Aurealis #124 opens with an Editorial on the difference between writing a novel and a screenplay and announces a major movie release based on an Aurealis short story. The opening story in this issue, Maddison Stoff's Leisure Culture' presents a jarring look at a possible future where the line between reality and simulation is blurred via avatars and extreme biotechnology. E H Mann's 'Nie among the Tree People' is a surprising fantasy with a difference, while James Rowland's 'Inheritance' is a classy tale entwining reality and magic, history and conjecture, retrospection and insight. Gillian Polack looks for the lost land of Lemuria while K C Grifant explores the horror genre. We review Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor, Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, DataTrigger by J P Carver, War of the Worlds: Battleground Australia edited by Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira and Bryce Stevens, Deeper, Darker Things and Other Oddities by Steve Dillon, Metamorphosis by Claire Fitzpatrick, and a host of other works of speculative fiction.