Aurealis #146

By Dirk Strasser (Editor)

Aurealis #146 rounds off another year of fine speculative fiction and non-fiction by the Aurealis team. Kick off your fiction reading with the nightmarish, toothy horror of Verity Borthwick’s ‘The Tannfé’. Then move onto Maria Lewis’ ‘The House That Hungers’, a part haunted house story, part revenge fantasy, part omigod-when-are-we-ever-gonna-get-out-of-this-shit wish fulfilment spawned from so many of us forced to do battle with the confines of the walls around us. And finally taste Caitlin Rozakis’ eerie and emotional ‘Those Who Remain’ which opens with a hooded woman, a green lantern, and a haunted face, and find out why she keeps the lantern even as it feeds off her soul.
Amy Laurens explores the fraught history of goblins in ‘Goblins: Greed, Anti-Semitism and Neurodivergence Throughout History’. Lachlan Walter looks at Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Hopepunk, COVID-19 and the Fallacy of Near-Total Barbarism and Gillian Polack introduces us to world-building in early Australian speculative fiction.
And if you’re looking for long fiction SF, check out our reviewers’ picks for best speculative fiction books in 2021.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Nov 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922471116

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 #146

Edited by Dirk Strasser

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2021

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-11-6

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: www.aurealis.com.au

Contents

From the Cloud—Dirk Strasser

The Tannfé—Verity Borthwick

The House That Hungers—Maria Lewis

Those Who Remain—Caitlin Rozakis

Goblins: Greed, Anti-Semitism and Neurodivergence Throughout History—Amy Laurens

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Hopepunk, COVID-19 and the Fallacy of Near-Total Barbarism—Lachlan Walter

An Introduction to World-building in Early Australian Speculative Fiction—Gillian Polack

Reviews

Next Issue

Submissions to Aurealis

Credits

From the Cloud

Dirk Strasser

Not every new author is a new author. Sometimes, no matter how widely you read, no matter how well you think you know the genre, you come across an author that is brand new to you, someone who you hadn’t even heard of, someone who gets you thinking, ‘How could I have missed that one?’

Walter Tevis is one of those authors for me. I’m sure that quite a few of you reading this would be aware that he was a significant science fiction writer. I wasn’t. There are a lot of authors that I haven’t read, but I can’t even recall ever coming across Tevis’s name until about a year ago. He was brand new to me… so how could that have happened?

Well, part of the answer may be that the SF community seems to have forgotten him, perhaps because he was never as warmly embraced as he could have been in the first place. After all, he straddled the literary and genre audiences. Make no mistake though, he wasn’t one of those mainstream writers who dabbled in science fiction while somehow also being dismissive of it. He knew the tradition he was writing in.

I didn’t come across him because someone in the SF community mentioned his name. I first became aware of Walter Tevis as the author of the book on which the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit was based. I used to play quite a bit of chess up until about the age of thirteen or fourteen, and I found the series riveting on many levels. So much so that I sought out the book.

I was in for quite a few surprises. I discovered that 50% of Tevis’s novels have been made into major films. That’s a strike rate that few authors would surpass: The Hustler, The Colour of Money, The Man Who Fell to Earth… Wait, that science fiction movie starring David Bowie?

And it turns out half of his long fiction output was science fiction. Who knew? Well, obviously not me! After reading The Queen’s Gambit, I went straight to The Man Who Fell to Earth, a stranded alien story like no other, and Mockingbird, set in a drugged, depopulated world where most people can no longer read. They were both moving and powerful novels that showed a deep understanding of the genre and humanity. I’m now looking forward to reading his 1983 novel The Steps of the Sun, where the world is engulfed in an energy crisis and China is the leading superpower.

And then there are his short stories, some of them published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Galaxy. One that made an impact on me was ‘Rent Control’ which first appeared in Omni magazine in 1982 where a couple find that time literally stops when they touch each other. It’s a playful story with some profound undertones that develops in surprising ways.

