2012 – edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne
Twelfth Planet Press, 2008
118 pages
RRP: AU$20
ISBN 978-0-9804841-0-6

Reviewed by Russell B. Farr

Where will we be in 4 years’ time?

If 2012 is anything to judge by, very unhappy. In the debut anthology from Twelfth Planet Press, 11 writers give a pretty bleak vision of the future.

The table of contents is impressive; the editors have enlisted some fine storytellers in their quest. The anthology kicks off with a great piece by Deborah Biancotti, “Watertight Lies”, a further example of the excellent character-driven storyteller she has become. When water becomes a precious resource, Biancotti ponders to what lengths people will go to protect what they have.

Simon Brown’s “Oh Russia” isn’t an example his best work, yet he manages to cram an impressive amount of emotion into the story. Brown ponders the complex feelings of migrants, watching their old country disintegrate, while going through upheaval of their own.

Lucy Sussex’s “Apocalypse Rules, OK?” gives the reader paranoia by the bucketload. Of all the stories in the anthology, this felt closest to a 2012 setting. Wikipedia is hacked, and up pop the rules to bring down society. Sussex avoids traditional narrative structure to produce this thought-provoking piece.

Dirk Flinthart’s “The Last Word” is SF in the vein of early Greg Egan. It’s clever, well crafted with interesting science and a twist. Flinthart’s story is something I’d like to see more of in the genre, good, competently written SF.

Kaaron Warren’s “Ghost Jail”, is excellent, unsettling and gripping. It’s almost out of place in this anthology, combining both near-future SF with the paranormal, but is too well written for any editor to ignore.

I would also recommend the solid work by Martin Livings, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Angela Slatter and Sean McMullen that round out the collection.

Overall there is dark, despairing tone to the anthology: few if any writers are predicting a positive, promising future. Perhaps this represents the hangover of 11-plus years of John Howard, and 8 years of Dubya, and an anthology published in 2009 looking forward to 2013 may have a different focus. Maybe not, and we could all be doomed to a future of climate change, water shortages, oppressive governments, terrorism and resource shortages. As a reviewer, I can take pleasure in what 2012 delivers: well written expositions of the latter.

And it’s a great price, for $20 Australian you couldn’t do much better.

There is a real joy in seeing a number of Australia’s most experienced writers contributing stories to the first anthology of a fledgling press. This can only bode well for the future success of Twelfth Planet Press. Should the publishers survive to 2012, I hope the world is a brighter place than this anthology suggests.