Aurealis #142

By Michael Pryor (Editor)

Our July issue has landed, and it brings you some absorbing, compelling and thought-provoking reading, with the tender and touching ‘The Martian Diary’ from Stuart Bullock, the delightful and surprising ‘The Gene Witch and the Orchard’ from Phil Dyer and the choice worldbuilding of ‘Access Denied’ from Baden Chant. Our non-fiction features Claire Fitzpatrick’s deep dive into Anne Rice’s Science Fiction and Lachlan Walter’s robust exploration of cannon, continuity and creativity. This issue’s stunning internal art comes from Joel Bisaillon, Rebecca Stewart and Hannah Dunn, while our Reviews section is jam-packed with books to ad to your TBR list. We’ve also added a new feature where we introduce the people behind all this wonder, the hard-working Aurealis team. This month, it’s Eugen Bacon, our Reviews Manager. Aurealis: we bring you many worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Jul 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922471079

Book preview

AUREALIS #142

Edited by Michael Pryor

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2021

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-07-9

ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors, editors and artists.

Hard copy back issues of Aurealis can be obtained from the Aurealis website: www.aurealis.com.au

Contents

From the Cloud—Michael Pryor

The Martian Diary—Stuart Bullock

Access Denied—Baden M Chant

The Gene Witch and the Orchard—Phil Dyer

Spotlight on Eugen Bacon

Anne Rice’s Delve into Science Fiction—Claire Fitzpatrick

Breaking the Shackles of Canon and Continuity—Lachlan Walter

Reviews

Next Issue

Submissions to Aurealis

Credits

From the Cloud

Michael Pryor

One percenters

Over our thirty years of publishing, the Aurealis editors have read hundreds, possibly thousands of submissions. From this, we’ve seen many ways to create a successful story, and many ways to create an unsuccessful story—see the editorial in Aurealis #71 for our discussion of the latter, and the editorial in Aurealis #72 for our suggestions for the former.

Those editorials looked at substantial approaches and techniques for story writing, reasonably big picture stuff. At the other end of the scale are the nitty-gritty ‘one percenters’ that can add polish to your story, to make it sound more professional and to avoid wince-making moments. Here are some we’ve gleaned over the years.

Avoid fluffy intensifiers (incredibly, amazingly, unbelievably).

Be careful of ‘really’ instead of ‘very’.

Adverbs are not your friend (see Stephen King).

Use contractions in dialogue.

Avoid sentences that start with ‘As you know, Brian …’.

Be careful using sentences that start with ‘There was …’.

Avoid characters having names that start with the same letter.

Get the main character’s name into the first paragraph.

Don’t be afraid of using ‘said’ in dialogue attributions.

Learn the difference between the comma and the full stop.

Don’t take the descriptive shortcut of comparing a character to a famous film star.

In fact, don’t take descriptive shortcuts at all.

Find ways other than using adjectives to describe.

Be careful of using two ‘ands’ in a sentence. ‘He went down to the shop and saw a chook and he was surprised.’.

Avoid the overuse of alternative descriptors (Joe, the red-haired boy, Bill’s best friend, the joker).

Be very, very wary of including a dream sequence.

All the best from the cloud!

Michael Pryor

Editor: Michael Pryor

Michael Pryor has published more than 35 novels and 50 plus short stories. He has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Award nine times, and eight of his books have been CBCA Notable books. His website is www.michaelpryor.com.au.

Associate Editor: Terry Wood

Terry Wood is a political consultant, writer and editor from Brisbane, and has been an Associate Editor and Non-fiction Coordinator for Aurealis since 2015. He has also been involved previously with Andromeda Spaceways Magazine. He can be found at terrywood.com.au.

Back to Contents

The Martian Diary

Stuart Bullock

20 July 2093

Dear John,

Introductions are interesting, except when adults do them. I cringe when Dad introduces me to others. He always says something asinine, like: ‘Pleased to meet you. This is my daughter, Posie,’ and then I want to be anywhere else. To being, my name is Posie, as in the nursery rhyme, and no, you can’t think of a joke about it that I haven’t heard already.

