title: Black Glass: A Sea Myth
author:  Stuart Edelson 
description: This anguished first novel of unrequited passion on the high seas fails to live up to its echoes of Billy Budd and Querelle . Playwright and sculptor Edelson sets his story on board a civilian-manned Navy vessel en route to Vietnam in 1965. Michael Silver, a sensitive young man with artistic aspirations who has signed up to make and save some money, finds the merchant marine a miserable experience: sadistic superior officers and crew members instill terror in his every waking moment, and he is tormented by physical attraction to his virile bunkmates. His one friend, an able seaman named Bruce, makes it clear when Michael declares his love that the feeling is not reciprocated; Bruce's death throws Michael into a profound depression with ambiguous results. Promisingly operatic passions are poorly served by Edelson's abysmal writing and errors of grammar and syntax. Though atmospheric, Michael's story ultimately proves woefully derivative, inconclusive and banal. <BR>Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN 
  SPECULATIVE STORIES
  GLASS REPTILE 
  BREAKOUT
  Edited by Van Ikin
  
  GLASS REPTIl 
  BREAKOUT
  AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN 
  SPECULATIVE STORIES
  Edited by Van Ikin
  The Centre for Studies in Australian Literature 
  University of Western Australia 
  1990
  
  CONTENTS
  Acknowledgements.......................................................................................3-4
  Introduction................................................................................................... 5-9
  Russell Blackford: 
  “Glass Reptile Breakout” .................................11-22
  Damien Broderick: 
  “All My Yesterdays” ........................................23-26
  Simon Brown: 
  “Skyriders” ........................................................27-30
  Paul Collins: 
  “The Getaway Star”........................................ 31 -37
  Stephen Dedman: 
  “Errand of Mercy” ............................ 
   
  39-48
  Terry Dowling: 
  “Vanities” ..........................................................49-60
  Greg Ega