Issue #52 is the July 2012 issue of the Aurealis magazine, a monthly magazine showcasing Australian speculative fiction and with an emphasis on Australian content and news. This edition was edited by Scott Vandervalk and Stephen Higgins.
Stephen Higgins wrote this month’s editorial, focusing on the process they use to choose stories for the magazine. It provides interesting insight, and well worth reading for any aspiring authors who might like to submit something to Aurealis in the future. Hang on a second, that’s me!
I loved both stories in this month’s edition, although they were radically different in tone.
Time Travel For Dummies by Michael Burrows leads out this month. This was an extremely funny story, built around a single joke but executed very well. I’ve been trying (and failing) to think of a way of describing the story that doesn’t give the gag away – lets just say that it is an excellent take on the time travel theme, very Australian in content, and does a great job of a slow reveal. Highly recommended.
You would not really use the word “funny” to describe Do You Want to Live Forever? by Robert N Stephenson. This much less light-hearted story focusing on the life of Carlyle, a demon hunter masquerading as a hunter of serial killers, until he becomes hunted himself. The story was well written but felt a little truncated, as if we were getting a small glimpse into a larger world that Stephenson had created. I enjoyed Stephenson’s Rains of la Strange in the excellent anthology Anywhere But Earth (reviewed here), but I haven’t read anything else by him so I’m not sure if this story is part of a wider series set in this world. If so, this story is an excellent appetite whetter!
As always Carissa’s Weblog provides a round up of some of the more interesting articles around on the web in the area of Australian speculative fiction, mostly in the form of audio interviews and video. There were also significant number of reviews of both books, TV series and some interesting comments on the viability on TV series produced for cable channels. Robert N Stephenson makes some forceful comments on the behavioural patterns of published authors in the regular Rob’s Rants and Raves column.
Overall another good read, reminding me why I subscribe to this excellent Australian magazine.
This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.
