Aurealis #158

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 Robert Bagnall’s ‘Thus With a Kiss I Die’, with striking images created by real people: Zuzanna Kwiecien, Peter Allert and Renkai Liu. For non-fiction Lynne Lumsden Green continues our look at Pioneering SF Women: ‘Vonda N McIntyre: Good Things Come from Getting Involved’, Eugen Bacon highlights ‘Dominant Themes in Afro-centric Fiction’, and Amy Laurens gives us ‘Discworld: An Introduction to Terry Pratchett’s Philosophy and Legacy’. If you’re looking at add to your SF reading list, we have a cornucopia of reviews, including ‘The Science of Witchcraft’ by Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence, ‘Firewalkers’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky, ‘Notorious Sorcerer’ (The Burnished City #1) by Davinia Evans, and ‘How to survive your magical family’ by Clare Rhoden.