Aurealis #157

By Dirk Strasser (Editor)

We have lift off for 2023. Aurealis has once again blasted through the exosphere and is exploring new worlds of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Join us for Madeline Byrne’s ‘Song of the Spear’, a tightly braided historical fantasy inspired by Norse and Celtic mythologies. Stay for ‘The Momentum of a Library Card Between Spaces’ where Anthony Sweet explores the human cost of faster-than-light technology and asks the question, ‘What could an individual agree to or suffer through to enable transportation over great distances?’ And don’t miss ‘Autonomous’, Lyle Hopwood’s cautionary tale about the fallibility of AI and the value of human intervention. Daniel Thompson gives us his Thoughts on Interstellar Trade and Transport and Phil Nicholls is in conversation with Eugen Bacon The Craft of Writing: Chasing Whispers. There is another feast of reviews in this issue including Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth and Kate Elliott’s The Keeper’s Six as well as short story collections Charm, Strangeness, Mass and Spin by Stephen Dedman and Liminal Spaces by Deborah Sheldon. Plus artwork alone worth the price of subscription by Emma Weakley, Kim Lennard and James Spence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922471239

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 #157

Edited by Dirk Strasser

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2023

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-23-9

ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

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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

Song of the Spear—Madeline Byrne

The Momentum of a Library Card Between Spaces—Anthony Sweet

Autonomous—Lyle Hopwood

Thoughts on Interstellar Trade and Transport—Daniel Thompson

The Craft of Writing: Chasing Whispers—Phil Nicholls

Reviews

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From the Cloud

Dirk Strasser

We are living in the golden age of fantasy prequels. At least on screen. I’m usually a little wary of prequels. To me, they suffer one big handicap compared to non-prequels: we know the ending. Take away the tension of an uncertain ending and the narrative drive can falter. There are ways around this problem but, in my view, prequels are behind the eight ball from the start.

The prominence of The Rings of Power (2022–) and House of the Dragon (2022–) has created a lot of discussion on what makes a good prequel. Film critic Steven D Greydanus refers to Shrinking World Syndrome, saying, ‘As a franchise plays out, very often, the more the mythology expands, the smaller the universe gets. Previously unconnected characters and events that gave the fictional universe a certain expansiveness are increasingly tied together for dramatic effect, until the whole story is about a small group of closely connected individuals.’

There’s no doubt that great prequels expand the universe rather than repeat it. Given this criteria, Molly Templeton in her Tor.com article argues that The Rings of Power is coming up a little short so far. She says, ‘With three thousand years of history to explore, we’re getting the same familiar faces again—Galadriel, Elrond, Gandalf, Sauron. Is the world really so small that these are the only ones with stories worth telling? The best parts of the show, for me, are Nori and Adar and Bronwyn and Arondir—they’re the ones who make the world feel larger and richer and give the illusion that things are happening even in the places where there isn’t a camera to see it.’ In defence of the writers, however, you could argue that the longevity of the main players in the Tolkien universe inevitably requires that they be prominent in The Rings of Power prequel.

According to some, the House of the Dragon has a different problem. With its concoction of murder, revenge, infighting, incest and dragons, does it appear to be a little too familiar to be considered a truly great prequel? Sure, we’re getting more dragons and more Targaryens, but is simply more what good prequels are about? Is it repeating rather than expanding the universe? Still, the revenge cycle worked brilliantly in Game of Thrones (2011-2019), so why not keep it cycling? In the end, the overriding hope for fans is that House of the Dragon provides redemption after the much-maligned ending of Game of Thrones. Give us more of the same, but with a better ending.

What about prequels in fantasy books? The first prequel I read was C S Lewis’ Narnia book The Magician’s Nephew (1955). I remember trying to get my head around the bewildering fact that the book about the origin of Narnia—which included an explanation of how a London lamppost came to appear in a Narnian forest in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)—could be the sixth book in a seven-book series. Publishers have since released the series in chronological order so that newer generations will read The Magician’s Nephew first. The interesting thing is that The Magician’s Nephew prequel works either way because it is self-contained. Perhaps another criterion for a great prequel is that it can be read independently.

A more recent prequel I’ve read is Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage (2017), the first book in The Book of Dust trilogy. Philip coins the term ‘equel’ for this novel, describing it a companion work to his His Dark Material trilogy that can be read on its own. Whatever the case, it seems to also meet the other criteria for great prequels by expanding our understanding of the divinatory alethiometer and the enigmatic particle Dust. Pullman manages to maintain high levels of tension, despite the fact that we know the baby Lyra will survive, by focusing the story on a new character Malcolm who is trying to save her.

One thing isn’t in doubt: when a prequel is done really well, it can be immensely satisfying.

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: 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 with Andromeda Spaceways Magazine. He can be found at terrywood.com.au.

Back to Contents

Song of the Spear

Madeline Byrne

Caithness. Twelve women ride steady across the marsh, the hooves of their dark horses bearing mud from as far west as Morac. A man, Daurrud, watches them arrive, but it is his smallest and most steadfast daughter, Inga, who he orders to follow them.

She gives him the swift promise that she will relay all that she sees and moves light-footed through the dark gateway of trees. Some hundred yards into the forest, Inga watches the riders dismount. Almost at once they are lost in shadow, the hems of their cloaks disappearing inside the barbed shelter of a bower. It stands as tall as the surrounding pines, shaped like the bulb of a spiked flower.

A window, no more than a slit in the branches. Inga peers through at the women inside.

Their hoods are removed now. They sit at stools and drape themselves against looms like living statues, ready to resume their positions for eternity. Each has skin the colour of a different season; some are as warm as wet sand, others glisten, dark as bracken after rainfall. One blends in seamlessly with the shadows of the bower but for the whites of her eyes, while another has skin as transparent as ice on a northern beach. Inga can see her skeleton underneath, the bolts of blue veins that wrap her arms.

The women are so striking that Inga does not immediately notice that which tugs the breath from her body, as though nabbed by a fisherman’s hook. Hesitation pierces her, small and sharp as a needle. She has lived more than ten winters now, and there is something about the newly frosted air against her cheeks that spurs inside a new confidence. A powerful and likeable feeling. It is the handling of a new weapon that she will carry for the rest of her life, beginning this day. Secrecy. A tool befitting a queen.

What she intends to describe to her father will become a currency with which he can trade on for years. A story that has the power and foresight to cause families to weep, to make churchmen’s skin crawl. And yet, Inga’s father will only know the half of it.

Over Inga’s shoulder, an inky raven watches unseen. It blinks slowly, intent on carrying a message of its own.

Clontarf. The makings of a battle, of civil war. A place for kings and their kin to die, where Norse and Irish blood, already mixed, will spill hard on rounded shields. Soldiers,