Aphelion Issue 293, Volume 28
September 2023
 
Editorial    
Long Fiction and Serials
Short Stories
Flash Fiction
Poetry
Features
Series
Archives
Submission Guidelines
Contact Us
Forum
Flash Writing Challenge
Forum
Dan's Promo Page
   

290 Volume 27 December 2023 - January 2024

Cover

Back Issues Editorial Serials and Long Fiction Short Stories Flash Fiction Poetry and Filk Music Features Series

Editorial

Dan L. Hollifield

The Senior Editor's usual ravings about whatever…


Serialised stories and Long Fiction

Naughty or Nice
Scott Cook
Zachary takes his role in the family's Christmas tradition …

The Science of Closed-Eyed Dimensional Crossing
Po Ivey
Ceila started out to get a story published, but she wound up doing a whole lot more …

Best Long Fiction of 2023

Selected by Long Fiction Editor Lester Curtis

The Lost Stones
By Jim Mountfield
A cautionary to those inclined to accept invitations to private post-gig parties.

Droids and Deliberations
By Gregory Cioffi
A speculation on the possible evolution of non-biological life on Earth …

Naughty or Nice
By Scott Cook
Zachary takes his role in the family's Christmas tradition …

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Short Stories

Blood Like Mud
Jonathan Mann
"Undergoing the ritual was meant to be a great honor; but one she was willing to forego…"

The Ghost Writer
David Rudd
"Karma is inescapable…"

A Grain of Man
C. Walker
"The path to understanding is not an easy quest to undertake…"

GRIP
Mark Spector
"She was looking for ajob. What she was offered was something far more…"

Billy Manslaughter And The Metamorphic Dog
Timothy Wilkie
"Life is full of hard decisions. Some of them leave scars…"

The Quickdraw
Justin De Moulin
"It's never easy to live up to your reputation. You gotta spend some time working on it…"

Requiem for Man
George Schaade
"It's not so much an afterlife, as it is an après-vie…"

Ten Minutes
Meghashri Dalvi
"Did you ever have one of those days?"

Why the Fish Sang at Medville
Derek Davis
"The things we do for love…"

Thunder Run
John E. DeLaughter
"The blackest word in any commander’s vocabulary is ‘mutiny’…"

Best Short Stories of 2023

Música Universalis
Thomas Belton
"That’s how the Mogers had found us and how they’d taken us back to their planet for some as of yet unexplained mission. Eventually we were led into the city proper that looked more like a massive beehive than a conventional set of humanoid buildings…"

Rusalki
Lu Evans
"I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me when I noticed lights at the bottom of the lake as we reached 150 feet down. Could the lights originate from bioluminescent creatures? I tried to draw my colleagues' attention to the phenomenon, but I soon realized that the lights were not the only strange thing. Likewise, I had the impression that someone was watching us…"

Plague Church
David Barber
"All that summer they met whenever they could. It had been a secret and wondrous time, far away from the war…"

Naraka
Raiff Taranday
"Revenge is a dish best served cold…"

The Clock
Gary Shugar
"Time may be the simplest thing, but people have made some very unusual timepieces…"

The Prisoners
Jared Buck
"Even a brief meeting can leave a lasting impression…"

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Flash Fiction

Love is Eternal
Christopher T. Dabrowski
Infinitely divisible...

The Best Flash Fiction of 2023

The term Best is subjective at best (see what I did there?). These are the tales that the Editor liked best from the short short fiction submitted in the last 12 months.
Your mileage may differ. Product may settle during shipping. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law.

A Night On The Town
Jessica Gleason

Dead Man Walking
Kieran Ryan

Fresh Meat
Matthew Spence

Galactic Union
Christopher T. Dabrowski

Red Scorpions
by Dan A. Cardoza

Panic
Joseph A. Schiller

In a House by the Sea
Samantha Brooke

Lilith
Timothy Wilkie

The Pardon
Fred D. White

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Poetry and Filk Music

270 Million Light Years from Earth
by J. B. Hogan

Black Widow
by Alexis Child

Carol of the Dark Sky
by Meg Smith

Death Be Not Hungry
by Lori R. Lopez

Ghosts Are Not Supposed to Feel
by Petrouchka Alexieva

Horseman
by Simon MacCulloch

Inflation
by Juan Manuel Perez

Interdimensional.html
by Kenneth Vincent Walker

seeping
by ayaz daryl nielsen

look!
by ayaz daryl nielsen

The Best Poetry of 2023

As we lock the stargate chevrons to leave another exceedingly weird year behind us, Ye Editor would like to remind you that the term best is subjective… These are the poems that Ye Editor liked best from the submissions in the last twelve months. There has been a lot of work submitted this year which I thought was excellent. Narrowing down to a suitable number of pieces was harder than usual.
Your mileage may differ. Product may settle during shipping. Void where prohibited by law.

The Rhyme of a Nowhere Door
David Baresch

They Feed
Mark Arvid White

I'll Be Home Soon
S. T. Eleu

Safety Notice
Angela Acosta

Spaceman's Lament
Juan Manuel Perez

Catastrophe
Lori R. Lopez

Wolf's Bane
Alexis Child

Little Brown Changeling
Lauren Scharhag

Robotic Cats
Petrouchka Alexieva

From here to eternity, I will follow you
by Sebastian Popescu

For My Crimes
Mike Turner

Look This Way
Lynn White

Personal Ad
Jean Jones

Awakening
Deborah Reed Filanowski

I. D.
Duane Vorhees

The Delivery
Gary Davis

within my coffin
ayaz daryl nielsen

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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 may 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.

Last Man Standing
Showrunner: Dan L. Hollifield
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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