Issue 171, Volume 17 — March 2014
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Editorial
The Usual Rant from Aphelion's
Senior Editor:
Once again it is time for a new issue of Aphelion. And once
again the
editorial I had planned has gotten scuttled by events beyond my
control. So here is “just Dan, winging it” once again! Let us see what
we may see, Shall we?
My editorial for our previous issue was supposed to be about a
tabletop gaming company attempting to stretch their limited trademark
on a figurine and its name. These had been being used in their games
and in a sideline of e-books they had recently begun publishing in
order to promote their games. The game company upset a huge number of
readers, writers, and even publishers by claiming that they now held
legal and worldwide trademark rights over the truly generic sci-fi term
“Space Marine.” An indie writer wound up with one of her e-books being
pulled from Amazon's inventory. She had no cash to spare for a
protracted legal battle with the game company, so she blogged about it.
That blog post got read by a fairly large number of people. And those
readers also blogged about the situation. Word got out pretty quickly,
as one might expect it to do. Since the term “Space Marine” was coined
back in the early 1930s, and has been in use as an easily understood
trope of science-fiction ever since, the list of people with a interest
in this matter contained some Very Big Names indeed. Some of them have
since been made aware of the situation and have joined in the
discourse. Also, the indie writer, with the help of some of the folks
who read of her difficulties, has successfully petitioned Amazon to
have her e-book reinstated to the sales lists. Anyone who is interested
can google “Space Marine” and quickly find links to the pertinent
webpages and blogsites. I would have included them here, but all that
data is six to eight weeks old now, I'm using my Netbook to access the
Internet at the moment, and I'm just winging it anyway. Which brings me
to paragraph three...
“Why is Dan not using his regular desktop computer?” I imagine
you readers asking yourselves about now. Short answer: “It's dead,
Jim.” The reason that I didn't get to finish my editorial last month is
that my computer monitor died while I was writing it. Because I had
previously goofed up the settings for the household computer network,
none of the computers in the house can presently file-share or
print-share. The unfinished editorial had been saved, intact, but was
unreachable by any of my back-up computers. It was uploading deadline,
I was frustrated, and I didn't want to be the one holding up the upload
of the issue. So I e-mailed the Aphelion Staff telling them to go ahead
without me. It was several days after the February issue that I was
able to borrow a spare monitor from a friend at work. We had a busy
next few weeks, Lyn and I. We filed our income tax paperwork, went to
AnachroCon, and began n ambitious round of Spring Cleaning about the
house. When our tax refund arrived, we paid down various credit card
debts, paid monthly bills, and Lyn insisted that I buy a new computer.
You see, he old desktop computer had died sometime during last year's
Holiday season. I had quickly gone shopping to get her a new one. In
about the same time frame, my desktop computer had started showing
signs of old age. Frequent, unwanted reboots, the main drive finally
becoming full, and various other little problems. Lyn insisted that I
go ahead and replace the old workhorse that had been serving duty since
the early 2000s. Since I was becoming quite tired of all the
spontaneous reboots, I finally agreed. I replaced the dead monitor with
a slightly larger flat-screen TV. That way we saved $50 off the price
of a monitor, could eliminate a tiny old CRT TV set that we'd had in
the office for watching VHS tapes, while at the same time I would gain
a serviceable monitor for my desktop computer. With the help of an
online friend, I worked up a shopping list of computer parts to rebuild
my antique desktop computer. My friend found the best deals, I ordered
the parts, and we planned for him to come visit for a weekend to help
with the rebuild. The parts arrived Tuesday of last week. My friend
arrived Friday afternoon. By Saturday night, we had the computer
rebuilt, wired into the system, and discovered that the new power
supply and the new motherboard were both defective. My computer was
non-functional. It will be tomorrow, Monday, before my friend can call
the place where I bought the parts and explain the problem to them.
