Hello and welcome to the September 2024 issue of Aphelion!
I have finally caught up with almost all of the
short story submissions for so far this year. Until there is an
influx of submissions, I will reduce the number of short
stories-per-issue. So send 'em on in, folks! I'll be
glad to have them.
One thing I have to admit; I started updating the
old backup of Aphelion I did last year, and found myself temporarily
locked
out of the FTP server. Evidently I was downloading too much at one
time. As I recall, it did the same thing last year, until I wised up
and decided to only download smaller chunks of the files at any single
instance. It's back to my having access now, so this issue of Aphelion
isn't going to be late--if this pesky thunderstorm will hurry up and
pass, LOL! Another thing is that I am working closely with
a friend to set up a mirror site for Aphelion which may get around the
DDOS attacks on our server, here. The Forums will
be inaccessible on the mirror,
but the issues, covers, and Archives should be accessible to readers
outside the US once again. I'll message all our overseas writers to
give them the link as soon as we can make this work. No idea when this
will be available yet, though. We only came up with it this past week.
To make it work, we basically have to copy every Aphelion file, then
with each new issue, the original site and the mirror will both have to
be updated. So please stay patient.
I will say that having the Zine be isolated away
from our international readers and writers has been more than a tad
frustrating. I still have hope that the situation will improve in the
near future! It's all because of hackers scattered all around the world, I'm sure.
As for me, I have been concentrating on working on
the house and yard, as well as preparing for October's Hallowcon. More
and more of my friends from The
Independent Creators Directory
have been able to plan to attend. This, in spite of the fact their trip
to the con and home again make my own commute there look like I'm just
crossing the street to buy a candy bar. You may want to check them out
for yourself. IndieCD is a group of creative people from all sorts of
pursuits like writers, comic book creators, animators, jewelery
craftspeople, historians, game creators, musicians, and so on. We just
generally adopt the "Rising Tide Raises All Ships" philosophy of what
helps one of us helps all of us. It's a great bunch of folks.
All that said, it's time for a change of pace.
The online streaming shows "Stupid
O'clock" and "Last Man Standing" have been uploaded live to YouTube as
well as several Facebook pages for over four years now. They are
basically live-streaming chat shows covering a range of topics, modeled
on the types of conversations people have after hours at SF&F
conventions. Joe McKeel and I have archives of past shows on our own
YouTube channels. Check 'em out if that sounds like something you'd
enjoy. I've put links in our Features section that will take you to the
YouTube archives of both shows.
It's high time I
shut up and let you get to reading.
Enjoy
yourselves,
Dan
ON
THE COVER
Title: Wide-field view of the region of the sky around the nebula NGC 6164/6165
Courtesy: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin
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