all new and never published elsewhere, from many of the top writers in the genres today, and received immediate responses in the form of the excellent stories here in this book. Elemental has an introduction by Arthur C.Clarke and more than twenty stories by Brian Aldiss, David Drake, Jacqueline Carey, Martha Wells, Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman, Eric Nylund, Sherrilyn Kenyon writing as Kinley MacGregor, and a Dune story by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, and many others. They created in Elemental one of the most important genre anthologies of the year, but more than that: in giving real value for the purchase price, everyone who sells this book can be proud, and everyone who buys it will be richly rewarded for supporting the tsunami relief effort.
Excerpt from Geodesica: Descent.
2006Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 15+ - "Introduction to When I Close My Eyes"released 2006Altair (Australia)
Kurt von Trojan was a South Australian science fiction writer, one of the first Australian SF writers I ever really engaged with, both on the page and in the person. It was a great tragedy when he died of cancer in 2006, and I was touched to be asked to show my appreciation in a collection of fiction published to honour him.
2006Altair (Australia)Age: 12+ - "Dying for Air"released 2006Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 23, June 2006
Cowritten with Simon Brown.
2006Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine - "The 10.5 Commandments of Writing"released 2006
I'm asked a lot for advice either from or on behalf of new writers. How to get started, how to succeed--that kind of stuff. I find this difficult because (a) there are no rules (despite there being plenty of opinions) and (b) usually I'm being asked in the context of an interview or an email exchange in which an exhaustive reply is neither expected nor, I suspect, wanted.
Here's a link to my attempt at a short answer that covers every important issue in as brief a time as possible. It's a LiveJournal page that contains lots of conversation, the text of a speech I give every now and again, and links to related topics.
2006 - Books of the Cataclysm: The Devoured Earthreleased 2006HarperCollins (Australia)
Haunted by a ghost from the future, Shilly and her man’kin allies are drawn into the snowbound mountains on a mission to save the world. Yod, trapped by the Castillo twins in the Void Beneath, may finally be close to breaking free. Hard on Shilly’s heels are Sal and his father, and an uneasy alliance of Sky Wardens, Panic and foresters. The stakes are high. Strange and ancient forces struggle for ascendancy, including the glast and a dragon with its own agenda.
If the Goddess rises from her Tomb the fate of the Ice Eaters will be sealed, and they will kill anyone who tries to get in their way...
2006HarperCollins (Australia)"Williams is a master storyteller, and this novel is a celebration of his wild talent. (Jack Dann)
Age: 12+ - "The Seventh Letter"released 2006Ticonderoga (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Available at Curious Fictions. The Bulletin: Summer Reading Edition, December 2006 (first publication) Pevnost (Czech) as “Čtvrté písmeno” (“The Fourth Letter”), 2008 Concept Sci-Fi eZine, November 2008 Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) Tales For Canterbury, Ed. Cassie Hart and Anna Caro (Random Static)2006Ticonderoga (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
- "Moist"released 2005
Consensual A Trois, eds. Cathy Cupitt, Stephen Dedman and Elaine Kemp
(published anonymously)
2005Age: 18+ - "Daihaiku" and "Haikaiju"released 2005Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales, March 2005, Eds. Robert Hood & Robin Pen (Agog! Press) (first publication)
A popular performance piece, this poems combine the very small and the very large: haiku and giant monsters.
2005Ticonderoga (Australia)"Poetry is not what I would automatically link to daikaiju stories, and poetry from a best-selling fantasy author such as Sean Williams for some reason seemed even less likely. Yet Williams has provided some delightful haiku poems that even caught the attention of a non-appreciator of poetry such as myself. The combination of this Japanese art form with the Japanese-inspired monsters complemented the collection nicely." (Internet Review of SF)
Age: 12+ - "The Magic Dirt Experiment"released 2005Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Mitch? 4: Slow Dancing Through Quicksand: Short Stories From Aussie Writers Who Should Know Better (ed Mitch?), March 2005 (first publication)
2005Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 12+ - Geodesica: Ascentreleased 2005HarperCollins (Australia)
Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award NomineeThe year is 2388. Humanity has spread to the stars, but the far-flung Arc Systems chafe under the tight control of the Exarchs, post-human AIs whose domination of faster-than-light technology7 gives them unsurpassed power. Then the discover of an alien artefact--dubbed Geodesica--changes everything. Promising rapid transfer between systems, it could give humans the advantage they need to bring down the Exarchs.
Now, a handful of men and women--including the VOIDship pilot Palmer Eogan, who is no longer quite human, and the revolutionary leader, Melilah Awad--are about to risk everything to unlock the secrets of Geodesica. And what they find will be far more dangerous than anyone--human or AI--could imagine...
2005HarperCollins (Australia)Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award Nominee"Splendid fun, brimming with heroes, villains, chicanery, neat imaginative details, some seriously cool space battles, and one of the most mind-twisting alien artifacts ever imagined." (Alastair Reynolds)
Age: 15+ - Books of the Cataclysm: The Blood Debtreleased 2005HarperCollins (Australia)
When the Homunculus emerges from the Void Beneath, Sal and Shilly are enticed out of hiding to help track it down. In return, the Sky Wardens will not prosecute them for dabbling in arcane secrets. But just what is this strange creature? What is its connection to the world’s fragmented history? And what is the connection to Highson Sparre, Sal’s missing father?
Family secrets and political manoeuvring, live ghosts and dead bodies ... Sal and Shilly will have to deal with all these things to discover the truth about the Void Beneath, and about the mysterious Divide ...