Since this is a highly reputable online dealer that we are working
with, my friend hopes that they will not only replace the parts for
free, pay for me to ship the defective parts back, but fill in for him
by doing a build of the components to ship to me. If he gets his way, I
will be shipped a new, tested motherboard, processor, and RAM assembly,
and a new power supply. I will have to dismount the defective power
supply and motherboard myself. Then I'll have to mount those, wire
everything in, and connect the hard drives. Once all that is built and
running, I can clone all my old hard drives onto newer, larger drives,
delete all the old LAN settings that I buggered up, and create a new
household LAN workgroup in my desktop. My friend will be watching the
tricky bits through Skype and webcam on this Netbook so he can walk me
through the necessary changes to the desktop's BIOS settings. All the
rewiring for accessory external hard drives have been redone,
streamlined, and generally simplified during the unsuccessful rebuild
this weekend. Well over half the work on the household computer network
was successful by the time we discovered the dud computer parts. I'm
not saying that five screws and twenty wires are all I need to put in
place and all will be right with the world. I am saying that a huge
amount of the infrastructure of the household system has been
successfully redone. What is left to complete should be well within my
knowledge -base, in other words.
Now, there is another silver lining to this dark cloud. As
part of the general Spring Cleaning, and part of making Casa Vila
presentable for my friend Sean to come visit, Lyn and I have sorted
through and trashed several truckloads of accumulated junk I had
collected since the house fire back in 2007. Lyn's housecleaning
workload is now much lighter. We will soon have the spare room ready
for her genealogy and sewing projects. I now have ten entire toolboxes
full of tools and raw materials for my own projects. There is now room
in the house for us to easily reach all but the bottom half of one
bookcase. I have a synth on a wheeled stand and some stuff that needs
to be sorted into “stuff to put through the shredder” and “stuff to be
put in the filing cabinets” in front of that shelf. Things have been
rearranged to better utilize our available space. Casa Vila is no
longer a place of closed doors and over-cluttered rooms. We will
continue to clean, sort, and rid ourselves of my decades of collected
junk. Casa Vila will be ready for casual visitors once again. It won't
be looking like a college dorm room for much longer.
And no one should be surprised if a future story of mine
features a character who is suffering unexpected problems with computer
upgrades...
Well, this turned into one of my longer editorials. I must
have delayed your enjoyment of all the new stories and poetry by a good
ten minutes. Time for me to shut up and let you get to the good stuff!
Dan
Long Fiction
*** Alas, there were no publishable long fiction entries this month!
***
Short Stories
Chip
and the Snoop
By J. J. Barella
Chip's life on Luxor couldn't have been better. He got to
interact with aliens of every shape and size, and participate in the
truest democracy in sentient history on a daily basis. But something
odd seemed to have happened to his formerly-affable neighbors...
Mind
of Winter
By McCamy Taylor
The incredible rash of volcanic activity had brought about
something resembling nuclear winter, minus the radiation. And whether
that was the cause of the changes in Keisha's body and ... eating
habits ... or just a coincidence, she desperately wanted to know.
Ties
That Bind
By Kasidy Manisco
Rashelle was different in more ways than one. She was deaf,
communicating mainly through sign language. And she was half fey,
stronger and faster than human, with an inborn talent for magic. Cece
didn't care about the differences -- she was Rashelle's friend no
matter what. That made it doubly important for Rashelle to protect her
from the inhuman slaver stalking her through the mall.
Coils
in the Dark
By M. N. Tarrint
Ziebowski was his own man, living as he wanted to live, which
meant that he could and did acquire whatever struck his fancy from the
storage-locker contents auctions and second-hand stores. The beautiful
old cabinet, however, turned out to come with some unexpected extras.
The
Gears That Ground The Hearts of Children
By Konstantine Paradias
Timothy Burroughs's world was shattered when a car struck him
down during his birthday party. And not just because it did terrible
damage to his body...
Previously
Loved
By Anthony R. Pezzula
As soon as he saw the 2007 Mustang at the used car lot, Phil
had to have it. Aside from looking great and having all the power he
could ever use, it had options galore -- including one not on the bill
of sale.
A
Higher Aim
By Dave Weaver
Everybody knows what happened in Dallas in November, 1963. But
nobody agrees on why it happened, or who gave the orders. Here's a
version you probably haven't heard.
Poetry and Filk Music
Features
Thoughts
on Writing #46: 'Easy' is for other people
By Seanan McGuire
In an ongoing series, Seanan McGuire takes apart the engine of
writing to find out how it works, and offers her insights into how to
put it back together again. In this entry, she recalls that writing
will sometimes be hard work (maybe most of the time)...
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