“Land of the Long Black Cloud” by Anthony Roberts
“Ashes to Ashes” by Aggie Novak
“The House of Spirits” by Iseult Murphy
“Your Number One Fan” by Gabriella Campbell
Reviewed by Geoff Houghton
The first offering in Aurealis #182 is “Land of the Long Black Cloud” by Anthony Roberts. Readers may find the English of this offering to be grammatically unusual. This reviewer at first assumed that the author may be Chinese, writing in a second language, but that is not the case. If the reader accepts the rather idiosyncratic syntax then they will be rewarded with a post-apocalyptic story that explores how a form of civilisation could survive by bringing together First Nation tribal wisdom and modern science.
This saga is set in Australasia more than a century after the abrupt collapse of civilisation following a catastrophic event that destroyed all advanced electrical machines. It follows a group of Chinese scientists and descendants of scientists who escape the turmoil of the Asian mainland by fleeing towards Australasia in an old coal-powered steamer. After an odyssey through cannibal-infested wastelands, the survivors finally discover an enclave of civilisation on a remote promontory in New Zealand. This enclave has defended itself with an amalgam of Maori tribal discipline and warrior tradition, together with the increasingly rote use of an aging nuclear-powered beam-weapon.
The Chinese scientists still retain the nuclear and energy-field theory lost by the beleaguered New Zealanders. Uniting real scientists and the now barely-understood technology could offer the last chance for humanity, but since the disaster, every stranger has also been an enemy. Can trust be established or will the opportunity be lost forever?
The second story this month is “Ashes to Ashes” by Aggie Novak. This is a tale of the supernatural set in contemporary St. Petersburg, Russia. The protagonist is a lesbian whose deeply beloved wife has recently died from an incurable disease. The pair made the apparently sensible choice to accept a long period of hospitalisation for aggressive palliative treatments without realising the consequences that would follow. The inevitable death was converted into a cruelly painful parting by the deeply conservative attitude of Russian relatives and hospital staff to same-sex relationships and the surviving partner turns to supernatural means to attempt to reverse their decision.
The resolution requires an acceptance that Russian folk-lore could contain a deeper truth in which time and reality are not immutable, but only human perceptions. In such a world, even that which has already occurred might still be replayed to a different conclusion.
The third story in this issue of Aurealis is “The House of Spirits” by Iseult Murphy. This is set more than one century into a technological future where sentient androids appear to have the same civil rights as bodily-enhanced or baseline humans. The majority of humans and androids freely chose to be linked into a worldwide data net called The Hive but some humans and androids reject the benefits of linkage to live an off-grid life.
The first person protagonist is an android who has a more than merely intellectual interest in spiritual matters in a world where such leanings are considered increasingly abnormal. He investigates an organisation which has been gathering psychically sensitive individuals together and discovers that there is indeed more to spiritual matters than pure materialism can explain.
The unexpected final twist is delivered when our android protagonist discovers that he has a special advantage in dealing with the spirit world that may assist in achieving the aims of the organisation and also be just what he has desired for his whole life.
The last story is “Your Number One Fan” by Gabriella Campbell. This fascinating and quite idiosyncratic tale is apparently set in a near-contemporary, semi-rural small town. The reason for the word “apparently” will become obvious to the reader as they gradually discover oddities that question that initial premise. The accelerating cascade of oddities begin with the discovery that physical books rain down from the sky in this peculiar village. The character who appears destined to be the protagonist is also both more and less than she first appears and the real driving force behind these anomalies is only revealed in the final segment of the story. Even then, the reader is left with several possible explanations for the existence of the village, ranging from a purely scientific one to the metaphysical.
Geoff Houghton lives in a leafy village in rural England. He is a retired Healthcare Professional with a love of SF and a jackdaw-like appetite for gibbets of medical, scientific and historical knowledge.