Aurealis #156

By Dirk Strasser (Editor)

In this bumper end-of-year Aurealis issue, Dirk Strasser muses on the failed takeover of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House and the role of chance in the publishing industry. Visit the exotic and surprising fictional worlds in this issue. Scott Steensma’s ‘One Man Army’ is a laugh-out-loud blend of sardonic, melancholic and hopeful world-building; James Rowland’s ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’ is a bold story with a fable-style opening and shifts of perspective set in a wonderfully rendered world sprinkled with grounded moments of humanity; while Andrew T Sayre’s ‘The Ambassadors’ engaging first contact story ends with a moral dilemma punch. As usual, each story features a piece of artwork from some of the best SF artists in the field. Lynne Lumsden Green continues her Pioneering SF Women series with Joan D Vinge. Gillian Polack looks at the worldbuilding in Ernest Favenc’s The Secret of the Australian Desert. In a genre where cityscapes reign supreme, Lachlan Walter looks at Science Fiction in the Suburbs. The Aurealis reviewers provide a reading list for all of us as they pick their 2022 Best Speculative Fiction Books as well as providing a cornucopia of new reviews.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Nov 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922471222

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 #156

Edited by Dirk Strasser

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2022

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-22-2

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—Dirk Strasser

One Man Army—Scott Steensma

Seven Minutes in Heaven—James Rowland

The Ambassadors—A T Sayre

Pioneering SF Women: Joan D Vinge—Fairytale Futurist—Lynne Lumsden Green

Ernest Favenc’s White World in The Secret of the Australian Desert—Gillian Polack

Science Fiction in the Suburbs—Lachlan Walter

Reviews

Next Issue

Submissions to Aurealis

Credits

From the Cloud

Dirk Strasser

Many of you would be aware of the proposed $2.17 billion purchase of publishers Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House which would have created a publishing giant with 70% of the US literary and general fiction market.

The merger of the two publishers would have reduced the five major publishers to four—the other three being HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group and Macmillan. The US government didn’t think the purchase was a good idea for authors or readers and said it would ‘substantially lessen competition,’ so it blocked the merger earlier this month.

What’s fascinating is that the testimony in the court case this year has laid bare some of the mechanisms of how traditional publishing actually works. What caught my eye was a comment from the Macmillan CEO Don Weisberg, who when arguing against the merger, described publishing as ‘a business of gambling’. What made it even more interesting was that Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle arguing for the merger compared Penguin Random House to Silicon Valley ‘angel’ investors, saying, ‘We invest every year in thousands of ideas and dreams, and only a few of them make it to the top… Each book is unique and there’s a lot of risk.’

So the two opposing sides actually agree on the importance of luck in picking bestsellers.

The mega-selling SF author Stephen King testified as a witness for the government in the case, arguing that mergers in the publishing industry harm authors and are bad for the industry. He said that when he was an unknown author in the 70s, there were hundreds of imprints, competition was fierce, and he didn’t need an agent. Since then, the number of publishers has shrunk and with them the size of author advances and opportunities for new writers. ‘There comes a point,’ he said, ‘if you’re very, very, very fortunate, that you can stop following your bank account and follow your heart.’

In fact, Stephen King deliberately tested the importance of luck in publishing by writing five novels under the Richard Bachman pseudonym. In the eight years before Bachman was outed, Stephen King was a mega-seller while Bachman was a nobody. After he was outed, the Bachman book sales rocketed, quickly reaching 3 million copies. In his introduction to The Bachman Books Stephen King ruminates on the role of luck or accident in his own publishing success:

‘The fact that Thinner did 28,000 copies when Bachman was the author and 280,000 copies when Steve King became the author might tell you something, huh? Part of you wants to think that you must have been one hardworking SOB if you end up riding high in a world where people are starving, shooting each other, burning out, bumming out… but there’s another part that suggests it’s all a lottery, a real-life game show not much different from Wheel of Fortune or The New Price Is Right.’

What role does luck actually play in the publishing industry? Food for thought for all of us.

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 10 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 on the committee of the Bendigo Writers’ Council. Website: scottvandervalk.com.

Back to Contents

One Man Army

Scott Steensma

‘So. You need an interspecies intellectual property expert.’

