Aurealis #178

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 ‘Everyday Discourses in Cultural Humanism’ is a literal exploration of alienation in the modern world through an alien. Jake Stein’s ‘Worse Companions’ is a story of redemption involving some intriguing world-building. Story illustrations in this issue are by Hannah Dunn, Simon Walpole and Joel Bisaillon. Joseph Sullivan discusses the legacy of Clark Ashton Smith, who along with HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, helped to define the genre of weird fiction. Claire Fitzpatrick looks at the early years of Frankenstein in pop culture, while Stuart Olver introduces us to Tasmanian Gothic. And, as usual, we have a smorgasbord of SFF reviews to whet your appetites for new fiction.