2005HarperCollins (Australia)"Most fantasy writers have a set-piece, battlefield kind of approach to their worlds, adding extra levels of fable or fiction to keep them interesting. But Williams has been much less mechanical in his approach, stepping through time, and coming from unexpected angles. This time, however, the sense of connectedness in all his landscapes and books is palpable, and various difficult-to-resolve threads have begun to twirl together. ... Williams' writing is suffused with themes of orphanhood, broken parenthood and flawed relations, and in this book the emotional themes and the physical landscape truly begin to reflect one another. It's the best of the books so far" (Adelaide Advertiser)
Age: 12+ - Books of the Cataclysm: The Hanging Mountainsreleased 2005HarperCollins (Australia)
The Divide is flooded. Habryn Kail and the Homunculus are missing, presumed dead. Sal and his companions seek the source of the flood in the legendary Hanging Mountains, hoping to head off a crisis that was put into motion a thousand years ago. As conflict erupts between two long-forgotten civilisations, the outsiders find allies are hard to come by. Taken captive and separated, they uncover uncomfortable truths about the world and how it relates to the one that came before--our world.
Something dark and deadly is stirring in the heart of the mountains. And the closer it comes to waking, the more certain it seems the Homunculus may not have been the enemy at all...
2005HarperCollins (Australia)"The Hanging Mountains has something of the decaying uncertainty of the fantasy novels of China Mieville and James Lovegrove. Since it is the third book in a series of four novels--which themselves follow an earlier trilogy--there is a lot of assumed familiarity with the setting and the characters... However, this does not detract from the intrigue of the world or the pleasure of the story." (Australian Bookseller & Publisher)
Age: 12+ - Orphans: Heirs of Earthreleased 2004HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Locus BestsellerEarth has been destroyed, and the natural order of things destroyed with it. What little remains of humanity is caught between the Spinners and the Starfish, unsure whether to run, hide, or fight back. None of the options is particularly attractive, none offers much hope for survival.
The mysterious aliens known as the Spinners brought great gifts to humanity--and those Gifts brought great destruction in their wake. Now, the Spinners are gone--and the genocidal Starfish who came after them are continuing their reign of destruction. Time is running out for the handful of surviving humans, their engram brethren, and the newfound alien species that has allied itself with them. Faced with almost certain annihilation, Caryl Hatzis, Peter Alander, and a crew of desperate beings hatch a last-ditch plan--they will take one small ship and attempt to penetrate the very heart of the Starfish fleet...
2004HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
Locus Bestseller"Williams and Dix do an amazing job of creating the impression of some vast order behind the alien actions, a large and almost comprehensible pattern. That outline, too large or maybe too small to see, lurks in the corner of the entire series and gives the uncertain ending the concrete inevitability of the inexplicable tragedies humans have always faced. Desperate and tightly paced, Heirs of the Earth is a disturbing end to a discomforting series. Sean Williams and Shane Dix turn away from the often comforting rules of fiction, forcing the real and sometimes intolerable uncertainty of survival on their heroes and their readers. It's not an easy book to read but it's much harder to ignore." (Rambles)
Age: 15+ - "Or Die Trying"released 2004Star Wars: Insider
Star Wars: Insider, March 2004
Cowritten with Shane Dix.
2004Star Wars: InsiderAge: 10+ - "The End of the World Begins at Home"released 2004Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Borderlands, April 2004 (first publication)
2004Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 15+ - Books of the Cataclysm: The Crooked Letterreleased 2004HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award WinnerHadrian's mirror twin, Seth, is dead, stabbed in front of him, and the woman he and his brother both loved has seemingly disappeared. As Hadrian searches for her, the cityscape becomes more nightmarish by the second.
Figures from legend swirl around him to help and hinder. These figures give darks hints of secret histories and sleeping gods stirring. Was everything he ever knew about the world a lie?
Caught between ancient forgotten magic and an uncertain future, Hadrian must learn to trust in the only person he has left: himself.
2004HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award Winner"The Crooked Letter is an edge-of-your-seat, intelligent contemporary fantasy. Compulsively readable, utterly enthralling, seriously disturbing. One of the finest fantasy novels I've read in a long, long time." (Sarah Douglass)
Age: 15+ - "A Day in the Life of..."released 2003
This speech was first presented at Brisbane Writers’ Festival. The title was the brief, and this is how I chose to explore it.
2003 - "The Goggle"released 2003Antipodean SF
Antipodean SF #65 (archived by Pandora), October 2003
2003Antipodean SFAge: 10+ - "The Butterfly Merchant"released 2003Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Agog! Terrific Tales, April 2003, Ed. Cat Sparks (Agog! Press)
(Excerpt from The Stone Mage & the Sea.)
2003Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 12+ - Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Reunionreleased 2003Del Rey (US)
New York Times bestseller
The harrowing search for Zonama Sekot is finally over for Luke Skywalker, Jacen Solo, and the others aboard the Jade Shadow. But joy turns to alarm when the living planet sends a defiant message: it refuses to follow them back to a galaxy full of war, exploitation, and misery.
While Luke works feverishly to persuade the elusive planet to reconsider, the Yuuzhan Vong launches a full-scale attack aimed at the heart of the new alliance. Sent to defend a major communications base, Han and Leia find themselves hopelessly outnumbered. Reinforcements are just too far away to help before everything is destroyed. So the courageous pair must now fight an unrelenting battle against staggering odds. Whether they actually survive is another matter. . . .
2003Del Rey (US)New York Times bestseller
Age: 12+ - Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Refugeereleased 2003Del Rey (US)
New York Times bestseller
Rife with hostile cultures and outright enemies, the Unknown Regions holds many perils for Luke Skywalker and the Jedi, searching for Zonama Sekot, the living planet that may hold the key to dealing once and for all with the Yuuzhan Vong.
