Issue 301, Volume 28
December 2024 / January 2025

Issue 217 Volume 21 May 2017

Editorial

Dan L. Hollifield

The Senior Editor's usual rants about whatever…

Serials and Long Fiction

Bad news! It's been a slow month and I have no new stories!

Good news! There's still plenty of good reading in our 20th Anniversary "Best Of Aphelion" collection!

Enjoy!

The Best Long Fiction of the First Twenty Years

Whispers From The North
Matthew Acheson
A gothic horror tale about the lengths some will go for love.

Cross Bound
Julie Travis
Modern day horror tale set in Great Britain. First came the cloud, which blotted out the sky over England for two months. Then the strangers began to arrive. Their plan— to exact revenge against the country that sent them to a watery grave four centuries ago.

The Hot Bolt Kids
Cody L. Stanford
A steampunk horror tale about sweatshop orphans, werewolves and a nosy reporter.

Vivian and the Dust
Ken Kraus
Vivian, a young trainee addicted to snorting mind-altering dust, is arrested for smuggling a rare ore from Titan's North Pole. The station doctor intervenes to help with her cure, but she soon learns that all her troubles lead to the station morgue where the hidden corpse of his lover appears to be regenerating.

Short Stories

An Ideal Couple
Stephen Faulkner
The best, most advanced computer in the world meets its match in a woman.

Feast of Feasts
Mike Kerins
The village would be safe from the Red-man if they gave it their all.

Forgotten
Richie Billing
Life on the river had been hard. The end of life was harder.

Future Legend
Daniel C. Smith
He was the best syntar player in the world, yet again.

Hallowed Walls
Alana Boltz
Wake your old bones and bring doom!

Musical Chairs
K. Vesi
Are the four free?

Night of the Bright Blue Bems
Walter G. Esselman
Gideon and Pavataro find a new way to get into trouble.

Seashells
Rebecca Mix
I was twenty-eight when I almost died in a storm.

The Cemetery
Florin Purluca
He heard a noise from the over the wall, in the cemetery.

The Devil's Breath
Ian C. Douglas
The wind spirits were not happy.

The Water Phoenix
A. M. J. Lawrence
Her word could guarantee the plague would not strike Venus. If only there was any tea.

The Best Shorts of the First Twenty Years

2003

Last Man Standing
L. G. Carillo
Trevor was in San Diego trying to close a deal when the Korean nukes fell. Now he had to get back to his family in Los Angeles…

The Treasure of Agrinothe
Sharon Partington
Brak of Calmor was the best thief in the Thirty Kingdoms, but the job he had planned would take all his strength, skill, and luck—and then some.

The Case of Donald Phelps
Cameron Neilson
Donald Phelps insisted that his wife had been taken aliens. The police, of course, had other ideas. Dr. Lopp hoped to use hypnosis to find the truth…

2004

A Path of Ramble and Mist
Jaimie L. Elliott
Jeremy only wrote sword-and-sorcery tales. He never expected to have to live through one.

Absolution
Jim Rudnick
Miguel came to confess that he had been pursued demons ever since he stole the strange silver locket from a dying man. The priest was more than ready to listen.

Helen Damnation
Robert Moriyama
Helen 'Damnation' Mackay was the toughest Law Enforcement Officer in the Port Arthur lunar colony. When they told her to drop her investigation of one of the colony's founders, the results were predictable.

Flash Fiction

Approaching Titanic
Gary L. Robbe
Survive. You can do it, really you can. Can't you?

The Boar's Head
Susan Anwin
A nocturnal visitor changes one girl's perspective forever.

Little Girl vs. Hercules
Clint Lowe
No one could best the mighty Hercules… except maybe tiny Sue.

The Modified
R.D. Harris
What does it really mean to be human?

Legs
Neil Floyd
He didn't have the one thing he needed to get away.

Dust
N. J. Kailhofer
Boy, that old woman sure hates the dirt in your house.

The Aphelion Flash Fiction Contest

We run a monthly flash fiction contest in the "Fun and Games" folder in Aphelion's forum. In the contest we post a challenge with a specific theme and genre and participants write a flash story based on the challenge guidelines. The contest is a great place to hone your writing skills, meet some fellow writers, receive some feedback, and possibly win a prize. New participants are always welcome. Submissions for the contest are done through the forum. Flash stories from all of our previous contest challenges are archived in the forum as well.

Over 500 stories are included in our archive. To start reading some of these great flash stories, check out either Index 1 or Index 2.

Poetry and Filk Music

Cow Skull
Jean Jones

Evolution #2
Richard Tornello

Iris and Desmond
Ron Larson

Long Journey
Denny E. Marshall

Loopy
Richard Tornello

Polar Mirage
Denny E. Marshall

Why People Believe
Jean Jones

The Best Poetry of the First Twenty Years
2003-2004

When We Go
Larissa March

The Chosen
Teri Wachowiak

The Feast of Samhain
Terry Lowenstein

Red, Red Room
Jessica Wong

The Grove
William Bolen

Breath of the Dragon
Kevin Zelasko

Ghostly Bodies
Matthew J Hewitt

Spacefarer's Lament
Mike Rasmussen

House of Marrow
Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Coming Home
Gareth Lyn Powell

Recollections of a Gentleman
Mike Rasmussen

Flying Again
Danny Erin

Robot Berserk
John Grey

Wreck
Steven E McDonald

Major Outage Tech Support Blues
Robert Wynne

Close to Her
William Carson Reed

Tech’s Lament
Steven Utley

Living In The Past
Gareth Lyn Powell

Articles and features

The Best Mare Inebrium Tales from Our First Twenty Years
2001-2002

Just Another Day at the Office
N. J. Kailhofer
The alarm came from the R&D Department. It was always the R&D Department that caused the most trouble…

The Customer is Always Right
Bill Wolfe
All things come to they who wait- Even if they wait forever.

Helen in Wonderland
Robert Moriyama
In the Port Armstrong lunar colony, Helen Damnation McKay has no equal. In the Mare Inebrium however, she may have met her match!