Aurealis Duos launched

Chimaera Publications has launched the first two epublications in its new Aurealis Duos series: Terrorism by Jack Dann and Transalienation by Dirk Strasser.  They can be downloaded for free for a limited time by clicking the title links in this news item.

The editors asked some of Australia's top fantasy and science fiction authors to select two of their stories tied together by a single theme and to write an introduction on how they had explored that theme — to give some insight into their writing and how they see the big issues. They also paired the writers with Australia's top SF artists, so that each publication also showcases the illustrator. Then they released the publications in pairs for $2.22 each. The result is the Aurealis Duos series.

In Terrorism, Jack Dann, an expat New Yorker and multi-award winning SF author who eats Vegemite with an American accent says, “I didn't feel patriotic the morning that the towers fell… I just felt that someone had burned down my house… the only way I could get my arms around the subject was to write about… us. No treatise on terrorism and suicide bombing here, just two stories that are set on the other side of the looking glass.”

In Transalienation, Dirk Strasser asks the question, if science can help a transsexual become the gender they know themselves to be, what would happen in the future if humans could become the alien they truly believe they are?