Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror (Sydney: Coronet, 1993)[1] was Australia's first original mass-market horror anthology for adults. It was edited by Leigh Blackmore. (It is technically preceded by Bill Congreve's anthology Intimate Armageddons (MirrorDanse Books), 1992 - however, that volume did not have mass market distribution).
Terror Australis the anthology grew from the magazine Terror Australis and drew on the talents of horror writers centred on Sydney's Gargoyle Club Horror Writers and Artists' Society; however it also featured many of Australia's big-name sf and horror writers. Most contributions were original; however a few of the contributions were reprints, mainly from the Australian small press.The quantity of internal artwork featured, designed to showcase horror work in art as well as fiction, made it something of an innovation amongst paperbacks of the time in Australia.
A companion volume of sf stories, Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF, edited by Terry Dowling and Van Ikin, was issued by Coronet the same year.
Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, called the volume "a landmark - a monument to the genre". Seven of the included stories have since been reprinted, some several times (see below).
Leanne Frahm's story from the anthology won the Ditmar Award for Best Australian Short Fiction.
There was to have been a follow-up volume, however, Hodder & Stoughton (Coronet) were bought out by UK publisher Headline to form Hodder Headline, and the new owners did not take up the option for a continuing series.
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