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The shortlist for the 2023 Aurealis Awards has been announced! Winners will be celebrated at the Aurealis Awards ceremony in May 2024.
The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards, championing the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror writers.
In this post we’ll break down a few of the fiction categories to see what’s on offer. Check out the Aurealis Awards website for further categories such as ‘short story’, ‘graphic novel’ and ‘novella’ spanning different genres.
How many on this list have you read? We’re always looking to support Aussie Fiction and what better place to find new favourites than a nominee list!
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Happy Reading, Friends!
The world is in the midst of a new Cold War – between the wasteful nations of the West, and the oppressively tyrannical regime of the Greater Far East. Ruth Sharpe and Cassie Bailey are radical journalists and brilliant hackers investigating the rumours that both governments are covertly run by sentient AI systems. What they uncover is a much more dangerous secret – one that could spell the doom of all humanity. They will need to cut through decades of lies from both sides to reach the truth and warn the world … while the clock ticks down to the extinction of all human life. Ruth and Cassie will have to decide what price humanity is willing to pay for its own salvation. This is Book One in the ‘Council of AIs’ series.
In a near future where it never stops raining, a young adolescent runs wild. With only the cantankerous Gammy and a band of terrified and broken villagers for company, this story explores coming of age when society – and all its cues – has been washed away. For the few survivors, questions of identity, nature, love, and fear are explored through the eyes of a child, against a backdrop of encroaching water. This is a stand-alone novel.
The USCSS Patna has been found. Although the synthetic Bishop asked to be shut down forever, his creator has other plans. Michael Bishop seeks the Xenomorph knowledge stored in the android’s mind, and brings Bishop back to life ― but for what reason? No longer an employee of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Michael tells his creation that he seeks to advance medical research for the benefit of humanity. Yet where does he get the resources needed to advance his work, and with whom do his new allegiances lie? This is a direct sequel to Aliens and Alien 3.
Malevolent technology. Morality. Survival. Love. This is the story of a man who stands up to the cynical destruction of our human and natural worlds. Set in a not too distant future, Dronikus imagines a future just beyond the horizon, as our world faces climate catastrophe, runaway technology, and the corrupt power of politicians and corporations. This is a stand-alone novel.
Two outcasts. One goal: stop Earth. Earth’s Hegemony controls the surrounding alien civilisations with ruthless force. Its aim: dominate the galaxy to protect humanity. On Earth, disgraced pilot Rhees Lowrans is thrust into a job she doesn’t want. She sees firsthand how the Hegemony will sacrifice anything – including her – to keep Earth safe. In the Lenticular, Udun – one of the empathic Kresz – is on a secret mission when he learns of the Hegemony’s expansion into nearby space. But his warnings are ignored and the Hegemony invades his world and mutilates any Kresz who oppose them. Can these two outsiders stand against the might of the Hegemony? And will the human race survive if they succeed? This is Book One in ‘ The Lenticular Series’.
It’s time to take history seriously. The cats and humans of Chronos College know that time travel is the best job in the world, and nothing bad can ever happen to them in the past… except that one time they lost a traveller. And that other time they lost a cat. Now they have a chance to make up for past mistakes by rescuing a long lost legend. If only they could convince Professor Boswell, the grumpiest marmalade tabby of all time, to join their mission to the Swinging Sixties, and save one of their own. (Plus pick up a missing piece or two of lost media along the way.) Join Ruthven, Boswell, Monterey and Lovelace on the most chaotic time travel adventure of their lives. Featuring special appearances by Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn, famous actress Fleur Shropshire, and the even more famous house where they filmed TV show Cramberleigh between 1964-1986. This is a stand-alone novel.
Siyon Velo might be acknowledged as the Alchemist. He may have even stabilised the planes and stopped Bezim from ever shaking into the sea again. But that doesn’t mean he has any idea what he’s doing—and it won’t be long before everyone knows it. To make things worse, mythical creatures once confined to operas and myths are spotted around Bezim. A djinn invades Zagiri’s garden party, and whispers of a naga slither across Anahid’s Flower District card tables. Magic is waking up in the Mundane. It’s up to Siyon to figure out a way to stop it, or everything he’s worked hard to save will come crashing down. This is Book 2 in ‘The Burnished City Series’. Check out Book One – ‘Notorious Sorcerer’.
The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident 3 years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me. But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family. And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me. This is Book One in the ‘Hierarchy Series’.