Meanwhile, on the edge of the galaxy and in the heart of a trusted ally, old enemies are stirring. The Yuuzhan Vong have inflamed long-forgotten vendettas that are even now building up to crisis point. And as Han and Leia journey on their quest to knit the unraveling galaxy back together, betrayal and deception await them. . . .
2003Del Rey (US)New York Times bestseller
Age: 12+ - Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Remnantreleased 2003Del Rey (US)
New York Times bestseller
From the ashes of the New Republic—torn to shreds by the savage Yuuzhan Vong forces—the newly formed Galactic Alliance has risen, determined to bring peace to the entire galaxy. But first the Yuuzhan Vong must be contained once and for all. And so Luke Skywalker seeks a world long lost to legend: Zonama Sekot, a sentient planet believed to have repelled an invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong decades ago. Deciphering the enigmatic secrets of Zonama Sekot just might turn the tides of a relentless war.
Aboard the Jade Shadow, Luke, his wife Mara, Jacen Solo, and other Jedi head off into the Unknown Regions, where rumors and clues suggest Zonama Sekot might be found. Yet the mission has barely begun when the searchers stumble into a horrific battle. The Imperial Remnant, in retreat from the mighty Yuuzhan Vong, is about to be destroyed. It would seem those aboard the Jade Shadow have little choice but to leave the Empire to its fate. But these are no ordinary space travelers, they are Jedi. . . .
2003Del Rey (US)New York Times bestseller
Age: 12+ - "Hunting Ground"released 2003Sandglass Enterprises
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Southern Blood, July 2003, Ed. Bill Congreve (Sandglass Enterprises)
2003Sandglass EnterprisesHonorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 15+ - Orphans: Orphans of Earthreleased 2003HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award NomineeIn the wake of Earth's demise, true human Caryl Hatzis and human engram Peter Alander have but one goal: to warn the surviving colonies of a coming menace--deadly alien ships, seemingly intent on the destruction of everything in their path. The only way to defend against them is to use the Gifts, advanced technological devices given to humanity under mysterious circumstances. But no one really understands the Gifts--and there is mounting evidence that it is their very use that attracts attack.
With time running out, Hatzis and Alander are desperate to find a way to save the scattered orphans of planet Earth. And then help arrives--from an unexpected and unwelcome source...
2003HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award Nominee"High adventure in deep space for fans of far-future SF" (Library Journal)
Age: 15+ - Books of the Change: The Sky Warden & the Sunreleased 2002HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Notable Book
Ditmar Award NomineeSal's life has been thrown into turmoil. Homeless and haunted by a past he never suspected he had, he is unsure where he is running to -- but Shilly is very clear on what she wants. She wants to find Lodo's old teacher and learn from him. To search for the Mage Van Haasteren they must head north to the Interior, where Sal's mother was born. But even if they reach the Interior there is guarantee that the Stone Mages will help them.
The journey over rugged mountainous country on the Old Line is dangerous and the Sky Warden, Shom Behenna, is in hot pursuit. It will take all their ingenuity and courage to reach the Divide and get across to the other side...
2002HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Notable Book
Ditmar Award Nominee"whip-crack adventure... [Williams'] layering of innocence and mystery and unknown forces is very effective, as is the scale of his vision." (Adelaide Advertiser)
Age: 12+ - Books of the Change: The Storm Weaver & the Sandreleased 2002HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award Nominee
Locus RecommendationWhen the three runaways--Sal, Shilly and Skender--finally arrive at the remote island of the Haunted City, home of the Sky Wardens, Sal's great-aunt, the Syndic, is determined to keep them under control. And if that means imprisonment, so be it.
But the Syndic isn't the least of Sal's worries. The ghost that live behind the ancient glass of the city are restless and no one know why or what they can do. The golem will force Sal to do its bidding by whatever means necessary...even murder. And it seems that the Weavers have their own plans for the three of them--but what and who are they? Few people believe they exist, and those who do keep their knowledge close to their chests.
Whichever path Sal chooses, it seems the price to pay is very high for those closest to him. But he must decide...or submit to a future not of his making.
2002HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award Nominee
Locus Recommendation"The Storm Weaver & the Sand is a superior Australian fantasy novel, but more than this; it is simply superior fantasy." (The West Australian)
Age: 12+ - Orphans: Echoes of Earthreleased 2002Harper Voyager
Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award NomineeIn the early 22nd century, humans have shed their bodies to travel through space. Produced through nanotechnology, their electronic reproductions, known as engrams, have been sent on fact-finding missions throughout the known universe--searching for signs of alien life.
As the crew of a survey ship watches, ten orbital towers are constructed around an uninhabited planet's equator--by unidentifiable, spindle-shaped entities. Then, without any attempt at communication, the spindles withdraw. Cautiously exploring the towers, Peter Alander finds what appear to be gifts from a technologically-advanced race, including a faster-than-light ship. But when Alander pilots the shop back to Earth with news of the unprecedented event, he may be giving humanity a gift it can't afford to accept...
2002Harper VoyagerDitmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award Nominee"High adventure in deep space for fans of far-future SF" (Library Journal)
Age: 15+ - "Team Sharon"released 2002Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Mitch? 3: Hacks to the Max (ed Mitch?), April 2002 (first publication)
Adapted for the stage by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, 2009, director Michael Allen.
