Aurealis #126

Aurealis rounds out another year of strong stories with the November issue #126. Dirk Strasser revisits the Genre Effect study in his editorial and poses his own Game of Thrones Effect theory to explain the results. This issue features ‘Marked for Life’, J.R. Schuyler’s powerful tale of blood magic, snowbeasts and transformation, Stephen Higgin’s quirky and enigmatic ‘Cradle’, and the dark science fiction of Eric Del Carlo’s gender and identity exploration story ‘Flesh of the Other’. Kristina Grifantini explores what's next for the 'Weird West', Lachlan Walter points out why retrofuturism never goes out of fashion, while Gillian Polack tells us to close this book if we're are under eighteen years old. Our suite of reviews includes Turn Left at Venus by Inez Baranay, Shatter City (Impostors #2) by Scott Westerfeld, The Secret of Cold Hill by Peter James, Maternal Instinct by Rebecca Bowyer Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Plus this last issue for the year finishes with our reviewers’ picks of the best speculative fiction in 2019.