mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

This is part 2 of my book club notes on This All Come Back Now. (Here's part 1.)


"In His Father's Footsteps" by Kalem Murray (2022)

A father and son trying awkwardly to bond on a hunting trip are threatened by a monster. What I liked most about this was the tangible sense of place—the scent of the trees, the feel of the earth underfoot. Others praised the characterization, which felt very warm towards both the father and the son. They're sometimes stumbling in their efforts to connect, but neither is always right or always wrong.

The discussion also highlighted the way the story portrays ambiguity of belief in the supernatural. The father is insistent on not violating taboos in a "just in case" sort of way, and he's skeptical when the son thinks he hears something, but when the monster proves to be real he doesn't react like "this can't be happening." A comparison was drawn to mundane but highly improbable threats like, say, an airplane crash. It's part of our understanding of real things that could happen, and we take reasonable precautions with the assumption that it will almost certainly not come up.

Though I didn't dislike this story, I thought it suffered from being presented alongside the thematically similar "Myth This!" which spoke to me more. Some group members also felt this way, but for others it was the other way around! I guess I understand why anthology editors often put similar stories back to back, but it's a strategy that can backfire as one story can upstage another, or the reader can simply tire of the themes.


"Myth This!" by Lisa Fuller (2022)

A mother and her three kids encounter a supernatural being and try to warn outsiders of the threat. The pacing and suspense made this an engrossing read for me, and I felt the speculative premise was well integrated into the character dynamics. I liked the theme of messing up and repairing. Whether it's a questionable interpersonal choice or a confrontation with the supernatural, you don't just take one wrong step and it's over, there are opportunities to reflect and do better. The mother's struggle with how much and how early to tell her kids about the dangers in the world particularly resonated with some group members.

There was a consensus that the jokey title doesn't work for this story and misrepresents its tone. Titles matter!


"Jacaranda Street" by Jasmin McGaughey (2019)

A family gains the ability to manifest apparitions with their thoughts. I think this story was too short, and both the characters and the speculative premise needed to be fleshed out more. The group had a lot of questions: What exactly are the rules of how the apparitions work? Why is this happening now, suddenly? When did the POV character realize what was really going on? But there weren't answers to these questions because the information wasn't on the page.


Excerpt from The Kadaitcha Sung by Samuel William Watson (1990)

A guy hooks up with a girl and then goes and talks to some spirits. Novel excerpts are usually frustrating inclusions in short story anthologies because by definition they're not complete stories. I found this one particularly ineffective because it seemed to me to be a random slice out of the middle of the book that didn't provide enough context to understand who these people are, what's going on, or why we should care. I agreed with those who said this extract seemed steeped in machismo, focusing exclusively on the protagonist's ability to attract women and the various powerups he was going to get from his spirit connections.

The editor of the anthology said this was included because it was the first speculative fiction novel by an Aboriginal author. I can understand why that would feel important. Perhaps the editor could have done a better job of choosing an excerpt that stood alone, though that might have been difficult if the book was very familiar and personal to them.