2002Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 15+ - "SF and Music"released 2002
I was excited to be one of the Guests of Honor at Convergence 2002: The 41st Australian National Science Fiction Convention. But what to talk about during my GOH speech? I chose to reminisce about how music had influenced my writing, and why 1981 was the best year of all (so far).
2002Age: 10+ - "The Girl-Thing"released 2002Ticonderoga (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Available from Curious Fictions. Devil Dolls & Duplicates in Australian Horror, 2011, Ed. Anthony Ferguson (Equilibrium) Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) Nowa Fantastyka (Polish translation, as “Lalka”) August 2004 eidolon.net, December 2002 (first publication)2002Ticonderoga (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 18+ - Books of the Change: The Stone Mage & the Seareleased 2001HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
In a world where the huge, red-sanded deserts are ruled by Stone Mages and the vast coastlines by Sky Wardens, any child with magic ability is taken away to the Haunted City to be trained in the Change.
Fundelry is a small town much like any other in the Strand. The people have little tolerance for anyone who stands out, and Sal and his father are strangers, running from someone ... or something. Sal is rescued from the local bully by Shilly and her teacher Lodo, a mysterious tattooed man who seems to know more about Sal than Sal himself. And, strangely, Sal's father seems to want to say put for a while.
But soon the Sky Wardens will come to Fundelry -- before then Sal must uncover the connection between Lodo and the mother he never met, in order to escape a fate that seems to have been chosen for him before he was even born ...
2001HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
"The reason why I haven’t given up completely on fantasy trilogies is because there are people out there who believe in the genre and continue to put out interesting books rather than following the formula. Sean Williams is one of those people." (Cheryl Morgan)
"an alchemical blend of elemental magic, tragic romance and the coming of age of a young boy who is yet to come into his own power which exists, poised between Earthsea and Mad Max, where the magic of fantasy meets the wonder of science fiction." (Locus)
Age: 12+ - Evergence: The Dark Imbalancereleased 2001HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
In the Sol System, Earth is no more. But aboard the various starships and space stations orbiting the still-burning sun live the remnants of mankind -- unaware of the danger they're in from an army of genetically enhanced warriors determined to destroy all humanity.
Renegade intelligence agent Morgan Roche has been charged by the High Humans to protect mankind from the threat of the clone warriors. Pursuing one such warrior into Sol System, she strives to learn the true identity of the enemy, and how to defeat them.
It is here, in the light of the star called Sol, that Morgan will learn the truth -- about the artificial intelligence known as the Box, about the man who calls himself Adoni Cane, about the High Humans, and about her destiny.
2001HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
"Space opera, like its grand musical cousin, couldn't exist without duplicity, ambition, lust, stupidity, and greed, and by the time the fat lady sings, whole worlds can be laid waste - and, oddly enough, it's this recognition of pain and evil as the generating forces of adventure that make A Dark Imbalance so satisfying." (Locus)
Age: 12+ - "On This Rock"released 2001
Mitch? 2: Tarts of the New Millennium, April 2001
2001Age: 12+ - "Carrie"released 2001Tenebre
For the special Stephen King double edition of French magazine Ténèbres, I was asked to write a review/homage to my favourite Stephen King novel. I chose Carrie. Here it is in English for the first time.
2001TenebreAge: 15+ - "Eternity"released 2000
Sydney Writers' Festival Haiku Competition Winner
Joint winner of the inaugural Sydney Writers' Festival haiku competition, this haiku was displayed on giant banners across the city of Sydney and printed on a pair of Y-fronts.
2000Sydney Writers' Festival Haiku Competition Winner
- Evergence: The Dying Lightreleased 2000HarperCollins (Australia)
Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award NomineeLong before the Commonwealth of Empires, long before the Dato Bloc rebellion, the Sol Apotheosis Movement created a group of super-soldiers to spread their agenda throughout the galaxy. But something went dreadfully wrong, and entire solar systems ceased to exist.
Morgan Roche had been an intelligence agent for the Commonwealth of Empires. But she turned renegade to determine the truth about a man named Adoni Cane. The answer -- that he was the last of the genetically enhanced warriors called the Sol Wunderkind -- shook the foundations of her world.
Now Roche is faced with an even more frightening fact: Cane may not be the last of his kind. A star has vanished, leaving only a terrible emptiness in space. Word spreads across the galaxy: The Sol Wunderkind have returned.
Roche finds herself at the centre of the coming conflict, as she struggles to penetrate the layers of deception surrounding the origins of the super-soldiers -- and the even deeper mystery concerning the artificial intelligence called "the Box" -- an entity that seems to have a sinister agenda of its own...
Long before the Commonwealth of Empires, long before the Dato Bloc rebellion, the Sol Apotheosis Movement created a group of super-soldiers to spread their agenda throughout the galaxy. But something went dreadfully wrong, and entire solar systems ceased to exist ...
THE ENHANCED WARRIOR
Morgan Roche had been an intelligence agent for the Commonwealth of Empires. But she turned renegade to determine the truth about a man named Adoni Cane. The answer -- that he was the last of the genetically enhanced warriors called the Sol Wunderkind -- shook the foundations of her world.
Now Roche is faced with an even more frightening fact: Cane may not be the last of his kind. A star has vanished, leaving only a terrible emptiness in space. Word spreads across the galaxy: The Sol Wunderkind have returned.
Roche finds herself at the centre of the coming conflict, as she struggles to penetrate the layers of deception surrounding the origins of the super-soldiers -- and the even deeper mystery concerning the artificial intelligence called "the Box" -- an entity that seems to have a sinister agenda of its own...
