Aurealis #89, April 2016“The Lighthouse at Cape Defeat” by David Versace
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
The 89th issue of Aurealis has five original short stories. I found all the stories pleasant to read, no rotten apples in this bunch, but no peaches either.
“The Lighthouse at Cape Defeat” by David Versace
This short fantasy tells the story of Brega, the lighthouse keeper at Cape Defeat. Cape Defeat is the site of the final defeat of the Titans, a race of giants that had enslaved the human population. To prevent the Titans ‘reforming’, the ghosts of sailors rebury any titan bones that the surf exposes each day. When a professor of archeology decides to find and collect the titan bones, the consequences threaten all of humanity. Predictably, good wins out, and in the end, the only mystery is how they’ll win.
I found the character interactions and mystery kept me engaged as the story developed, and the action-packed ending rounded out the yarn. This was a nice read, but did not break any new ground for me.
“Blossom Fall” by Adrik Kemp
Kemp gives a glimpse at a strange far-away world in this short science fiction story. An old great grandmother enjoys her final years introducing her great granddaughter to her culture’s traditions. She reminisces about her old-fashioned mail exchanges with a pen pal on old Earth. Each mail round trip takes half a lifetime and she discovers her dreams as a young woman won’t be fulfilled. Still she moves on, delighting in the initiation of her great granddaughter to the blossoms of the giant trees.
A delightful look into a possible future world, there is no great adventure or danger here, just a friendly story to read. Literature’s equivalent of comfort food.
“How He Wound Up” by Heidi Kneale
We see a different world in Kneale’s science fiction tale about Mister Coper. All the ‘living’ creatures run on clockwork, relying on springs to provide their energy. The protagonist has developed a self-winding spring for greater autonomy, but doing so goes against the prevailing morals and there will be consequences if they catch him.
The story engaged me at first, but I found the pace slowed towards the end losing much of its appeal for me. Still it raised some interesting ideas and parallels with our own organic world.
“The Ants Go Marching” by Jeffrey Paul
A rather dark short science fiction story that reveals a near future where the nanos have gone bad. Like ants, the nanos swarm and devour everything. A human caravan flees from the plague, not knowing where to find safety. When one small girl shows an insect bite, her father worries a nano has begun to infect her. He has to try and protect her from the caravan’s desire for safety.
This is a frequently explored concept in science fiction (man develops robots, robots start self-generating, robots take over, and man has to run away). But the story-telling and suspense kept me reading and this short fiction passed quickly.
“Synthetic Corruption” by Sam Johnson
Set in the future, this science fiction tale introduces us to Jadein, a recall engineer. Jadein’s job is to recycle rogue synthetics (robots). An unusual rogue challenges Jadein’s notion that all rogues are necessarily bad for the city.
This story won the magazine’s junior writer contest. It moved along at a nice pace, though I would have preferred a little more substance to Jadein’s character. The story itself was more engaging than many others I’ve read this year.