DOWLING, Terry

(1947-)

   Australian lecturer in English, tv performer, songwriter and writer. One of the most interesting new voices in local sf, TD is beginning to glean international praise as well. His master's thesis was, unusually for AUSTRALIA, about sf - its topic was J.G. BALLARD and the Surrealists. "The Man who Walks Away behind the Eyes" (1982 OMEGA SCIENCE DIGEST) inaugurated an sf career that has so far been devoted exclusively to short fiction (over 30 stories to date); his work was at first too obviously indebted to Cordwainer SMITH and Jack VANCE, but later developed an individual voice. TD's idiosyncratic but vivid between-the-lines style is perhaps best displayed in his Tyson stories, some of which are collected in Rynosseros (coll of linked stories 1990), Wormwood (coll of linked stories 1991), Blue Tyson (coll 1992)and Twilight Beach (coll of linked stories 1993): though many characters are featured, they tell centrally : of Tom Tyson, captain of the sandship Rynosseros, in which he roams the strange, high-tech Ab'o societies of a future Australia's outback, occasionally undergoing mystical epiphanies. With Richard DELAP and Gil Lamont (1947-) he edited The Essential Ellison (coll 1987) by Harlan ELLISONand with Van Ikin he put together in Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (anth 1993), which presents the sf of his native land as evolving its own characteristic themes and timbre.

   PN