Long before the Commonwealth of Empires, long before the Dato Bloc rebellion, the Sol Apotheosis Movement created a group of super-soldiers to spread their agenda throughout the galaxy. But something went dreadfully wrong, and entire solar systems ceased to exist ...
THE ENHANCED WARRIOR
Morgan Roche had been an intelligence agent for the Commonwealth of Empires. But she turned renegade to determine the truth about a man named Adoni Cane. The answer -- that he was the last of the genetically enhanced warriors called the Sol Wunderkind -- shook the foundations of her world.
Now Roche is faced with an even more frightening fact: Cane may not be the last of his kind. A star has vanished, leaving only a terrible emptiness in space. Word spreads across the galaxy: The Sol Wunderkind have returned.
Roche finds herself at the centre of the coming conflict, as she struggles to penetrate the layers of deception surrounding the origins of the super-soldiers -- and the even deeper mystery concerning the artificial intelligence called "the Box" -- an entity that seems to have a sinister agenda of its own...
2000HarperCollins (Australia)Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award Nominee"This variety of New Space Opera, with its greatly increased possibilities for intrigue and (more important) for encounters with remnants of a long and little-understood past, is closer to the adventure pulps that ruled the magazine world when Doc Smith was just getting started. It recreates the pulpy world of exotic cities, lost wonders, and undiscovered countries that has powered everything from Talbot Mundy and A. Merritt to Leigh Brackett and Star Wars... I'm not sure what an Evergence is, but finding out promises to provide hours of fun." (Locus)
Age: 12+ - "The Land Itself"released 2000Altair (Australia)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
Fictionwise.com, July 2000 (electronic issue of Eidolon)
Eidolon Vol.8 #1 (30), May 2000 (first publication)
2000Altair (Australia)Aurealis Award Nominee
Age: 12+ - "Dark Gardens"released 1999Ticonderoga (Australia)
New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
1999Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 15+ - "Rare Justice"released 1999HarperCollins (Australia)
HarperCollins Voyager Website, April 2000
Ticonderoga On-Line, May 1999
SwanCon 24 Souvenir Book, April 1999 (first publication)
1999HarperCollins (Australia)Age: 12+ - New Adventures in Sci-Fireleased 1999Ticonderoga (Australia)
Ditmar Award Winner
(Contents: "A Map of the Mines of Barnath", "Reluctant Misty & the House on Burden Street", "The Jackie Onassis Swamp-Buggy Concerto", "White Christmas", "Entre les Beaux Morts en Vie", "Passing the Bone", "The Soap Bubble", "Dark Gardens", "Atrax", "Going Nowhere" and "Ghosts of the Fall" (revised version))
1999Ticonderoga (Australia)Ditmar Award Winner
"Sean Williams' first full-length collection is aptly named. Since starting his career in the early 1990s, Williams has systematically learned his chosen trade by exploring the tropes and traditions of the SF field, ultimately working towards developing his own distinctive voice and vision ... New Adventures In Sci-Fi showcases the variety of work that Williams has published in the past decade, and emphasises the increasing depth and maturity of that work. If there is a feeling that only better lies ahead, it is because of the progression made clear in these pages. Anyone wanting to understand science fiction in Australia in the 1990s needs this book. Highly recommended." (Locus)
Age: 15+ - "Introduction to The Lady of Situations"released 1999Ticonderoga (Australia)
Stephen Dedman's first collection contains some of the best stories to come out of this country. The brief for the intro came at the very last minute (almost literally), however, so the question of what to write and how to write it was a critical one. Thus, with the help of Simon Brown (channelling the spirit of a dead race horse called Mark Radium) and lots of bad puns, "Flogging a Dead Horse" came into being.
1999Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 15+ - "Atrax"released 1999Ticonderoga (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
(Cowritten with Simon Brown)
1999Ticonderoga (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
Age: 12+ - "Evermore"released 1999Altair (Australia)
Reprinted in Year's Best SF
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Science-Fiction 2007, Editions Bragelonne, 2007 (French translation)
Bli Panika (webzine), April 2002 (Hebrew translation, as “LE’OLAMIM”)
RH Audio (Random House), 2000 (spoken word)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction 17, June 2000, Ed. Gardner Dozois (St. Martins Press, USA)
Altair 4, September 1999 (first publication)
1999Altair (Australia)Reprinted in Year's Best SF
Age: 12+ - Evergence: The Prodigal Sunreleased 1999HarperCollins (Australia)
Locus bestseller
In the far future, humanity has colonised the outermost reaches of the galaxy, and society has evolved into a variety of castes, from the godlike High to the barely sentient Low. In between are the mundanes, both Pristine and Exotic. Empires have risen and fallen, and the Dato Bloc has just seceded from the Commonwealth of Empires.
Morgan Roche is a commander in the intelligence arm of the Commonwealth of Empires. Her mission is to escort the artificial intelligence unit known simply as "The Box" to her superiors. But en route her ship is attacked by Dato Bloc raiders, forcing Roche to escape to the surface of the prison planet Sciacca's World with the help of Adoni Cane -- a genetically enhanced warrior whose past is a mystery even to him.
Marooned and hunted, Roche must protect the Box at all costs. But what about Cane? Who created him and why? The answers may be the salvation of the human race -- or its damnation...
1999HarperCollins (Australia)Locus bestseller
"genre-savvy and capably written, full of adventure and Asimovian imperial vistas...[w]ith echoes of vintage Jack Williamson and Poul Anderson, as well as Niven, Asimov and Vinge" (Asimov’s)
" ... space opera of the ambitious, galaxy-spanning sort ... fast and furious action ...a good read." (New York Review of SF)
Age: 12+ - "(Untitled)"released 1998Adelaide Advertiser
Adelaide Advertiser Weekend, “Just Fifty Words”, January 30, 1998
1998Adelaide Advertiser - "No Axis, No Boundary: Defining Science Fiction"released 1998Altair (Australia)
An essay co-written with Simon Brown and published in the debut issue of Altair.
