#Aurealis 160

By Michael Pryor (Editor)

Aurealis #160 features the stylish ‘The Palm Leaf’ by Deborah Sheldon, the poignant ‘Dreams of You’ by John Davis and the engrossing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by James Milton. We also have top non-fiction from Kris Ashton, David Ellrod and by Emmet O’Cuana. Our dazzling internal art comes from Leah Clementson, Chris Catlin and Andrew Saltmarsh, while our comprehensive Reviews section isn’t to be missed.
Aurealis, unbelievable value for money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922471260

Book preview

AUREALIS #160

Edited by Michael Pryor

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2023

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-26-0

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 Palm Leaf—Deborah Sheldon

Dreams of You—John Davis

You’ll Never Walk Alone—James Milton

Cockroach Horror—Kris Ashton

What’s So Cosy About Cosy Catastrophes?—David F Ellrod Sr

Paying to Play: The Monetisation of Dungeons and Dragons—Emmet O’Cuana

Reviews

Next Issue

Submissions to Aurealis

Credits

From the Cloud

Michael Pryor

Fantasy is the home of the series. After all that worldbuilding, one volume isn’t enough, right? The vast canvas of most imagined worlds need two, three, four or more books in order to do it justice.

In many cases, this is true and there’s nothing like the deep and total immersion in an invented world with all its characters and knowing that, as a reader, you can stay under for a good, long, rewarding time.

On the other hand, sometimes we need the standalone novel, a single volume that is entire unto itself, when all is said and done at the close of that back cover. Here are some of our favourites.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Elegant, brittle, period perfect in its pitch, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a gracious dream where magic, politics and ways of being intersect in a stately dance.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Swashbuckling, derring-do and adventures ahoy, and full of Gaiman charm, it has a melancholy side that adds to its wistfulness. It doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. Fantasy? Science fiction? Fever dream? Perdido Street Station is dark and allusive, rich and pointed, sardonic and memorable.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. A lush and fragrant fantasy that transports readers in the best traditions of the genre.

To those of you who say that some of the single volumes we suggest above are monstrously long and could really be split into two or three books thereby invalidating our argument, we say ‘Maybe they could, maybe they could…’

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: 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

The Palm Leaf

Deborah Sheldon

Although not seriously, not really, Fay has thought about killing her husband for a long time.

They have three grown children who are flung across the globe: a son teaching in England, a daughter designing aeroplane parts in the United States, the youngest in the process of discovering himself via Indian communes. The children’s correspondence by text, email or postcard is uniformly sporadic, brief, remote. Fay reads their correspondence to Neil as he watches TV. When she writes back—always remarking upon the vagaries of Melbourne’s weather—she signs off Much love from Mum and Dad xxoo.

Neil is a real estate agent who has his suits dry-cleaned at a family-owned laundrette, which is situated four shops along from his agency in a suburban strip mall. Fay takes the suits on Wednesdays and picks them up on Fridays. Neil has a vast array of work suits in colours from champagne to indigo to olive to brown to grey to navy to charcoal. He has a vaster array of shirts and ties to match. Fay drives a cheap runabout car because Neil doesn’t believe she should take the bus; her contribution to the marriage is just as important as his, after all, even though she doesn’t earn a single cent. Every four weeks, she takes his ties to the drycleaners. When it comes to his shirts, however, Neil prefers Fay to wash, starch and iron them herself, a long-standing marital tradition that takes place every Sunday morning in the lounge room while Neil reads the newspaper.

But the suits are her main concern.

Dry-cleaning solvent has a strong odour. Fay must air the suits for hours on the back patio, hanging them from a clothesline under the pergola roof before transferring them onto wooden coathangers and racking them on Neil’s side of the walk-in wardrobe. (Though, despite her efforts, their bedroom always has a faint, kerosene-like smell.) This dropping off-collecting-airing-racking routine has been the mainstay of Fay’s weekly ritual for over 30 years. Perhaps Fay could have lived like this for another 30 years, cocooned in her four-bedroom two-bathroom double-garage suburban home, taking suits to and from the drycleaners each week, but for a single phone call that changed the trajectory of her life.

She remembers the phone call quite well, even now.

Neil had his mobile against his round, flabby face, and what little light remained in his washed-out blue eyes receded like the tide. Fay had been doling out their dinner of bacon quiche. It was the start of September. The bulbs in the garden beds lining the pergola had just pushed out their first flush of jaundice-yellow jonquils. These are flowers that smell like piss.

‘What is it?’ Fay said, hovering the spatula mid-air.

‘Okay,’ Neil said into his phone. ‘Thank you. Okay, I will. Uh-huh. Sure. Okay. Bye.’

The children, Fay thought, and felt a blank space where her three children should have been, her three little strangers who had fled to other sides of the world.

Neil hung up and said, ‘I’ve got prostate cancer.’

After a moment, she put down the spatula, wiped her hands, took off her apron, walked around the kitchen bench and let Neil’s open arms enfold her. She could hear the thready thrum of his heart through the starch of his pinstripe shirt.

‘We’ll manage,’ Fay said. ‘We’ll get through it together.’

‘That’s right. We always do, don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

We always do, don’t we?

Friday afternoon. Fay has returned from the drycleaners with her armfuls of reeking suits.

* * *

Radiotherapy isn’t bothering Neil in the slightest. He works, still has his appetite, sleeps like a rock and wakes refreshed. Once the doctors consider that his tumour has shrivelled sufficiently, they will operate and then start him on chemotherapy. Neil repeatedly jokes that since he’s already bald, chemotherapy won’t bother him either. Fay is not so optimistic. At the very least, treatment will drag on for months. While none of the children offers to return, they each send their love like clockwork every Saturday. They must have decided to coordinate their support for fear of taking a solitary peek above the parapet. Regardless, Fay always remarks upon the vagaries of Melbourne’s weather, and replies, Much love from Mum and Dad xxoo.

Fay opens the back door to the pergola. The air smells woody and floral. It’s mid-October, the dead centre of spring. The neighbour’s concealed gardenias are flowering behind the high fence that separates their two properties. Fay has never seen her neighbour. The smell of the gardenias overpowers the jonquils.

Fay hangs up the suits and rips off their plastic bags. The plastic is so thin and full of static that it clings to her, as gummy as jellyfish tentacles. Every Friday when she wraps the discarded plastic into a ball, the urge to instead wrap it around and around her face causes her diaphragm to spasm and force out a little strangled cough. The smell of solvent makes her dizzy on the one hand, and on the