Aurealis #113, August 2018“Hair and Teeth” by Deborah Sheldon
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
The 113th issue of Aurealis has three original short stories.
“Hair and Teeth” by Deborah Sheldon
Sheldon gives us a short fantasy about Elaine, a paranoid woman who has begun to experience abnormal menstrual periods. It feels as if mice are gnawing her insides, leaving her weak and defenseless.
Fighting her anxiety, Elaine visits her regular doctor who sends her to a specialist to get a hysterectomy. But everything seems wrong with both the hospital and the Toulouse Lautrec-like doctor who will perform the operation. As the time of the operation approaches, she is becoming more convinced that little creatures are trying to eat their way out of her.
This was an intriguing story that engaged the reader from the beginning, though the speculative elements were light.
“Wormholes and the Woman with the Fake Tan” by Brad McNaughton
Baxter is a PI who can smell the future in this SF short. With too few paying assignments, he smells the scent of a woman, Yuki, about to visit him. But he misses her call and decides to go in search of her, hoping to get an assignment.
Baxter discovers that Yuki is probably in trouble with some nasty men looking for her. Since he can still smell her scent he knows she is still alive, but those same scents include other men tied to her destiny.
As he chases down the clues, Baxter discovers that her fate is closely tied to his own checkered history that resulted in his unique abilities.
Using scents to read the near future was an idea that created some mystery around the predictions. But in the end the early pace was slow and the plot predictable.
“Bits” by Matt R O’Connor
“Bits” is an SF short set in a future where people are unsure if they are living for real or in a simulation.
A man spots a beguiling young woman at a bio-engineered dog fight. She is protected by the cartel, but he sees in her a chance to break out of his humdrum life, if he can just persuade her to give him a chance.
This was a story that was difficult to follow at the beginning and left the reader wondering what it was all about in the end.