Aphelion 10th Anniversary--'Best of' Nominations?

[Robert_Moriyama]

Dan has pointed out that 2007 will be Aphelion's 10th anniversary.  He would like to do a special 'Best of' featuring the finest material from 1997 through to the present. Tao may have to provide pointers on how to FIND some of the early stuff ...

So ... nominations are open!  Anybody who remembers great stuff from The Early Years (besides Taophoenix -- oh, all right, including Taophoenix) please list your nominees here.  You should also include your favorites from 2006 (a narrower field due to our missed-issue problems, but no less rich).

Low participation will mean that MY tastes will dominate, and we wouldn't want THAT, now, would we?

Robert "Whaddaya mean I like weird things? Maple syrup goes great with spaghetti bolognese!" M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

The Archives, alas, STILL haven't been updated (and I say that as the person who was supposed to do the job).  However, you can find unarchived material for a given year and month by going to

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/<catego ... >/<month>/

e.g.,

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/shorts/2004/05/

gives you a directory listing of short stories for May 2004. (There is a sort of formula for retrieving the Index page for a given month, too, but I can't recall exactly how it works ... something with the volume and issue number?)

I know, not much help if you are looking for a story and remember the author but not the date -- but sometimes you can find stuff by using Google (using the author's name and 'Aphelion' as search terms), e.g.

"by Joe Blow" Aphelion

Mind you this, this DOESN'T always work ... and definitely will not work for stuff that IS in the Archives by author name.

Probably best place for nominations is here, either under this topic or under a new topic specifically for that purpose.  (Or maybe separate topics for "Best Short", "Best Serial or Novella", "Best Poem"?)

Dunno if I would put the Majius series, the Mare stories, and Nightwatch in the same category; the Majius stories are de facto a fragmented novel (at least the current Majius stories are -- post-Morgenstern, they might not be), the Mare stories are united mainly by the broad details of the Mare universe and a few recurring characters, and the Nightwatch novellas use the Institute and a few core characters (and their friends and enemies) under a VERY broad and mysterious uberplot that only Jeff knows.

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Having botched this twice already, I have learned a little about this subject the third time around.

I recommend the "back issues page". http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/backnos.htm

It gets a little odd before May 1999, but is otherwise mostly legible, and if you really get curious, there's an emergency backup with really early issues at some funky address. I think It's probably in my folder.

I will identify the challenge as : If you have never met the Old Tales, you're facing a problem of overwhelm. Although I might collapse under the weight, I am leaning towards a grand vision which combines material on a personal webpage, with the reviews posted here.  Theoretically, I would have every single story in Aphelion sorted by its original issue, and at least a numerical rating.  With tools like MS Excel, it wouldn't be too hard to post versions sorted by Author, or a couple other categories.

All reasons to hope this really kicks in at the *end* of 2007 ...

Tao "Unclear on Mortality" Phoenix

Hmm. Do I smell a volunteer? Perhaps Tao should take over the job of Chief Archivist of the Jedi Academy Library, as long as he's mucking about in the stacks.

Robert "Better him than me" M.

[kailhofer]

Having botched this twice already, I have learned a little about this subject the third time around.

I recommend the "back issues page". http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/backnos.htm

It gets a little odd before May 1999, but is otherwise mostly legible, and if you really get curious, there's an emergency backup with really early issues at some funky address. I think It's probably in my folder.

I will identify the challenge as : If you have never met the Old Tales, you're facing a problem of overwhelm. Although I might collapse under the weight, I am leaning towards a grand vision which combines material on a personal webpage, with the reviews posted here. Theoretically, I would have every single story in Aphelion sorted by its original issue, and at least a numerical rating. With tools like MS Excel, it wouldn't be too hard to post versions sorted by Author, or a couple other categories.

All reasons to hope this really kicks in at the *end* of 2007 ...

