HOSTILITIES

A delicately macabre ambience infuses these tales from the Australian author of Speaking To Miranda (1992): a fugitive finds the story of her own life in an old book; a boy visiting his aunt's dying farm is haunted by dreams centering around ``The Dam'' and its fetid lake; ``The Thief in the Rocks'' and another malevolent spirit infecting ``The Greenhouse'' behave with chilling malice. The theme of anger also pervades tales of an abused shoplifter who finds someone to cling to ``At the Old Roxy,'' a bed-wetter who finally stops believing his father's ``Lies,'' and the title story, about two warring step-siblings, one of whom gleefully rescues the other from being buried in cement. Hostile indeed, and bizarre, though milder than Paul Jennings' Uncanny! and Unreal! (both 1991). (Fiction/Short stories. 11-13)