Issue 273 Volume 26 June 2022

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Editorial

Dan L. Hollifield

The Senior Editor's usual rants about whatever…

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Serials and Long Fiction

The Price of Admission Andrew George Paul thought life would be better in the alternate universe, and it was… but not for long.

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Short Stories

Auntie Brit J. M. R. Gaines Sometimes the familiar becomes something totally unexpected… Miracle Men D. J. Rout Sometimes, miracles do happen. But if that's all that EVER happens?

Homeward Bound John E. DeLaughter Some things we need to have explained. Who better to explain than the unexplainable? Keep busy or else! Nobody has to Work Anymore. Utopia? George T. Philibin Retirement can become just a tad stressful. Especially when it's your full-time occupation…

Now That You're Dead Daniel Burnbridge Talk about those "call center spam-callers" never giving up… Temporary Company Nicholas J. Devlin No good deed goes unpunished…

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Flash Fiction

Birth Christopher T. Dabrowski

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.

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Poetry and Filk Music

The Rise of Cyanobacteria David Baresch Exoskeleton Kenneth Vincent Walker

goodnight kisses and a spiked hairdo ayaz daryl nielsen Hylonomus Meg Smith

Leviathan Jean Jones The Nature of Evil Jean Jones

The Devil's Tongue Alexis Child The Explorer Trilogy Book Three: The Last Voyager Garrett Carroll

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Articles and features

Streaming Chat Shows

At the links below you can find archives of the live-streaming chat shows run by the Director of HallowCon and myself. WARNING: Contains Language!

Stupid O'Clock

Showrunner: Joe McKeel

This show is best described as a group of friends hanging out at a science fiction/fandom convention in the hotel lobby/bar and chatting with everyone that walks up. We June even have a guest or two. We start out with no topic. We spend two hours chatting and reading comments. Many times we never know what we will talk about but we cover many topics. Many times a viewer tosses out a comments and we will chase it down the rabbit hole.

But rest assured we had fun and hopefully you do too.

Brought to you by Hallowcon, Stupid O'clock, and Rising Tide Productions.

A late night, after-hours chat show. The guests featured are SF&F writers, artists, musicians, comic book creators, SMOFs, and members of fandom in general.

Usually, It either starts off slow and boring and picks up speed as guests join in, or it continues on at full speed from whatever discussion was in progress on Stupid O'clock when that show ended. This thing can go on for hours once it gets rolling. Guests are welcome to join at any time, but trolls will be punted for field goals. The content is somewhat PG, or even more adult, but is intended to be entertainment for reasonably adult audiences.

Brought to you by Aphelion Webzine, Hallowcon, Stupid O'clock, and Rising Tide Productions.

All music composed and copyrighted by Dan L. Hollifield, 2022.

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