Aurealis Awards 2009: Science fiction short stories

Link. [via 42Blips]
Note: Official link above is non-persistent. This equivalent PDF link appears to be persistent & will likely still work a year down the line.
23 January 2010: Winners announced.

This award is about fiction authored Australian writers - presumably fiction published during 2009 is eligible, even though the year is yet to close. Winners to be announced on "23 January 2010".

Awards are in a lot of categories. I copy their list of short fiction in science fiction category below; download links & any commentary are mine.

List of stories (5 stories, best first, unread last).

Will fill with commentary as (& if) I read the stories. Links on authors & publishers yield more matching fiction. My rating is in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

1. [winner] Peter M Ball's "Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens" (B); download; Apex Magazine, May 2009: Slum gangs have nearly killed a girl, but a good samaritan saved her. Now the gang have returned to finish her, & her savior too.
   
   All this against a curious background - very advanced prosthetics & other technology, & gangs sound like some sort of human/bird mutations.
2. Christopher Green's "A Hundredth Name" (C); download; Abyss & Apex, #31 (Q3 2009): A man is grieving for his dead wife.
3. Greg Mellor's "Defense of the Realm" (C); download; Cosmos, #25 (February/March 2009); electronic consciousness: Human software avatars fighting their alien counterparts.
4. Peter M Ball's "To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer's Lament" (C); download; Apex Magazine, October 2009: A dystopia where earth has been colonized by aliens, one of whom is now Her Majesty of England. Story is mostly of a young Englishman's fascination to become an "astronomer" - something that does not mean exactly what we understand by it; duties include playing sex slave to aliens. Eventually a human rebellion aided by alien knowledge this "astronomer" had gathered working for aliens.
5. Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn's "Soulmates"; Asimov's, September 2009: Not read.

Related.

1. Last year's Aurealis Awards.
2. Competing awards that recognize "best" fiction originally published in 2009: BSFA (British authors).
3. Anthologies that collect "best fiction originally published during 2009": Dozois', Horton's, Strahan's.
4. My "best fiction originally published during 2009, 2010" lists (also list others' best of relevant year lists at bottom).
5. Fiction originally published in 2009, during 2000s.
6. "best of" list.