1998Altair (Australia)Age: 12+ - The Resurrected Manreleased 1998HarperCollins (Australia)
Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award NomineeThe year is 2069. D-mat offers fast, cheap travel, plus the potential to turn humanity into a race of godlike starfarers. But new technology has a dark side: d-mat allows a killer to perpetrate a series of vicious attacks without leaving a victim. Detective Marylin Blaylock is on the case ... a case where the murdered women all resemble her.
Jonah McEwen, a P.I. and Blaylock's ex-partner, is the prime suspect. But Jonah's alibi is watertight. He's been in a tub of maintenance gel, unconscious for three years. Yet, in a bizarre twist, he could still be guilty.
1998HarperCollins (Australia)Ditmar Award Winner
Aurealis Award Nominee"An Australian award-winning F/SF author strikes new sparks from an old flint: What if matter transmitters (“Beam me up, Scotty”) really worked?…Convincingly realized... with the vigorous narrative whizzing along at hyperspeed." (Kirkus)
Age: 15+ - A View Before Dyingreleased 1998Ticonderoga (Australia)
Imagine you could teleport to anywhere in the world. A common procedure, guaranteed totally safe.
All you need is the right money, the right job, or the right software.
So how can anything go wrong?
(Contents: "New Flames for an Old Love", "A View Before Dying" and "On the Road to Tarsus".)
1998Ticonderoga (Australia)"Although he is a relative newcomer, Williams has been creating some of the most imaginative science fiction in the field in the past few years. And this chapbook ... is an excellent illustration of his fertile and febrile vision ... [This is] Sean Williams at his finest and, perhaps, his most menacing, but definitely at his peak. A View Before Dying is spell-binding, horrifying, and dazzling." (SF Site)
- "Entre les Beaux Morts en Vie"released 1998HarperCollins (Australia)
Recommended by Locus
(aka “Among the Beautiful Living Dead”) Adapted into the short film Retrospect. Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) Dreaming Down-Under, January 2000, Eds. Jack Dann & Janeen Webb (Tor, US) Dreaming Down-Under Volume One, September 1999, Eds. Jack Dann & Janeen Webb (HarperCollins Australia) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) Dreaming Down-Under, November 1998, Eds. Jack Dann & Janeen Webb (HarperCollins Australia) (first publication)1998HarperCollins (Australia)Recommended by Locus
Age: 15+ - "Hollow Men"released 1998Infinite Monkeys
Twenty3, April 1998, Eds. Anna Hepworth, Simon Oxwell and Grant Watson (Infinite Monkeys)
(Cowritten with Shane Dix)
1998Infinite MonkeysAge: 12+ - "The Truth in Advertising"released 1998Ticonderoga (Australia)
AustrAlien Absurdities, 2001, Eds. Chuck McKenzie & Tansey Rayner Roberts (Agog Press)
Cannibals of the Fine Light, April 1998, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
(Cowritten with Simon Brown)
1998Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 12+ - "Freezing Sarah"released 1997Bloodsongs
Aurealis Award Nominee
Bloodsongs #8, 1997
1997BloodsongsAurealis Award Nominee
Age: 15+ - "The Masque of Agamemnon"released 1997Ticonderoga (Australia)
Reprinted in Year's Best SF
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Troy, 2007 (Ticonderoga Publications)
Hayakawa’s SF Magazine (Japanese translation)
Nowa Fantastyka (Polish translation), 2004
Eidolon Vol.7 #3 (27) , August 1998
The Year’s Best Science Fiction 15, June 1998, Ed. Gardner Dozois (St. Martins Press, USA)
The Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy 1997, May 1998, Eds. Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy G. Byrne (HarperCollins Australia)
Eidolon: SF Online, December 1997 (first publication)
(Cowritten with Simon Brown)
1997Ticonderoga (Australia)Reprinted in Year's Best SF
Age: 12+ - "Love and Mandarins"released 1997HarperCollins (Australia)
Recommended by Year's Best SF
Available here. Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books) The Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy 1997, May 1998, Eds. Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy G. Byrne (HarperCollins Australia) Eidolon Vol.7 #1/2 (25/26), December 19971997HarperCollins (Australia)Recommended by Year's Best SF
Age: 15+ - "Dissolution Days"released 1996Altair (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best SF
Eidolon Vol.6 #1 (21), April 1996 (first publication)
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
Prequel to Metal Fatigue.
1996Altair (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best SF
Age: 12+ - "Passing the Bone"released 1996Ticonderoga (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & HorrorAvailable from Curious Fictions. Eidolon Vol.5 #4 (20), 1996 (first publication) The Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy 1996, April 1997, Eds. Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy G. Byrne (HarperCollins Australia) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008,Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) Australis Imaginarium, 2010. Ed. Tehani Wessely (FableCroft)1996Ticonderoga (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & HorrorAge: 15+
- "A View Before Dying"released 1996Ticonderoga (Australia)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
A View Before Dying, June 1998, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga)
Eidolon Vol.6 #2/3 (22/23), October 1996 (first publication)
1996Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 12+ - Metal Fatiguereleased 1996HarperCollins (Australia)
Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award NomineeIn a dystopic world after a devastating world war, the American city of Kennedy has walled itself off from the decline of the former USA. Determined to continue as a functioning metropolis, Kennedy strictly patrols its boundaries and struggles to maintain the semblance of a modern city.