Tao "Unclear on Mortality" Phoenix

Hmm. Do I smell a volunteer? Perhaps Tao should take over the job of Chief Archivist of the Jedi Academy Library, as long as he's mucking about in the stacks.

Robert "Better him than me" M.

I believe Wishbone has volunteered to help with archival/authors index page in the past. Something about it being much the same as he does at work or something like that, as I recall.

He may have some web wizardry that he could use to index things by year/issue. Worth asking.

Nate

[kailhofer]

Dunno if I would put the Majius series, the Mare stories, and Nightwatch in the same category; the Majius stories are de facto a fragmented novel (at least the current Majius stories are -- post-Morgenstern, they might not be), the Mare stories are united mainly by the broad details of the Mare universe and a few recurring characters, and the Nightwatch novellas use the Institute and a few core characters (and their friends and enemies) under a VERY broad and mysterious uberplot that only Jeff knows.

Robert M.

It's been a long time since I crawled through the stacks, but weren't there more series than Nightwatch, Mare, & Majius? What about Dan's Valleor (Did that run in the Zine?) or something like that? There have to be more than that series. How many Starhawks were there?

'Best Series' is ok, but I think you may have to put a category as 'Best Story in a Series' for people to nominate individual stories, too.

What about by genre? 'Best Horror', 'Best SF', 'Best Fantasy', 'Best Comedy', etc.?


Nate

[kailhofer]

Ok, if I read that right, sounds like Dan doesn't want to have his creations in the running.

Since I have the day off & everybody in my house is still sluggish from all the Thanksgiving turkey, I had free time to dig through the archives. If you count a series/serial as having at least 3 parts, and leaving out Dan's, there were 29 other series/serials:

Adams A., Vasilis In Arms We Trust
Adams A., Vasilis The Quality of Grace
Adams, Richie One God's Folly
Allen, David First War
Benedetto, Jr., Ralph Who's Sword is it, Anyway?
Benett, R.R. Starshock
Cotterill, Mark E. Dry Run
Edelman, Dan Omen Swords (Bone Up Yar, The Jazz-Jazz, etc.)
Fanier, Mike Superhero Nation
Jackson, A.D. Maya
Kottle, Chad Witness of the World
"Krazy Kat" Poison
Krikorian, D.A. Pop's Cabin
Lawrence, Cris Time & Again
Lipscomb, Stephen Life at the Top
McGill, Neil Strange Deaths to Follow
McGill, Neil Zod
Moriyama, Robert A Matter Of ___
Ragas, Tony Flight of the Starhawk
Reeves, Scott The Universe Between
Rustam, Frederick The Questors
Smith, D.K Time Matrix
Stevenson, Ben Hawking's Dawn
Sullivan, Donald Al Rice Stories/Zenin Menace
Talent, Dennis Tigeminus
Williams, Jeff (et al) Nightwatch
Woods, Allen The Journeyman
Woods, Allen Through the Dark Veil
Wynne, Robert & Jeff Williams On the Corner or Galaxy & Fifth


Sorry if I spelled someone's name wrong or missed any.

Nate

PS-How the devil does the table function work, anyway? Or doesn't that work in this version of YABB? I would have loved to line that all up.

[kailhofer]

Is is bad form to vote for myself? It is? :'(


If we're only going by novella/short/episode of a series & not by genre, (and remembering I only go back 3 or 4 years) my nominees are:

Best Novella/Novellette
For the Love of Chicken, by D.D.H Lee

Best Series/Serial
Nightwatch

Best Story in a Series
Nightwatch: The Kindness of Strangers by Jeff Williams

Best Short Story
Shadows, by Robert Moriyama
(Yes, I voted for Robert, and no, it's not the Apocalypse.)

I don't consider myself qualified to vote for poems...


Nate

[kailhofer]

Actually, I was just pointing out that nothing I have except for Mare stories actually fits in the "Series" catagory.

