Join us for an Aurealis issue packed with SFF surprises, quirks and charms. Dirk Strasser concludes his series on the origin and early years of the Aurealis Awards in their thirtieth anniversary year with some stories about the first Award ceremonies. Rosanna Watts explores the psychological distress caused by environmental change in 'Goodbye Lucy'. Stephen Higgins' 'Context' is a ghost story that's really about being human. Ben Blattberg's 'How Grandpa Bear Saved Old Oak From Fire' looks ...

Don't miss Aurealis #177 which welcomes you to the first of our 10 issues for 2025. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the Aurealis Awards, and Dirk Strasser takes us back to 1995 to show us how it all started. Baden M Chant's 'Dying Mountain' gives us a unique world where being a mage has the mundane downside of magical illnesses. In Scott Steensma's 'Full Term' an ordinary setting takes an enjoyable abrupt left turn into science fiction, rapidly increasing the stakes towards a bea...

In this issue, as part of the thirtieth anniversary celebration of the Aurealis Awards, Dirk Strasser looks back at the early days and argues that the lasting success of the Awards comes down to the judges and the foundation of the judging process. Anya Ow's 'Old New Soul' provides a novel twist on the Taoist reincarnation theory, where people are reborn into new lives after death, with their new bodies based on the good (or evil) that they'd done in their previous lives. Miriam Fietz's 'E...

In his Editorial in Aurealis #175, Dirk Strasser explores how the interaction between the Familiarity and Novelty Effects plays a crucial role in book choices, where readers simultaneously crave the comfort of the familiar and the frisson of the new. Fiction in this issue includes Conor Scanlan's tense Kaiju-inspired 'Sui Generis' (illustrated by Lynette Watters) which opens a fascinating window into another culture. Rodney J Smith's 'The Black Rain of Cerebor' (illustrated by Andrew Saltm...

In a blockbuster issue to finish the year, Aurealis #176 has it all! Dirk Strasser asks whether the genres of historical fiction and fantasy are a natural fit. The short fiction offering opens with the visceral and immersive 'Red Rain' by John Ter Horst (illustrated by Emma Weakley), which grounds the reader in a sensory environment and ends with a thought-provoking and confronting conclusion. Matt Tighe's intriguing 'The Market of Loss' (illustrated by Leah Clementson) features mother and...

Aurealis does it again in this issue with a full-to-the-brim magazine of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Dirk Strasser looks at the growing wave of historical fantasy (or histasy) publishing in his editorial, and our non-fiction includes 'Hiding Your Gender: The Politics of Gender in the SF Publishing Industry' by Lynne Lumsden Green, 'Adventures in Literary Forensics: Chandler's Lost Stories' by Steve Davidson, and a cluster of incisive and entertaining reviews. As always, however, t...

In his Editorial in Aurealis #159, Dirk Strasser asks the question: 'Does the wave of AIs with natural language capabilities herald the end of fiction?'—and provides some intriguing answers. Three human-created stories follow. In 'A Dead World Wakens', Amy Dawn Buchan has a unique take on a post-apocalyptic Earth, combining the concept with alien colonisation and the ethical conundrum of reviving an extinct species. J R Dunbar's 'The Bridge from the City Midst' is a thoughtful tale of the ...

Welcome aboard the good ship Aurealis on its second speculative voyage for this year. In his Editorial, Dirk Strasser road-tests two AIs—one text-to-image and one text-to-text—that have exploded into the public consciousness in recent months. On the fiction front we discover the bizarre ways in which societies can react to threats in Robinne Weiss' 'Section 7.3', a novel concept of Death in Patrick Axford's 'Buttons', and the Shakespearean subversion of the idea of the evil corporation in ...

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 enab...

What's the longest SF novel ever written? You may be surprised by the answer in Dirk Strasser's Editorial in Aurealis #155. Take a deep dive into the speculative depths of the latest issue. Baden M Chant's ethereal, and elegiac 'The Winding-Sheet' asks, does it matter if we can upload our memories if we must die anyway? Greg Foyster's 'Shitmining' is a futuristic reimagining of the 'Guano Age' mashed with Peruvian legend. Jared Millet's 'Bigger Fish' is a story that will hook you with its ...

After whetting your appetite with this issue's editorial where Dirk Strasser compares the premiere episodes of House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power, take your time tasting the other delicacies in Aurealis #154. First feast on the fiction: Aidan Doyle's original and evocative time loop story, 'Sword, Salmon, Castle'; John Kinsella's dreamlike, meandering and lyrical 'World Made Whole Again' and Chris Butler's absorbing mystery 'The Sculptor'. Lynne Lumsden Green looks at one of SF's p...

In this bumper end-of-year Aurealis issue, Dirk Strasser muses on the failed takeover of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House and the role of chance in the publishing industry. Visit the exotic and surprising fictional worlds in this issue. Scott Steensma's 'One Man Army' is a laugh-out-loud blend of sardonic, melancholic and hopeful world-building; James Rowland's 'Seven Minutes in Heaven' is a bold story with a fable-style opening and shifts of perspective set in a wonderfully render...