Portia Ortega sat back in her seat, her dark eyes holding the gaze of the man sitting opposite her. Her feet swung from the chair, her beaten-up red sneakers hanging a full inch above the thick blue carpet.

Ian Rogerson leaned forward, his purple-check French-cuffed shirt sleeves slipping across the shiny mahogany of his desk as he brought his hands together. His eyes flicked past her faded skinny black jeans to the logo on her equally black t-shirt—a tabby cat holding an ACME style anarchists bomb—with only the slightest, very professionally suppressed hint of disapproval. Portia thought the old boy had taken the affectations of an old world lawyer a little far—the cuffs, links and unnecessarily grey quiff of hair were one thing but the aircraft carrier-sized antique desk bordered on being a touch… compensatory.

‘Yes. Our rights holders are big fans of your work on the Cetian agreement. They asked for you personally, wouldn’t take no for an answer. I told them they were dreaming—that you’d be on a tropical island somewhere, cocktail in hand.’ Rogerson smiled a smile that didn’t reach his pale blue eyes. The underlying message was as clear as if he had carved it into the top of his ridiculous desk—we know your life is a mess, we know you’re broke.

Portia returned the cold smile with an icy grimace of her own. ‘Well, I couldn’t stay away. I found out the hard way there are only so many mai tais in the sun a person can take.’

Rogerson’s right eyebrow lifted in amusement at Portia’s acknowledgement of her reputation, before his expression settled back into its natural state of arrogance with a hint of scorn. ‘Regardless, we’re glad you’re back. We have an exo civ, recently incorporated into our trade network and a signatory to the Fair Use Convention, who’ve taken a shine to some of our cultural IP. You’ve heard of the Together?’

Doing her best ignore the fact that Henning & Markovich clearly knew far more about her than she would like them to, Portia answered, ‘The bug race that does silksteel? The one we forced a trade agreement on? I’ve seen the streams. What have we got that they want so much?’

‘Usually, not much, which is a problem considering our balance of payments with them. In this case though it’s a series called…’ Rogerson looked down at his pad. ‘Rambo. Five works, all old 20th or so. Flat playback of filmed action, no VR or AR.’

Portia leaned back again, the black leather chair moaning as it tilted on its spring-and-wood base.

‘Rambo? What, it’s about a sheep?’

‘No.’ Rogerson peered at his pad again, scanning the text. ‘It’s the story of a war veteran. His patronym is Rambo. He’s the one-person-army sort so popular in the period. Starts fighting his own countrymen, moves on to fighting wars in several 20th century nation states. He’s a proxy for the wounded pride and lost vigour of his origin nation, as it entered senescence.’ Rogerson spun his pad around, showing the image it displayed—a half-naked, impossibly muscular man holding some sort of heavy weapon, his tumbling, silky tresses held back by a ragged strip of red fabric tied around his forehead.

Portia frowned, confused as to how this man represented anything more than an ad for hair products. ‘Okay, so the Together are nuts for this why?’

‘Who knows? Something in it appeals to bugs. Apparently it only took a few weeks to become the most popular cultural work on Salazar, their planet. The exo-specialists tell us that this isn’t uncommon in a hive species, that memes have a tendency to travel fast and penetrate deep in insect societies.’

Portia crossed her arms. ‘A straight licencing agreement isn’t something that would usually interest you Henning and Markovich boys.’

Rogerson smiled again, his face creasing into a predatory grimace that would give a deep-sea fisherman nightmares. ‘You know us well. They’ve been hiring human writers and performers to create sequels. So far they’ve made seven. Same characters, same settings. They’ve brought in Earth historians and even planted a jungle full of Earth plants. They’re almost indistinguishable from the originals, and they’re being broadcast as genuine continuations of the story.’

Portia raised a thick black eyebrow that had long ago burst from the banks of whatever grooming regime had once contained it.

‘Royalties?’

‘None.’

Portia’s brows knitted together into a scowl, deepening the lines around the corners of her eyes. ‘So you want me to go out there screw them over with the FUC.’

‘I wouldn’t use those terms, but that’s the gist. The Holders and the UN Interstellar Trade Agency are both riding us on this one, and they want a serious