Title:  Stepping Sideways - Worlds of Steampunk and Dystopia

Author:   Emily Larkin & Lynne Stringer

Reviewer: Natalie Lincoln

Audience:  Stage 3/4

The short stories in Stepping Sideways ask you to do exactly that - suspend reality for a jaunt into the unfamiliar and intriguing. Filled with the troubles wrought by industrialisation, the stories are short, busy and filled with dystopic visions of what the world could become. Having said that there is a whimsy that takes the reader on a journey that mostly offers the refreshing possibility of a way out of complete despair.

‘Mechanical Magic’ (Linsey Painter) saw a mermaid working on a train, while ‘Big Top Breakout’ (Lynne Stringer) explored disappearing clowns in a darkly humorous tale. ‘Lena of the Airships’ (Andreas Katsineris-Paine) included some fantastic lines of description that had me double take and read them again. Perhaps the most dystopian was ‘Run’ (Shaye Wardrop) with its unfriendly dogs and giant crow.

This anthology offers an entry point to adventure filled reimagined worlds. Steampunk abounds and effectively permeates each of the stories. The seriousness of the decay of humanity and the planet are plain to see but an innocence is retained that would allow junior secondary students to dabble in apocalyptic fiction without being completely overwhelmed by the crush of complete dystopia.