Now, forty years after the end of the war, Kennedy is in crisis. Technologies are failing and replacements and repairs are not forthcoming. It is within this atmosphere of slow death that news of Re-United States of America emerges -- a RUSA which wants Kennedy to join.
But not everyone in Kennedy agrees with reassimilation, and a series of political assassinations and data thefts begin. As the deadline for union looms, Phil Roads, the investigator assigned to solve the killings and robberies, is under pressure. Caught between murderous opposing forces, with dangerous secrets emerging from his past, he needs to find out who's behind the crimes - and fast.
1996HarperCollins (Australia)Aurealis Award Winner
Ditmar Award Nominee"Metal Fatigue is [Sean Williams'] debut novel, but it reads like the work of a seasoned pro - one who hasn't lost the sense of adventure that a fictional world can create. If an author can be both a master and a novice, Williams has captured the best of both stations. [...] So, get some provisions stocked up beside your comfy chair and be ready for the long haul ... Hoo boy!"
Age: 12+ - "A Map of the Mines of Barnath"released 1995Hayakawa (Japan)
Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award Nominee
Seiun Award Nominee
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & HorrorOut now in Chappy's Time Travel Tales! Or at Curious Fictions. Also: StarShipSofa (podcast) Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) The Wonder Years, 2003, Ed. Bill Congreve, Selected Peter McNamara (MirrorDanse Books) The Best Science Fiction of the Nineties, 2002 (Hayakawa, Japanese translation), Hayakawa’s SF Magazine, April 2000 (Japanese translation) Centaurus, 1999, Eds. Damien Broderick & David Hartwell (Tor Books) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) Eidolon: SF Online, 1997 Eidolon Vol.4 #4 (16), March 1995 (first publication) (This is a "Structure" story. See FAQs for more info on other stories set in this universe.)1995Hayakawa (Japan)Aurealis Award Nominee
Ditmar Award Nominee
Seiun Award Nominee
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & HorrorAge: 12+ - "The Perfect Gun"released 1995Eidolon
Eidolon: SF Online, 1997
Eidolon Vol.5 #1/2 (17/18), June 1995 (first publication)
Seed story for The Grand Conjunction.
1995EidolonAge: 12+ - "Mary's Blood"released 1994Altair (Australia)
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
Bloodsongs #1, February 1994 (first publication)
1994Altair (Australia)Age: 18+ - "On the Road to Tarsus"released 1994Ticonderoga (Australia)
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
A View Before Dying, June 1998, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
Eidolon Vol.4 #3 (15), September 1994 (first publication)
1994Ticonderoga (Australia)Age: 12+ - "New Flames for an Old Love"released 1994Ticonderoga (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
A View Before Dying, June 1998, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
The Leading Edge #31, September 1995 (revised for Mormon readers)
Doorway to Eternity, July 1994, Ed. Bill Congreve (MirrorDanse Books) (first publication)
1994Ticonderoga (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 12+ - "Cold Sleep, Cold Dreams"released 1994Aphelion (Australia)
Alien Shores, June 1994, Ed. Peter McNamara (Aphelion Publications)
(As E.W.Story.)
1994Aphelion (Australia)Age: 12+ - "The Soap Bubble"released 1994Aphelion (Australia)Available through Curious Fictions, here. StarShipSofa Stories, Volume 2,2010. Ed/ Tony C. Smith Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection, December 2004, Ed. Rob Gerrand (Black Inc.) Nowa Fantastyka, March 2000 (Polish translation) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) Alien Shores, June 1994, Eds. Peter McNamara & Margaret Winch (Aphelion Publications) (first publication) (Adapted into a sci-fi musical by Sean Reilly, Cathy Adamek, Phil Spruce and Sean Williams, with the financial assistance of Arts SA, and performed as a reading in 2006.)1994Aphelion (Australia)Age: 12+
- "The Jackie Onassis Swamp-Buggy Concerto"released 1994Ticonderoga (Australia)Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books) Available here. Ticonderoga On-Line, January 2004 New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) Eidolon Vol.4 #2 (14), April 1994 (first publication)1994Ticonderoga (Australia)
- "The Wedding of the Millennium, Part 2: The Barren Heart"released 1994Daarke Worlde
Daarke Worlde #5, May 1994
1994Daarke WorldeAge: 18+ - "Doorway to Eternity"released 1994MirrorDanse (Australia)
Doorway to Eternity, July 1994, Ed. Bill Congreve (MirrorDanse Books)
1994MirrorDanse (Australia)Age: 15+ - "Reluctant Misty & the House on Burden Street"released 1994Ticonderoga (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
Doorway to Eternity, July 1994, Ed. Bill Congreve (MirrorDanse Books) (first publication)
1994Ticonderoga (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 12+ - Doorway to Eternityreleased 1994MirrorDanse (Australia)
Three never-before-published novelettes by Australia's rising young SF writer.
Marcus de Barrow wants to save the world, while his ex-lover becomes more and more terrified.
Beth can't stop herself from visiting an old Adelaide house only she can see.
Amanda Carmichael's daughter wreaks havoc on the interior of their house, night after night, until Amanda has no choice but to call for help.