Dan

Well, as long as you put "series" and "serial" in the same category (which I think they should be), you had a lot of them, especially if you look at the late 90's. Nobody said serials had to be polished or even finished.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

ANY SUGGESTIONS??? (Besides Nate's, in which he nominated one of his and one of mine -- the sort of thing that leads to Scandal and Outrage 'mongst the hoi-polloi)

I am trying to at least glance at all the stories from 1997 on (long enough to decide if I like the writing, anyway) in a wild attempt to pick one story per year for 1997 - 2005, then pick a couple for 2006 (since we had a smaller crop than usual, there is less to choose from), THEN pick a bunch of new stories so we don't fall even further behind on the submissions queue. My hope is to have everything ready so we can go live with the February issue no later than February 15th -- er, 14th, since it's a short month.

What are the odds that I can pull it off? And once I've pulled it off, can it be surgically reattached? MEDIC!

Taophoenix, if you have any favorites from 1997 - 1999 (... and onward), it would help to have at least ONE outside opinion aside from my quick-glance assessments.

Robert "I can't believe I planned to skim the whole thing!" M.

[kailhofer]

ANY SUGGESTIONS??? (Besides Nate's, in which he nominated one of his and one of mine -- the sort of thing that leads to Scandal and Outrage 'mongst the hoi-polloi)

Robert "I can't believe I planned to skim the whole thing!" M.

No, I didn't. Scroll up 5 messages and look.

I asked if it was bad form to nominate myself, but then didn't vote for me, because it is bad form.

Then I went on to nominate others.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

ANY SUGGESTIONS??? (Besides Nate's, in which he nominated one of his and one of mine -- the sort of thing that leads to Scandal and Outrage 'mongst the hoi-polloi)

Robert "I can't believe I planned to skim the whole thing!" M.

No, I didn't. Scroll up 5 messages and look.

I asked if it was bad form to nominate myself, but then didn't vote for me, because it is bad form.

Then I went on to nominate others.

Nate

Could have sworn ... maybe your mention of 'Another Sarah' in another thread got tangled up with your nominations in the breadboard and alligator-clip wiring between my ears. Or that sneaky steganographic message in your Hallowe'en-themed picture had the desired effect. (Cue villainous laughter) (Where did you find the 'subliminal message' text formatting button? It doesn't show up in my web browser.)

Robert 'Making false allegations since 1956' M.

[kailhofer]

Could have sworn ... maybe your mention of 'Another Sarah' in another thread got tangled up with your nominations in the breadboard and alligator-clip wiring between my ears. Or that sneaky steganographic message in your Hallowe'en-themed picture had the desired effect. (Cue villainous laughter) (Where did you find the 'subliminal message' text formatting button? It doesn't show up in my web browser.)

Robert 'Making false allegations since 1956' M.

Yes, Robert...

Look into the eyes of the spectre...

You want to vote for Another Sarah...

and Alligator Tears, too...

Then send Nate money...


No? Darn. It was worth a shot. :D

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

Tao

The sooner the better. I've just finished skimming short stories from 1997 (lordy, there were a lot of them), identifying a bunch for more careful review (I will probably list one (at most two) stories from each year), so I have a looong way to go. Anything that narrows the field will be appreciated.

Assuming that I want to have everything ready by (say) Feb. 10th, I will be able to take your suggestions up until that date (if I have different choices than yours, I can do a quickie review to make a final decision).

Robert M. :-?

[Robert_Moriyama]

Tao

In a message to the Editorial Mafia, I have said that I would be trying to cover all 10 years, plus pick some stories from the current slush pile -- er, file -- er, directories. But I also said that in a pinch, we could do 'Best of 1997 - xxxx' in February, and ' Best of xxxx+1 - 2006' in March, so if we can't QUITE make it, it won't be a complete disaster.

Note that Cary Semar and Dan and I generated 'Best of' lists for 2003, 2004, and 2005 (respectively) that I can use as ready-made short lists for those years, and I'm now partway through 1998, so if you can produce short-lists for 1999 - 2002, we may actually be able to make the undeadline for The Whole Shebang. (Is that sexist? Should it be She/Hebang? Itbang?)

