Terry Dowling Books In Order

Publication Order of Tom Rynosseros Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Terry Dowling is a published Australian writer and a journalist. He is known for writing speculative fiction.

He was born on March 21, 1947 with the name Terrence William Dowling. He refers to himself as one who imagines and has been considered one of the most awarded and loved writers to come out of Australia.

He has attended various science fiction conventions in Australia as the Guest of Honor. He also holds workshops on writing at different venues that include the Powerhouse Museum, the University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education, the New South Wales Writers’ Centre, and the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Canerra, as well as the Perth International Arts Festival at the University of Western Australia and the Perth Writer’s Festival. He also served as a panel member and a presenter for Aussiecon 4.

Terry went to school at Boronia Park Public School in Sydney and then attended Hunters Hill High School in Sydney, graduating in 1964. He then attended Sydney Teachers’ College. After that, he was conscripted for the Vietnam War as an infantryman as well as an administrative clerk. He spent the time during those years writing songs, poetry and fiction.

It was during the sixties that he started regularly buying science fiction magazines and was influenced by other writers including Ray Bradbury, Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance and J.G. Ballard. He also got into various horror anthologies. He even wrote an essay about the influence of Charles Higham’s horror anthologies on his writing in Horror: Another 100 Best Books. He also notes that he has been influenced by painters of the Surrealist genre, including Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico, among others.

Terry taught at Sydney’s Horsley Park Primary School for a year before moving on to Sydney University. He had won a scholarship to complete his Bachelor’s degree at honors level for English literature and archaeology. He also won a research award and completed his M.A. degree first class with honors in English literature, with a thesis focusing on surrealism and J.G. Ballard.

Throughout his nine years at university, Dowling wrote songs and performed with The Many Moods of Albert. He also was an actor and wrote songs with the Pact Theatre from 1972 to 1978. He appeared on ABC television on different kids’ programs in the seventies. He also appeared as musician in guest appearances on the show Mr. Squiggle and Friends from 1979 to 1982. The ABC also put up money for a few of his songs for his musical Amberjack. which is about a stranded time traveler. The seven songs that the ABC financed were broadcast in 1977 on the radio program “Talking Point”. He has also played the songs live at different sci-fi conventions throughout the years. He would later put out a collection in 2009 called Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder.*

Some of his early stories were published in Enigma, a literary magazine. He would later become assistant editor and then co-editor of Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature. He also continued to play with various bands, including Temenos and Gestalt. He would go on to write a science fiction play titled “The Tunnel”. He also sold his first story “The Man Who Walks Away Behind the Eyes” to the Omega Science Digest.

Dowling also served as the co-editor for Harlan Ellison’s collection The Essential Ellison in 1987. It was during the eighties that he began to write a number of short stories and be seen by the public as one of the top science fiction writers in Australia. He also won the Ditmar Award several times during this period.

One of the stories from his sci-fi novel Rynosseros was “The Only Bird in Her Name”, which was adapted for radio by Yuri Rasovsky and was dramatized by Hollywood Theatre of the Ear in 1999.

He has also written stories in a collection called An Intimate Knowledge of the Night and published a science fiction story collection called Wormwood. Dowling has also written for different PC adventure games to come out from Detalion, a Polish firm. He has worked on Schizm: Mysterious Journey, which came out in 2001, and Mysterious Journey II: Chameleon, which was released in 2003.

Downing also worked on bringing the works of Ellison to a new audience with an update of The Essential Ellison: A 35-Year Retrospective. During this time he went through 15 years of writing, stories and essays, to bring the collection up to date for the 50-year retrospective.

He would also receive a PhD for creative writing in 2006 from the University of Western Australia. In his dissertation. he went over the computer adventure game arena as being an important avenue for telling stories. He also released a 2010 horror novel titled Clowns at Midnight. In 2013, he retired as a lecturer at the June Dally Watkins Finishing school vbut continues to teach writing courses at the University of Sydney in addition to holding writing workshops.

Terry Dowling is known for being the author of the Tom Rynosseros series. This series first got started with the publication of the debut novel Rynosseros in 1990. Blue Tyson would follow it in 1992. The third novel is called Twilight Beach and came out in 1993. The fourth novel of the series is titled Rynemonn and came out in 2007.

The series is set in an Australia far in the future. The series stars the main character Tom Tyson, who also goes by the handle Tom Rynosseros. In this version of Australia, giant sand ships known as ‘charvolants’ go all across the outback. The Ab’O tribes there control advanced technology and set rules that limit where white people (known as ‘Nationals) can go. Tom has come out of the Madhouse, an Ab’O punishment, with amnesia. But he remembers three things that may help him remember a star, a ship, and the face of a woman.

He becomes one of the Colored Captains, which means he is allowed to cross lands. He then wins a ship that he calls Rynosseros in a lottery, renaming it Blue Tyson. He has won Colors and can go anywhere in Australia. Everywhere he goes, he is noted for being mysterious. Does Tom Rynosseros have a destiny waiting for him out in the desert? Will it affect the Nation or even Dreamtime?

Read Rynosseros, Blue Tyson, and the rest of the books in this series to find out!