In The Female Factory, procreation is big business. Children are a commodity few women can afford. Hopeful mothers-to-be try everything. Fertility clinics. Pills. Wombs for hire. Babies are no longer made in bedrooms, but engineered in boardrooms. A quirk of genetics allows lucky surrogates to carry multiple eggs, to control when they are fertilised, and by whom—but corporations market and sell the offspring. The souls of lost embryos are never wasted; captured in software, they give electronics their voice. Spirits born into the wrong bodies can brave the charged waters of a hidden billabong, and change their fate. Industrious orphans learn to manipulate scientific advances, creating mothers of their own choosing. From Australia’s near-future all the way back in time to its convict past, these stories spin and sever the ties between parents and children. Table of Contents Introduction Vox Baggage All the Other Revivals The Female Factory What Are the Twelve Planets? The Twelve Planets are twelve boutique collections by some of Australia’s finest short story writers. Varied across genre and style, each collection offers four short stories and a unique glimpse into worlds fashioned by some of our favourite storytellers. Each author has taken the brief of four stories and up to 40 000 words in their own direction. Some are quartet suites of linked stories. Others are tasters of the range and style of the writer. Each release will bring something unexpected to readers. Nightsiders by Sue Isle Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti Showtime by Narrelle M Harris Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love The Female Factory by Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter Cherry Crow Children by Deborah Kalin