There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity that inhabits the ancient hot spring. This time trouble comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger, requiring a desperate rescue attempt from his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, and art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage. The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery and guarded by monstrous living statues. But this is only the beginning. To unravel the secrets of a murderous Ancient Sovereign, the booksellers must investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths. If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal. This is Book 2 in the ‘Left-Handed Booksellers of London Series’. Check out Book One – ‘The Left-Handed Booksellers of London’.
A bond she didn’t choose. A love she can’t escape. A creature so powerful it bends the limits of time… Smart, sassy, and sanguine, Des Mildue is a traveling sellsword in Rescalin, a dry and dusty kingdom full of rogues, opportunists, and thieves. She keeps her nose clean, brazens it out with a blade when she can’t, and keeps others at arm’s length where they can’t mess up her plans. That is, until a sword fight gone wrong leaves her tied by blood to the first dragon hatched in centuries. Suddenly, Des has to contend with a new voice in her head: haughty, willful Esquidamelion. Des wants to leave Squid by the roadside, but the blood bond has other ideas. With half the world on their tail – including Liv, her beautiful, faithless ex who Des is definitely over – Des must search for answers for why so many are willing to kill, maim and torture to get their hands on Squid. But she’s beginning to suspect her blood bond has tied her not only to a dragon, but to a fight for Rescalin’s future…and no one else even knows it’s at risk. This is Book One in ‘The Everlands Cycle Series’.
On an ordinary night in an ordinary year, Tommy Llewellyn’s doting parents wake in a home without toys and diapers, without photos of their baby scattered about, and without any idea that the small child asleep in his cot is theirs. That’s because Tommy is a boy destined to never be remembered. On the same day every year, everyone around him forgets he exists, and he grows up enduring his own universal Reset. That is until something extraordinary happens: Tommy Llewellyn falls in love. Determined to finally carve out a life for himself and land the girl of his dreams, Tommy sets out on a mission to trick the Reset and be remembered. But legacies aren’t so easily won, and Tommy must figure out what’s more important – the things we leave behind or the people we bring along with us. This is a stand-alone novel.
Self-published Nominee:
Jono, a city-born Indigenous teenager is trying to figure out who he really is. Life in Brisbane hasn’t exactly made him feel connected to his Country or community. Luckily, he’s got his best friend, Jenny, who has been by his side through their hectic days at St Lucia Private. After graduating, Jono and Jenny score gigs at the Aboriginal Performing Arts Centre and an incredible opportunity comes knocking – interning with a documentary crew. Their mission? To promote a big government mining project in the wild western Queensland desert. The catch? The details are sketchy, and the land is rumoured to be sacred. But who cares? Jono is stoked just to be part of something meaningful. Plus, he gets to be the lead presenter! Life takes a turn when they land in Gambari, a tiny rural town far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Suddenly, Jono’s intuition becomes his best guide. He’s haunted by an eerie omen of death, battling suffocating panic attacks, and even experiencing visions of Wudun – a malevolent spirit from the Dreaming. What’s the real story behind the gas mining venture? Are the documentary crew hiding something from Jono? And could Wudun be a messenger from the land, fighting back against the invasion? This is a stand-alone novel. Also nominated for Best Young Adult Novel.
When Sophia Galich was twelve, she starred in her older sister Layla’s amateur horror movie Vermillion, which recorded raw footage of her very real reactions to scenes her sister concocted in their old Californian house on the coast―Cashore House. In the years after the film’s release, Sophia’s relationship with her sister became more strained, while her memories of the now-infamous house fuelled her nightmares. Vermillion amassed an army of fanatical fans who speculated about the film’s hidden messages, and it was rumoured that Layla made a pact with the devil―her soul in exchange for fame and arcane knowledge. Sophia dismissed this as gossip…until Layla disappeared. Now, Sophia must study the trail of clues Layla has left behind, returning to the very place where it all began. As she gets closer and closer to Cashore House’s haunted heart, she must once again confront the ghosts of her childhood. But the house won’t reveal its secrets without a fight. This is a stand-alone novel. Also nominated for Best Young Adult Novel.
Australia’s outback holds a mysterious canyon. Hidden deep within is a forest of pine tree that dates from the Cretaceous Period. A megacorporation sends in a team of experts to research this canyon for botanical riches. The expedition enters a no-man’s land formed 100 million years ago when Australia was still attached to Antarctica, and dinosaurs ruled the super-continent. But the canyon has more prehistoric and dangerous species than anyone could have possibly imagined. Trapped and terrified, unarmed and unable to communicate topside, the team’s extraction deadline is 6 long hours away. The frantic race for survival is on. This is a stand-alone novel.
