Award-winning author Marlee Jane Ward opens the latest issue of Aurealis with 'The Great House Thrippet, Season 246, Episode 12', a tightly written story with a long title that explores exploitation and marketing in a chilling reality show of the future. In 'The Planck Harvest', James Rowland gives us a beautiful story of subtle stillness featuring a magical farm with just a tinge of science fiction to it. 'Pretty Little Ones' by Leigh Harlen is a powerful and disturbing tale of alienation that somehow manages to be both sad and terrifying.

In 'The Case of the Trashy, Tripey Novel with a Marxist Slant', Gillian Polack looks at the two Australian female writers of the 1940s who wrote as M Barnard Eldershaw and their classic science fiction novel, 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'. Claire Fitzpatrick's 'When Too Much Pleasure is Never Enough' offers an exploration of hedonism and horror. And as usual we feature book reviews of latest releases and the quirky, hard to categorise 'Secret History of Australia'.