As you’ve gathered by the dates of some of Walter Tevis’s publications, he isn’t a new writer. He is definitely of a previous generation. He died of lung cancer in 1984. But he is new to me. And I’m glad I discovered his works.

All the best from the cloud!

Dirk Strasser

Editor: Dirk Strasser

Dirk Strasser has won several Australian Publisher Association Awards and a Ditmar for Best Professional Achievement. His short story, ‘The Doppelgänger Effect’, appeared in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, Dreaming Down Under (Tor). Dirk’s fantasy trilogy The Books of Ascension (Pan Macmillan) and short stories have been translated into several languages. The short story version of Conquist was published in Dreaming Again (HarperCollins). His screenplay of Conquist was a Finalist at the 2019 Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival, Richmond International Film Festival, the Fresh Voices Original Screenplay Competition and the Byron Bay Film Festival. He has co-edited Australia’s premiere speculative fiction magazine Aurealis for over 120 issues and founded the Aurealis Awards. www.dirkstrasser.com.

Associate Editor: Scott Vandervalk

Scott Vandervalk has been a freelance editor for over 8 years, with projects ranging across the globe, from educational textbooks to novels, short stories, roleplaying games and boardgames, amongst other types of text. Scott has previously worked in science and education support, both of which have led to editing projects related to those fields. When not editing, Scott can also be found dabbling in gardening, cooking, writing or designing and playing games. Scott currently serves as president of the Bendigo Writers’ Council. Website: scottvandervalk.com.

Back to Contents

The Tannfé

Verity Borthwick

‘Never believed in the tooth-fairy myself—’ Shawn said.

‘Not even when you were small?’

‘Nope, not even. Put my parents through the wringer though. Worked out a pricing chart and everything. Figured the molars were worth a bit more. ’Specially those big bastards at the back.’

‘Clever of you.’ The dentist put on his mask. ‘Now, I need to take a look. Open a little wider, please. Thanks, yes, we’ll need some suction in there.’

‘Hmmpffs.’

‘I see. Yes, a bit to the left. Ah, there it is. Must have been quite a knock. You swallowed it?’

Nodding, face full of dental equipment.

‘Should be out the other end soon enough. Keep an eye out if you like. Not much to do today. We’ll need to make another appointment.’

After they were done, Shawn stood at reception, running his tongue over his remaining teeth. Bloody Bazza and his anvil head. Oh well. Couldn’t play rugby without chocking up a few war wounds.

The receptionist, a nice looking girl. ‘We’ll need to book you in for the implant. When are you available?’

* * *

Later that night, as he sat on the couch, laptop, whiskey, he mourned that tooth a little. Not enough to pick through his shit and retrieve it, but still, he was a handsome bloke, Cleo Magazine’s bachelor of the year finalist ‘09. He didn’t want holes in his face like some dero.

Besides which, it was a premolar—that was worth $1.50. Before inflation.

He took a swig of whiskey, wincing as hot pain seared across his jaw. The dentist had told him to stay off the grog. But he had a win to celebrate. He’d lost a tooth for that try. And anyway, wasn’t alcohol good for cleaning wounds?

He sat down in front of the laptop. Charting the latest up and coming pharmaceutical company. Don’t be a coward, make the call. He sent through buying instructions, tapped out a line of cocaine, snorted it and closed his laptop with a click.

Into the bathroom, forgo the teeth brushing tonight, the thought of accidentally touching that gaping hole with the bristles too sickening. And somewhere in his body, the tooth, floating through the acid of his belly, making its way along the tunnel of his intestines.

At the corner of his vision there was a flicker, a dark shift, and he turned his head from the mirror to look. Just a trick of the light, of the drugs. There was nothing there.

* * *

He woke to the alarm blaring, hand out from under the covers and fumbling around for the snooze button. His fingers touched something cold. Something round. Metal.

It was a coin. But like none he’d seen before. Old. A small warped piece of metal with an image pressed into it: two shadowy