Silas didn’t have a happy childhood. Aunt Bunny made sure of that. But out of money and almost out of time, Silas and his girlfriend Rose are forced to return to his childhood home. Back to the darkness, back to the woods, where addiction and hedonism are disguising something much more sinister. Plagued by strange, unnerving events, Silas is drawn back into the family by an ancient presence deep in the woods. It will not let him go, and neither will Bunny. This is a stand-alone novel.
Jono, a city-born Indigenous teenager is trying to figure out who he really is. Life in Brisbane hasn’t exactly made him feel connected to his Country or community. Luckily, he’s got his best friend, Jenny, who has been by his side through their hectic days at St Lucia Private. After graduating, Jono and Jenny score gigs at the Aboriginal Performing Arts Centre and an incredible opportunity comes knocking – interning with a documentary crew. Their mission? To promote a big government mining project in the wild western Queensland desert. The catch? The details are sketchy, and the land is rumoured to be sacred. But who cares? Jono is stoked just to be part of something meaningful. Plus, he gets to be the lead presenter! Life takes a turn when they land in Gambari, a tiny rural town far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Suddenly, Jono’s intuition becomes his best guide. He’s haunted by an eerie omen of death, battling suffocating panic attacks, and even experiencing visions of Wudun – a malevolent spirit from the Dreaming. What’s the real story behind the gas mining venture? Are the documentary crew hiding something from Jono? And could Wudun be a messenger from the land, fighting back against the invasion? This is a stand-alone novel. Also nominated for Best Horror Novel.
When Sophia Galich was twelve, she starred in her older sister Layla’s amateur horror movie Vermillion, which recorded raw footage of her very real reactions to scenes her sister concocted in their old Californian house on the coast―Cashore House. In the years after the film’s release, Sophia’s relationship with her sister became more strained, while her memories of the now-infamous house fuelled her nightmares. Vermillion amassed an army of fanatical fans who speculated about the film’s hidden messages, and it was rumoured that Layla made a pact with the devil―her soul in exchange for fame and arcane knowledge. Sophia dismissed this as gossip…until Layla disappeared. Now, Sophia must study the trail of clues Layla has left behind, returning to the very place where it all began. As she gets closer and closer to Cashore House’s haunted heart, she must once again confront the ghosts of her childhood. But the house won’t reveal its secrets without a fight. This is a stand-alone novel. Also nominated for Best Horror Novel.
You have been given access to secret files buried deep within the archives. Disturbing stories never meant for the light of day. Stories of evil grandparents and unsettling homework. A string of deaths, seemingly unrelated. Walls squirm, as if alive. A cursed wish comes true. Ordinary people behave oddly, even family and your closest friends. These stories share a common fate. All the children are met with tragedy. Coincidence? Or could these nightmares be connected by something more sinister than you dare to imagine? A dark and chilling mystery awaits. Find the answers, before he finds you. This is a stand-alone novel.
In a remote village, bordered by woods and an endless winter, Saatcha lives in the attic of her ailing father’s blacksmithery. As her father’s health fades and he is no longer able to work, Saatcha takes it upon herself to keep the forge running. But when a pair of thieves appear in the dead of night, Saatcha’s duty to her father is torn from her. Forced to leave her home behind, the bounds of magic that once held Saatcha begin to slip away. Papa is gone. Magic is real. And her kidnappers are much more than simple thieves. As Saatcha’s world is irrevocably altered, she must rely on her new friends to find the truth of her past – and what it might mean for the future of the kingdom. This is a stand-alone novel.
Between surviving high school and working at her aunt’s dumpling shop, all Zhi wants is to find time for her friends, and make sure no one finds out she’s half spider-demon.But when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl in school, she discovers she might not be the scariest thing in the shadows. This is a stand-alone novel.
Seventeen-year-old Declan Moore should be a magical prodigy. Yet it seems the only thing special about him is his famous surname. Desperate and jealous, Declan applies to learn magic at King’s College—the most prestigious school of its kind. But everything changes when Declan’s application is rejected. Not because he cannot do magic, but because he is too powerful to be trained. This is Book One in the ‘Winterthorn Saga’ series.
