Aurealis #85

By Dirk Strasser (Editor)

Aurealis #85 features Peter Hickman’s “Dreamscribe”, a terse evocative world-creation with complex character motivations in a tightly woven story, and “The Events at Callan Park”, a creepy asylum-set historical tale from Erol Engin which has unnerving implications for today.

Dirk Strasser laments the dearth of exotic aliens in recent science fiction, and takes another look at the Robert Silverberg classic Downward to the Earth. Lachlan Walter dissects intimacy at the end of the world and Gillian Polack looks at the most famous end-of the world book set in Australia, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. The Secret History of Australia series, researched by Michael Pryor and Stephen Higgins, continues with the enigmatic Warren Nephron, son of the failed vulcanologist Harvey Lundquist and famous cross-country pole-vaulter, Petula Schiaperelli.

Reviews include latest releases from Justin Woolley, China Miéville, Brian Catling, Joe Abercrombie, John Birmingham and Letters to Tiptree (edited by Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein).

Two of Australia’s top speculative fiction artists, John Banitsiotis and Peter Allert, provide illustrations in this issue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Oct 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781922031419

Dirk Strasser (Editor)

Dirk Strasser has written over 30 books for major publishers in Australia and has been editing magazines and anthologies since 1990. He won a Ditmar for Best Professional Achievement and has been short-listed for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards a number of times. His fantasy novels – including Zenith and Equinox – were originally published by Pan Macmillan in Australia and Heyne Verlag in Germany. His children’s horror/fantasy novel, Graffiti, was published by Scholastic. His short fiction has been translated into a number of languages, and his most recent publications are “The Jesus Particle” in Cosmos magazine, “Stories of the Sand” in Realms of Fantasy and “The Vigilant” in Fantasy magazine. He founded the Aurealis Awards and has co-published Aurealis magazine for over 20 years.

Book preview

AUREALIS #85

Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction

Edited by Dirk Strasser

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2015

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor.

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922031-41-9

ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Hard copy back issues of Aurealis can be obtained from the Aurealis website:

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Contents

From the Cloud—Dirk Strasser

The Dreamscribe—Peter Hickman

The Events at Callan Park—Erol Engin

Dissecting SF: Intimacy and the End of the World—Lachlan Walter

Secret History of Australia—Warren Nephron—Researched by Michael Pryor

Life and Death in Small Things—Gillian Polack

Reviews

Next Issue

Credits

From the Cloud

Dirk Strasser

Everyone loves a good alien story, don’t they? Or is that just me? Some exotic planet with an alien species so strange we human interlopers completely misunderstand their motives and actions. Or where the aliens themselves act on a misinterpretation of our intentions with disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, we don’t see too many anymore in the Aurealis hidden gem pile. (I hate calling it a slush pile—it makes me want to be sluiced by a high pressure hose). Are these aliens becoming extinct?

I lamented at a recent Aurealis editors’ meeting that I remember reading some mind-blowing exotic planet/inscrutable alien stories years ago and that not only do we seem to see fewer stories around the theme these days, they didn’t seem as mind-blowing as they once were. Full marks to China Miéville for coming up with high-level inscrutable aliens a few years ago in Embassytown. The enigmatic Ariekei spoke a language that requires two words to be spoken at the one time. The problem for me was the Ariekei were so alien, I couldn’t warm to them. I guess that was the idea, but it didn’t quite bring back to me the wow-factor that I felt reading some of the older works.

I was beginning to wonder if it was me. Would I still enjoy the aliens from the past? I decided to put it to a test. The most exotic planet and inscrutable aliens I can remember from my early reading was Robert Silverberg’s Downward to the Earth. They don’t write ‘em like that anymore! Not one but two sentient species, with a strange mutual relationship that humans couldn’t figure out. Huge elephant-like nildoror and human-like but brutish sulidoror who were clearly subservient to the more intelligent species. And all of this on a planet dripping with exotica: jungles with parasitic fauna so far off the bizarre scale you need to come up with a new word to describe them, mysterious mist regions from which humans were banned travelling for unfathomable reasons, and an enigmatic protagonist who has returned to make up for the sins he committed during his first stay during the planet’s colonial past.

So I reread Downward to the Earth with a little trepidation. Was the meld of brooding beauty, mysterious motivations and grotesquerie still there? I more than half-expected I’d be disappointed and was a little surprised when I again felt the full brunt of its exotica. I was again immersed in the sheer alien-ness of the world and its two species. And the full force of the story had, if anything, even more impact. I was unaware of the Heart of Darkness allusions first time around, but on this reading they gave it more depth. For me the protagonist now seemed far more complex, his motives more tortured, the climax more profound. The world is the most vivid I’ve seen in science fiction. I can only hope that this Silverberg masterpiece finally does make it to the screen.

At least I know now it’s not that I’ve changed or that these stories have lost their power. The exotic aliens haven’t been pushed into extinction. I’m looking forward to seeing more spring to life from our hidden gem pile.

All the best from the cloud.

Dirk Strasser

www.dirkstrasser.com

Back to Contents

The Dreamscribe

Peter Hickman