Aurealis #170“Dog of War” by Colin Clark
“Lacebound” by Eliza Baker
“Trashbot” by Cameron Fischer
Reviewed by David Wesley Hill
The May issue of Aurealis opens with a bang with the short story “Dog of War” by Colin Clark, which drops us right into a near-future conflict, where an “almost fully automated private army” is busy reducing an unnamed city into rubble for their corporate masters while fighting off bands of insurgents. Private 6112133, perhaps a little confused due to a close encounter with an IED, disregards orders to “shoot the children first” and instead decides to help a young kid and their family reach safety in a “reffo zone” through a deadly gauntlet of Smart Drones, militia soldiers, and “fully autonomous AI patrols.” A taut, well-told tale with enough surprises to be … recommended.
Next up is a fantasy story, “Lacebound” by Eliza Baker, in which Celia and her fellow “guards of Evangeline’s Watch” are escorting their princess from the kingdom of Corince to an arranged marriage in the land of Parish. No one is happy with the duty since Evangeline is an unpleasant traveling companion, whining and whinging ceaselessly about her predicament. Even worse, none of them will ever be able to return home again, but instead must remain in permanent exile in a strange land to look after their ungrateful mistress. Then the squad comes under attack by a band of Kestrels—“bounty hunters, rogue assassins unaligned with any kingdom”—and Celia finds herself in the middle of a bloody melee…. An engaging tale unfortunately overburdened by too much back-story, and by a denouement that continues for almost two thousand words after the action ends.
Last in line this month is another SF story, “Trashbot” by Cameron Fischer, which takes us aboard the spaceship Tartarus Five, returning home after a four-month mission to terraform the planet Cyrrus—“a barren world of nothing.” Oscar, the “trashbot” has crashed again, and after being rebooted by Dr Edward Sutton, insists there are six crew members aboard the ship instead of the actual roster of three live humans. No one can figure out the cause of this error, and attribute it to some weird programming glitch, but then … well, really, I can’t say. The ending is too ambiguous for credibility, and what could have been an interesting exploration of the nature of reality in the manner of Philip K. Dick peters out with a sad lack of rigor…. Seriously, who would ever name a ship after the infernal regions of ancient Greek mythology? Maybe it’s a metaphor.