I’m either seven Martian years old or fifteen Earth ones. Depends on how you consider me. You might ask: ‘Is Posie a Martian girl or an Earth one?’ I know I do. Dad says the answer is whatever I want it to be, which isn’t really an answer, but that’s adults for you. Me? I don’t think I’m either. Consider the facts. I was born in an orbiter circling the planet Mars, which makes me Martian, but not really, and my ancestors are from Earth, which makes me an Earthian, although not really.

But what’s not dull is I’m writing to you on actual paper. Can you believe that? I can’t explain what paper is, but if you’re holding this in your hands, then you know. I found a black folio, at least that’s what it says on the cover, after they gave me Mr Watts’ quarters. I explored all the places no one looks and found this book of blank pages hidden away. Dad says it was against regulations, but now I have it, I might as well keep it. Mum, of course, wasn’t so sure.

‘Paper? That’s rare,’ said Mum. ‘You ought to hand it to the authorities.’

‘It’s rare and useless,’ countered Dad. ‘What can anyone do with it? I say keep it, Posie. Besides, the law clearly states that everything Alf Watts owned is yours. Who’ll miss it anyway? It’s worthless.’

Paper may be worthless when everything you say can be uploaded to the orbiter’s computer and then imaged directly on your retina by a cellular projector, but it’s not useless. Dad was wrong because you can write on it. That’s a trick, isn’t it?

At school, we learnt to read but not write. Funny, isn’t it, because writing is the other side of reading if that makes sense. This meant I practised for months before I started this letter, which is why some pages are missing. You see, Mr Watts had pencils, about two dozen of them, and I went through at least half until my writing no longer looked like strange upside-down calligraphy written in zero gravity.

When you look at words on a page, it’s different to a projection. The written words, with their dark letters, don’t fade or disappear. They remain. You close the book and open it, and there, springing up to surprise you, are the words you’d written before. They have permanence, and what is written cannot be un-wrote.

In part, that’s why I’m writing to you. It means once I’m long dead, you’ll hold these permanent words in your hands and read them as a young man in a new world. I’m sure you’ll begin to wonder about me and why I call you John.

The truth is I don’t know your real name. To me, you are E9209, which is the serial number on the side of your cryo-chamber. That’s the name I used for you when I first saw you a year ago. Now I see you every day to monitor your vital signs, which I do with my Dad before school. You’re one of the thousands we both check regularly.

The electroencephalograph indicates you’re dreaming, and between you and me, you’ve been dreaming a lot lately. Your current dream is a week old already and continuing, which is a record, I think, but your face remains expressionless. I can’t tell if it’s a good dream or a nightmare. I hope your visions are pleasant, but not too much otherwise you’d not want to wake up and do your duties.

But since E9209 is a stupid name, I call you ‘John’. I know that's a boring name, but when you’re called Posie, a bland name’s a good one. I hope you don’t mind. We’re not allowed to know your actual name, which is another moronic rule like no ball games in the zero-gravity area. How’s it going to hurt either of us if I know your name? I’ll be dead long before you wake up in another millennium.

Actually, I hope you wake up. I’m told one in three of the ‘chosen frozen’ will die on re-animation. I pray it’s not you. You look my age and must have been put into cryogenics on Earth, decades before I was born. In a strange way, this means I’ve got feelings for an older man. That’s so funny because when you’re re-animated, I’ll be an ancient skeleton. If you’ve any feelings for me, then it’ll be for an older woman. How funny is that?

A confession. I envy you, just a sliver, because you were born on Earth and saw real sunsets. In a few thousand years, you’ll live again on Mars, after we terraform it, and continue to see real sunsets and breathe un-recycled air. I won’t. Ever.

All this writing hurts my hand, so today’s letter is done. I’ll write again soon.

Love Posie

* * *

3 August 2093

Dear John,

I noticed you stopped dreaming when I checked your cryo-chamber today. I mentioned it to Dad,