Aurealis #89

Aurealis #89 opens with a haunting image of ghosts reburying their dead at low tide from David Versace ‘The Lighthouse at Cape Defeat’, then moves through the gentle organic world-building of Adrik Kemp’s ‘Blossom Fall’ and finally onto Heidi Kneale’s intriguing steampunkish ‘How He Wound Up’. This issue also features two bonus stories: the winners of the Contact2016 short story competition, ‘The Ants Go Marching’ by Jeffrey Paul and ‘Synthetic Corruption’ by Sam Johnson. Dirk Strasser looks at the uncomfortable truth about how much fiction writers earn. Chris Large interviews John Flanagan, the Australian author of the New York Times bestselling Ranger’s Apprentice and Brotherband books. Lachlan Walter dissects postcolonial science fiction and Peter Docker’s The Waterboys set in an apocalyptic drought-stricken future Australia. The Secret History of Australia continues with the story of Adeline Strife’s strident pursuit of greatness, and the issue closes with the usual reviews of the latest speculative fiction releases.