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    Aurealis #72
    Aurealis #72
    Aurealis #72
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Aurealis #72

    By Michael Pryor (Editor)

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Aurealis #72 features the testing and touching ‘Age’ from Ashlee Jade and the tough and turbulent ‘Ballard and Ballard: A Biopunk Detective Tale of 2080 AD’ from Steven Ma. Shane M Brown offers some salient advice with ‘The Pitfalls of Self-Publishing’. With some of the most searching SF/Fantasy reviews available anywhere and top-notch artwork, Aurealis #72 is bursting with goodness.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChimaera Publications
    Release dateJul 12, 2014
    ISBN9781922031280
    Aurealis #72

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      Book preview

      Aurealis #72 - Michael Pryor (Editor)

      AUREALIS #72

      Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction

      Edited by Michael Pryor

      Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

      Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2014

      Copyright on each story remains with the contributor.

      EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922031-28-0

      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

      Age—Ashlee Jade

      Ballard and Ballard: A Biopunk Detective Tale of 2080 AD—Steven HK Ma

      The Value of Customer Reviews to the Self-Published Novelist—Shane M Brown

      Reviews

      Next Issue

      Credits

      From the Cloud

      Michael Pryor

      Last month’s Aurealis editorial concentrated on what we don’t want to see in stories submitted to this publication. This month, in a fit of positivity, we want to share with you some of the things we look for, the aspects of Fantasy and SF writing that charm us and are likely to get the nod for inclusion in Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running speculative fiction magazine.

      1. Good writing. By this, we mean more than a simple facility with written English. Even though this is important, it should be a given, a basic expectation of any submission. Rather, we enjoy apposite language, sentences with flexibility and rhythm, dialogue that is alive with character and intonation, complexity of construction and stark simplicity used in the right times and places.

      2. Voice. This is hard to define, and has much to do with the point above. Your story should sound individual and alive through its narrative point of view.

      3. Characters. Your main character should be engaging. That’s it in a nutshell. Of course, there are a million different ways to make your main character engaging. You just have to choose the right one and implement it deftly.

      4. Originality. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your central premise needs to be wildly new, although this is desirable. A fresh take on a well-established concept is good. Quirky, idiosyncratic characters are also useful in upping your originality quotient.

      5. Conciseness. Be economical with your story.

      6. Quick movement into the heart of the story. We are a short story journal, which means you don’t have unlimited space to work with. This can be a challenge in Fantasy and SF, where world-building and background detail is important, but do your best. Don’t linger too long in the set-up. You’ll lose us.

      7. Hard SF. We don’t get enough of these sort of stories.

      8. Humour—but it has to be really funny.

      9. Diversity. Think about your characters. Are you making unwarranted assumptions about dominant cultures? Are you overlooking possibilities?

      10. The X Factor. It could be freshness, it could be the unexpected, it could be something shocking, or it could be something that makes us grin or wince or sit up straight after the first paragraph. We can’t tell you what the X Factor is, exactly, but we know it when we see it. Including it is a good thing.

      Aurealis is, and always has been, committed to publishing the finest in Australian speculative fiction. With your help, we will continue to do so.

      Back to Contents

      Age

      Ashlee Jade

      Fifteen stories stretch below me. Fifteen layers of concrete and glass and blackened air leading to the inevitable crunch at the bottom. He’ll call soon. I guess I should wait for that. I’d hate to be on the ground by the time he calls. It’d be unbelievably anticlimactic and a little immature. He’d want me to answer before I jumped. He’d want a chance to talk me out of it. I don’t know why he bothers. It’s not like he can’t understand, after all he’s in this boat too.

      My telephone vibrates in my hand. A strange sensation. His voice sounds recorded over the line.

      ‘What do you want for dinner?’

      ‘Really? I’m about to jump off a building and you ask me what I want for dinner?’

      ‘Oh. Is that where you’ve gone? One minute you’re trying to hook up the television, the next you grab your coat and swan off. You should tell me next time. I could get champagne. Anyway, are omelettes okay? Cause I really can’t be bothered defrosting any meat tonight.’

      ‘How about I pick up something on the way home?’

      ‘So you’re not going to jump?’ He sounds more surprised than relieved.

      ‘Oh, I’m still gonna jump. I went to all the trouble of climbing all those stairs.’

      ‘Don’t most buildings have elevators these days?’

      ‘Yeah, but this one was broken.’

      ‘Well you can’t

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