After working on the production crew of AH&FM, when Radburn eventually suspended publication, Leigh Blackmore took over the subscription base and with co-editors Chris G.C.
"Australia has never produced a straight fantasy magazine, though in 1970 Sword and Sorcery, a putative companion to Ronald E Graham's Vision of Tomorrow, reached dummy stage before a poor financial deal killed it.
While Terror Australis was primarily a horror magazine, it published a number of well-regarded dark fantasy stories, including work by Rick Kennett, Frances Burke, Graeme Parsons[5] and Steven Paulsen.
"[6] In addition to fiction, some of which was by writers best known for their mainstream work (such as Beth Yahp[7] and Coral Hull), each issue featured non-fiction columns including "The Black Stump" (editorial by Leigh Blackmore); "In the Bad Books" (horror reviews by Blackmore, 'David Kuraria' (Bryce J. Stevens) and 'Carl Uda' (Christopher Sequeira); "Out of Space and Time" (book releases in brief); "Views from Emerald City" (Fantasy Reviews by Phillip Knowles); "Dark Enchantments" (Horror and Fantasy Magazines); "Post-Mortem" (readers' letter column) and "The Chaos Club" (contributor biographies).
These included Gavin O'Keefe, Steve 'Carnage' Carter, Tony Baron, Karen Ravenlore, Brad Ellis, Mike McGann, Rama Mithiran, Physch, David Richardson, Jon Sequeira, Bryce J. Stevens, Kurt Stone,[10] Catherine Waters, Phillip Cornell, Igor Spajic, Neil Walpole, Kerry Kennedy and Bodine Amerikah.
Although its circulation was comparatively small, the magazine had a significant impact on the horror scene in Australia in the late eighties and early nineties.
The success of terror Australis magazine led directly to the publication of the mass-market horror anthology Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror (edited by Blackmore alone) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), a companion volume to Terry Dowling and Van Ikin's Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993).