Dancing in Dreamtime

Scott Russell Sanders is the author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University.

"Clear-eyed and philosophical, Sanders's vision of our collective undoing, and how we salvage the pieces, mixes intellectualism with magical realism in an uncommon unity of mind and spirit."—Shelf Awareness"Dancing in Dreamtime sparks with brilliant imagery, from a city where dreams roost in trees and the destruction of their habitat threatens the inhabitants' sanity, to a circus where robotic pandas play organ music and tigers blink with neon stripes. These are stories of people subjected to the dreams of others, reminders that our best fantasies have unintended consequences. They dream our doom, they dream our possible salvation, they draw us further into the dance."—Teresa Milbrodt, author of Bearded Women: Stories"Though Scott Russell Sanders is best known today as an essayist and conservationist, he previously was one of the brightest science-fiction newcomers of the 1980s, and his incisive, playful, startling stories–which speak directly to our 21st-century environmental and genetic concerns-were staples of Omni, Asimov's Science Fiction, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. To have virtually all this material back in print in a single collection is a joy. Whether you knew it or not, you've had a space on your shelf all these years, waiting to be filled by Dancing in Dreamtime."—Andy Duncan, author of The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories"Although the stories in Scott Russell Sanders's new collection, Dancing in Dreamtime, often portray futuristic worlds, they always hold a mirror to our contemporary society in a way that allows us to see ourselves and our present time more clearly. Wildly imaginative and haunting, these stories are the stuff of dreams, yes, but they also have much to show us about who we are in the here and now."—Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever"Scott Russell Sanders is certainly best known as one of our finest essayists. What is less known—and likely more surprising—is that he was once also an artful author of science fiction. We should all rejoice that these stories have at last been collected in Dancing in Dreamtime. Sanders is the Alice Munro of science fiction, and these quiet, lyrical stories covering his career in the genre offer all the necessary proof. Highly recommended."—Gregory Frost, author of Shadowbridge"As these enchanting stories examine how technologies and advancements disconnect us and create chaos, Sanders always shows that we will persevere with our own kind of hope, our own kind of love, and our own kind of heart."—Lucas Southworth, author of Everyone Here Has a Gun"These brilliant stories explore birds who've time-warped to avoid extinction on earth, and people who long for both tidiness and the wilds. Human innovation and destruction are at the center of all these tales, which leave reality in order to return readers to this planet we've ravaged, more awake to ecological catastrophe, and our earth and its peoples who are ravenous and yearning and not-yet ruined. These fictions both delight and warn."—Erin Stalcup, author of And Yet It Moves"The stories in Dancing in Dreamtime are familiar enough to make your heart ache and new enough to feel fresh and wondrous. Here you will find people connecting and falling apart as people have always connected and fallen apart, but beneath a fantastical and occasionally terrifying sky."—Carmen Maria Machado

• The Anatomy Lesson Clear-cut Ascension SleepwalkerThe First Journey of Jason Moss The Artist of Hunger The Engineer of BeastsThe Circus Animals' Desertion Mountains of Memory TerrariumQuarantineTouch the Earth Eros Passage The Audubon Effect The Land Where Songtrees Grow Travels in the Interior Dancing in Dreamtime Credits Author's Note