Aurealis “Pig Headed” by Ron Schroer
“Impulsion” by Jenna Cosgrave
“Imago et Umbra” by Hristo Plamenov Goshev
Reviewed by Geoff Houghton
The first story in Aurealis #143 is “Pig Headed” by Ron Schroer. This rather idiosyncratic horror story is set in the present day in the North-Eastern Australian State of New South Wales. The author draws us a clear word-picture of a deeply unlovable drug-dealing protagonist who may well deserve to come to a bad end, but then this tale takes a turn for the simply weird.
Perhaps the true horror of this horror story is that our protagonist makes no attempt to evade his fate, whatever that may be. The story ends abruptly at that point and we never find that out. Readers may make their guesses, but only the author himself can know for certain what the Pig-Man of the title actually signifies.
The second offering this month is “Impulsion” by Jenna Cosgrave. This is set aboard a science vessel in deep space, many years of travel out from a future Earth. Their single mission is to explore a gravitational anomaly but the crew selection board has made a gigantic mistake. They have appointed a mission leader who is as certifiably mad as a flat Earth conspiracist who is also convinced that Elvis still lives. This Captain once caused a major fatal accident due to his hubris and he carries that burden badly. He has convinced himself, based on zero evidence, that two wrongs will make a right and that by sacrificing the lives of everyone on the mission, he can make amends for his first mistake. The first twist to the story is that he dies convinced that some mysterious force has intervened on his behalf and that he was right. The second twist is that some force did actually intervene, but not at all as he would have wished. Hint: When a story has stardate xxxx at the top of each section do you actually read and absorb the number? In this case, perhaps you should!
The last story is “Imago et Umbra” (best translated as Image and Shadow for those readers not well-versed in Latin) by Hristo Plamenov Goshev. This ghost-story is set in interstellar space several centuries in the future. Terra and her allies are recovering from a war with an aggressively hostile enemy known as the Destroyers (think Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers as their archetype).
Our hero is a pilot flying a single-seat spacecraft that is suspiciously similar to a Star Wars X-fighter in its flagrant disregard of all three of Newton’s Laws of Motion. He discovers an intact Terran warship where no such ship should be. It is revealed to be a famous and heroic ship that has been comprehensively and most certainly dead for half a century, manned by a ghostly crew of equally well-certified corpses from past campaigns, including his long dead lover. When the evil Destroyers come upon the scene he fights on the side of the ghost ship in battle scenes lovingly described in exquisite but physically impossible detail until the departure of the mystery ship, pursued by the villainous horde.
Although the combat scenes occupy the larger percentage of the story, they are not its real aim. This is primarily a story of redemption and acceptance of loss catalysed by the ghosts of the past.
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.