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    Aurealis #55 Award Winners
    Aurealis #55 Award Winners
    Aurealis #55 Award Winners
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Aurealis #55 Award Winners

    By Dirk Strasser (Editor)

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    About this ebook

    This issue of the Australian magazine of fantasy, science fiction and horror, edited by Dirk Strasser, is our first special Aurealis Award Winners issue. 'Rains of la Strange' by Robert N Stephenson, an action-packed story set in a richly-realised milieu, won Best Science Fiction Short Story. Lisa L Hannett's 'The Short Go' was the joint winner in the Best Horror Short Story category.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChimaera Publications
    Release dateOct 3, 2012
    ISBN9781922031099
    Aurealis #55 Award Winners
    Author

    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.

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      Book preview

      Aurealis #55 Award Winners - Dirk Strasser (Editor)

      AUREALIS #55 Award Winners

      Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction

      Edited by Dirk Strasser, Michael Pryor and Carissa Thorp

      Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

      Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2012

      Copyright on each story remains with the contributor.

      EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922031-09-9

      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

      Rains of la Strange – Robert N Stephenson

      The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds – Lisa L Hannett

      What I Hate About Fantasy – Crisetta Macleod

      Conflux 2012 – Crisetta Macleod

      Reviews

      Carissa's Weblog – Carissa Thorp

      Next Issue

      Credits

      From the Cloud

      Dirk Strasser

      How important are literary Awards? Chimaera Publications decided some time ago that they were very important. Back in the early 1990s, we were publishing SF short stories and recognising and promoting the authors and Australian SF through Aurealis magazine, but we felt it wasn't enough. We wanted to go further and promote all aspects of Australian SF through a panel of experts system (as opposed to the fan-based popular vote involved in the Ditmars). We thought of them a little bit like the Australian version of the Nebulas, whereas the Ditmars were more like the Australian Hugos.

      At first Chimaera Publications was involved in discussions with a range of people across the Australian SF community about setting up an Awards system. Unfortunately, as often happens with these sorts of things, the discussions went around in circles for a while and didn't end up going anywhere. Chimaera Publications decided a couple of years later that this result wasn't really good enough. Australian SF deserved a rigorous Awards system that would have clout with publishers and the buying public. And we decided to just go ahead and do it.

      That was when the Aurealis Awards were born.

      We decided to come up with a unique system that suited the Australian SF Community's needs, rather than simply copying other Award systems. Our aim was simple. We wanted the Awards to reflect the best SF works published in a calendar year, not just the best SF works that had paid an entry fee, so we insisted that the Award entry was free. We also decided that we didn't want important works to be overlooked just because a publisher or editor determined that they weren't science fiction or fantasy or horror. The judgement call about genre was made by the judges on each panel. If they viewed something as science fiction, then it was considered in that category. If the fantasy panel considered the same work as fantasy, then they also considered it. And we insisted on ranging far and wide in our search for judges to ensure they reflected the broad spectrum of the Australian SF community. These were high ideals, and I believe the Awards have gained their high status as a result.

      You are now reading our first ever special Aurealis Award Winners issue. For the first time we're publishing stories that won Aurealis Awards in a calendar year. These stories were announced in a glittering ceremony in Sydney in May 2012, organised by the hard-working SpecFaction NSW team. 'Rains of la Strange' (what a great title) by Robert N Stephenson won the Science Fiction Short Story category. It's an action-packed story set in a richly-realised milieu. The story was published in a brilliant anthology Anywhere but Earth (Couer de Lion), edited by former Aurealis editor, Keith Stevenson. The version that appears in this issue of Aurealis is the one edited by Keith. The second story in this issue is 'The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds' by Lisa L Hannett which was a joint winner in the Horror Short Story Category. It appeared in her collection, Bluegrass Symphony (Ticonderoga Publications), which has been short-listed for the 2012 World Fantasy Awards. In addition, we have an article where avid fantasy reader, Crisetta MacLeod, grumbles about the sorts of things she hates in fantasy works, plus the usual news and reviews. Enjoy.

      The next issue will be our tenth and last for 2012.

      All the best from the cloud.

      Back to Contents

      Rains of la Strange

      Robert N Stephenson

      Tyson fast-dropped from the underside of the tower city. The sooner he retrieved the Thought, the sooner he could climb back to safety. The fall through atmosphere caused his ears to pop and his face prickled with the cold; the ear-shell crackled, the brass device an icy pain against his head, and for a moment he was out of communication with the tower. This was his punishment for a mistake. The clouds rushed at him, the drop line sang with tension.

      He'd trusted Shana, why hadn't she come to him? Her simple betrayal could end in his death; something he wasn't comfortable with, even if he had been counselled about the prospect. Once into the under-damp he had to recover the Thought and bring Shana back for adjustment—or termination if that failed.

      From sunlight he fell towards the clouds, a blanket over the land and a cushion between the races, a soft barrier separating the biological-machine-people of la Strange and the Thoughtless below. Humans also existed under the clouds but they only ever appeared when it was time to trade. Above him loomed the shadowed underside of the tower city, the winch handler now too small to see. It had been a year since he'd been under the civilised world and the massive tower that held it above the clouds. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew the base was fifteen kilometres below; he should touch land five kilometres from the barriers that protected it.

      'Station.' He touched the interact stud on his throat, the static had cleared in his ear-shell.

      'Report.'

      'Dropping through clouds, any indications on target's location?' He hoped the news was better than the last report.

      'Tracking system disabled. Last known location will show on your map. Proceed with caution. It is vital full retrieval be achieved.'

      'Tyson out.'

      Great. They didn't know where she was and he

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