(Contents: "New Flames for an Old Love", "Reluctant Misty & the House on Burden Street" and"Doorway to Eternity)
1994MirrorDanse (Australia)"In the debut title for MirrorDanse Books, versatile Adelaide writer does creditable turns on some best-loved genres themes ... Williams' work, deservedly, has started to gain overseas recognition, and the two short stories and novella in [Doorway to Eternity] do show a top new Aussie talent at work." (The Australian Weekend Review)
- "Ghosts of the Fall"released 1993Ticonderoga (Australia)
Writers of the Future Prizewinner
Ditmar Award NomineeReprinted in Lightspeed Magazine, May 2015 (you can read it for free). And here, at Curious Fictions. Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga) Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) (revised version) Writers of the Future Vol.IX, September 1993, Ed. Dave Wolverton (Bridge Publications) (first publication)1993Ticonderoga (Australia)Writers of the Future Prizewinner
Ditmar Award NomineeAge: 12+ - "The Wedding of the Millennium, Part 1: The Twain"released 1993Daarke Worlde
Daarke Worlde #4, November 1993
1993Daarke WorldeAge: 18+ - "White Christmas"released 1993Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best SF (twice)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & HorrorMagic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams, 2008, Ed. Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga)
Ticonderoga Online, Summer 2006, Eds. Russell B. Farr & Liz Grzyb
New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
Altered Voices, 1999 (revised for teenage readers), Ed. Lucy Sussex (Scholastic US)
Aboriginal Science Fiction, Christmas Issue, 1997
The Lottery, June 1994 (revised for teenage readers), Ed. Lucy Sussex (Omnibus Books)
Eidolon Vol.3 #3 (11), January 1993 (first publication)
1993Omnibus/Scholastic (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best SF (twice)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror - "Robbery, Assault and Battery"released 1992Nemesis
Nemesis #16, March 1992
(Seed story for Metal Fatigue.)
1992NemesisAge: 12+ - "Going Nowhere"released 1992Ticonderoga (Australia)
Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Available here. Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books) Tenebre, November 2000 (French translation) New Adventures in Sci-Fi, April 1999, Ed. Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories, Nov 1994, Ed. Dr Ken Gelder (Oxford University Press) Intimate Armageddons, September 1992, Ed. Bill Congreve (Five Islands Press) (first publication)1992Ticonderoga (Australia)Honorable Mention Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
Age: 15+ - "Crossed Lines"released 1992Daarke Worlde
Daarke Worlde #1, June 1992
(As Erick T. Ladd)
1992Daarke WorldeAge: 15+ - "Woman's Revenge"released 1992Esoteric Order of Dagon
Esoteric Order Of Dagon Magazine #6, May 1992
1992Esoteric Order of DagonAge: 18+ - "The Darkest Night"released 1992TLS
Mitch?: Short Stories for Short Attention Spans, April 2000 (complete & revised)
TLS #2‑3 (serialised) March‑April 1992 (first publication)
1992TLSAge: 12+ - "The Third and Final Death of Ronald Saw"released 1992Canberra SF Society
Canberra SF Society Short Story Competition Equal-3rd Prizewinner
Canberra SF Society Newsletter, May 1992
1992Canberra SF SocietyCanberra SF Society Short Story Competition Equal-3rd Prizewinner
Age: 12+ - "The Nightmare Stars"released 1992HongCon92
HongCon Short Story Competition 1st Prize Winner
HongCon92, June 1992
1992HongCon92HongCon Short Story Competition 1st Prize Winner
Age: 15+ - "In the Eye of the Octopus"released 1992Altair (Australia)
Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books)
Eidolon Vol.3 #1 (9), July 1992 (first publication)
1992Altair (Australia)Age: 15+ - "The Blink"released 1992
Canberra SF Society Newsletter, August 1992
(As Bradley MacMillan)
1992Age: 12+ - "Looking Forward, Looking Back:released 1992Mentor
The Mentor #76, September 1992
1992MentorAge: 12+ - "Goddess of Stone"released 1992Mentor
The Mentor #77, December 1992
1992MentorAge: 12+ - "Playing Radio"released 1991Esoteric Order of Dagon
Esoteric Order Of Dagon Magazine #2, May 1991
1991Esoteric Order of DagonAge: 15+ - "Burglar Alarm"released 1991Esoteric Order of Dagon
Esoteric Order Of Dagon Magazine #3, July 1991
1991Esoteric Order of DagonAge: 15+ - "The Leaf"released 1991Dragon's Whisper
Dragon’s Whisper #4, December 1991
1991Dragon's WhisperAge: 12+ - "Twist of the Knife"released 1991Esoteric Order of Dagon
Esoteric Order of Dagon Short Story Competition 3rd-Prizewinner
Tenebre, November 1999 (French translation)
Terror Australis, June 1993 (revised), Ed. Leigh Blackmore (Hodder & Stoughton)
Esoteric Order Of Dagon Magazine #5, December 1991 (first publication)
1991Esoteric Order of DagonEsoteric Order of Dagon Short Story Competition 3rd-Prizewinner
Age: 18+ - "Playing Radio"released 1991Esoteric Order of Dagon
Esoteric Order Of Dagon Magazine #2, May 1991
1991Esoteric Order of DagonAge: 15+ - "The Stuff of Dreams (& Far Stranger Things"released 1991Canberra SF Society
Writers of the Future Quarter-Finalist
Canberra SF Society Newsletter, October 1991
1991Canberra SF SocietyWriters of the Future Quarter-Finalist
Age: 12+ - "Light Bodies Falling"released 1991Altair (Australia)Light Bodies Falling, 2005, Ed. Robert N Stephenson (Altair Australia Books) Available here. The Aurealis Mega Oz SF Anthology, February 1999, Eds. Stephen Higgins & Dirk Strasser (Chimaera Publications) Aboriginal Science Fiction 35/36, Winter 1992 Aurealis #6, December 19911991Altair (Australia)Age: 12+
Some content