Being a Lightkeeper is Very Serious Business. Nobody in Elston-Fright believes in magic anymore. Well, nobody except for Flip Little, his nan and his a girl called Corpse, a ghost called Girl and a very large spider called Simon. But when Simon is spider-napped by ancient weather ghouls called the Poltergusts, Flip and his ghostly companions turn to the last Lightkeeper’s journals for answers. To rescue their friend, they will need to find and return the missing Light to the lighthouse, restoring its lost magic. Only nothing in Elston-Fright is as it seems. Questions bubble up from the deep. Dark secrets come to light. And pretty soon, Flip and his friends learn that in order to save the future of Elston-Fright, they’ll first need to understand its past. This is Book 2 in the ‘Elston-Fright Tales’ series. Check out Book One – ‘A Girl Called Corpse’.
Twelve years ago, the boy and the girl lived. But one was supposed to die. July Chen sees ghosts. But her dad insists ghosts aren’t real. So she pretends they don’t exist. Which is incredibly difficult now as it’s Hungry Ghost month, when the Gates of the Underworld open and dangerous ghosts run amok in the living world. When July saves a boy ghost from being devoured by a Hungry Ghost, he becomes her first ever friend. Except William is not a ghost. He’s a wandering soul wavering between life and death. As the new friends embark on an adventure to return William to his body, they unearth a ghastly truth―for William to live, July must die. This is a stand-alone novel.
Nyx lives in the Tasmania of 2093 – deforested, over-mined and affected by bushfires and drought. With sea-levels rising, Tasmania is marooned and abandoned to its fate. Nyx’s widowed father wants them to leave while they can, but for Nyx, West Hobart is all she has ever known, and where her mother is buried. She finds solace in the single living tree on the dusty reserve near her home, an 80-foot pine that has defied odds and survived the climate crisis. Bea lives in present, beautiful, Tasmania and is facing a move to the mainland. She will miss the giant tree that she climbs to seek solace from bullies. One day she leaves a despairing note, the words pouring out her troubles, stuffed in a hole in its trunk. Nyx finds the note, and writes back. The girls begin a correspondence across two different time periods and they form a friendship that defies the logic of time. When Nyx faces life threatening fire and then floods, she must turn to her friend Bea to change the future. This is a stand-alone novel.
Battle rages between the dinosaur kingdoms of Cretacea. When the Fallen Star struck, it brought death and despair, ash and toxic rain. But some dinosaurs survived and were changed. Their minds grew alert. They learned to speak. To dream. To wage war. As the two remaining dinosaur kingdoms fight for territory, Eleri, the disgraced son of a prince, is exiled from his home for saving an enemy soldier. Banished to the merciless Deadlands, a terrifying desert full of tar pits, poisonous gas, and ruthless carnivores, he must join forces with a group of questionable allies―including the enemy soldier he saved―to avoid becoming prey. When Eleri and his fellow exiles discover the horrific truth behind the war, the unlikely heroes must do all they can to save their kingdoms from a lurking predator and a secret plot that might destroy them all. This is Book One in ‘The Deadlands’ series.
Sibyl is the apprentice hotel witch at the splendid Grand Mirror Hotel. She is busy each day drawing useful spell patterns to keep the hotel guests happy: spells to shine shoes, spells to remove dust and spells to return lost belongings like hats and gloves to their owners. But Sibyl dreams of other possibilities – wonderful possibilities like her mother returning from the Black Mountains, and like Grandma letting her draw spell patterns from the Book of Advanced and Dangerous Magic. When Grandma gets stuck in last Tuesday, somewhere on the hotel’s thirteenth floor, Sibyl is left to take charge of all the hotel magic – and to solve a mysterious and perplexing problem. Can she find a way to open the Book of Advanced and Dangerous Magic? And will it contain the spell she needs? This is a stand-alone novel.
What do a minch-wiggin, a Queen, and a rather large magical pup have in common? They need to find the dragon that has turned their worlds upside-down, even if it means revealing all they want to keep hidden. There are Three Great Secrets in Hallow, a country that loves secrets almost as much as it loves green jellybabies. No, I’m not going to tell you anything more about them. I am a loyal citizen of Hallow, and would never betray- Oh, you have jellybabies? Green ones? Well, I suppose I could tell you a little more. Come closer. Open your ears and your heart, and pass the green jellybabies. I will tell you a story about an enormous magical pup, a child Queen and a very small minch-wiggin with the unfortunate title of Destroyer-of-Dragons. This is Book One in the ‘Dragons of Hallow’ series.
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