Robert 'Where's my Visine(TM)?' M.

[kailhofer]

Tao

In a message to the Editorial Mafia, I have said that I would be trying to cover all 10 years, plus pick some stories from the current slush pile -- er, file -- er, directories. But I also said that in a pinch, we could do 'Best of 1997 - xxxx' in February, and ' Best of xxxx+1 - 2006' in March, so if we can't QUITE make it, it won't be a complete disaster.

Note that Cary Semar and Dan and I generated 'Best of' lists for 2003, 2004, and 2005 (respectively) that I can use as ready-made short lists for those years, and I'm now partway through 1998, so if you can produce short-lists for 1999 - 2002, we may actually be able to make the undeadline for The Whole Shebang. (Is that sexist? Should it be She/Hebang? Itbang?)

Robert 'Where's my Visine(TM)?' M.

Wow. How many stories are going to be in this list? Sounds like a lot. If it is that many, you may want to split the list just so readers aren't overloaded. I'd think a list of the best of the best Aphelion stories could draw a fair amount of attention.

Out of curiosity, is your final goal a finished set of links to the best of the best stories, or just a list for further deliberation/voting? I assumed you (that's a collective 'you') were going to post the "winning" best of links, but I realized it was never really said.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

I was going to provide links (and maybe new blurbs) for one or two stories per year ... doing it the hard way (at least glancing at the first page or two) for stories prior to 2003 (the first year for which the E.M. provided 'best of' picks), then picking from the already-posted Best of 2003, 2004, and 2005 for those years. However, NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN. Stories that are mentioned by anyone as deserving special attention will AT LEAST be short-listed, if not accepted outright as 'Best of' the year in which they appeared. The sheer number of stories would preclude the use of the 'Poll' feature of yaBB ... but perhaps we could set up separate polls for each year with two or three choices, then let the readers (those who can be bothered to read the stories and vote) make the final decision. OR, to make things shorter, set up a poll with all 'my' picks for 'Best of xxxx' (xxxx = 1997 - 2006) and let voters pick the 'Absolute Best of the First Decade of Aphelion'.

Opinions? Dan? Jeff? Rob? Iain? (Speaking of Jeff and Iain, will you be doing anything with 1997 - 2006 serials/novellas and poetry?)

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

On top of everything else, I've been sick for over a week now, and haven't been able to put in much time online to review old material. (I did manage to read hard copy of August and September 2006 submissions, so I should be able to get the NEW stuff ready fairly quickly.) So ... given the increasing interest in the 'Best of' thing, maybe we should spread things out even more to allow more participation. Say February covers Short Story nominations for 1997 - 1999 (*my* short lists for 1997 and 1998; Tao's for 1999?); March Short Story nominations for 2000 - 2002; April Short Story Nominations for 2003 - 2004; and may Short Story nominations for 2005 - 2006 (or something like that). Assuming maybe three nominations for each year, we could then have a poll for each year to pick Best of xxxx; then a final poll with the Top Story from each year, to pick Best Short of 1997 - 2006.

Is this TOO ambitious, or too lazy and drawn out? Dan, Jeff, Rob, Iain? Usual Suspects?

Robert 'coff, wheeze, gag' M.

[kailhofer]

It's nice to see several people interested, but when were y'all trying to get this issue out, again?

Seems mighty late in the game to be decidin' such issues... ::)

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

As I said, I should be able to get the NEW stories ready to go by this weekend. The only question is how many years we should try to cover for Part I of the 'Best of' retrospective, and whether it should be multiple nominees, or a single pick for each year. I STILL want to get this puppy online by mid-month, which means pre-Valentine's Day, so married folk can take time off for spoonin' or forkin'... that came out sounding dirty, didn't it?

So how are the POETRY, SERIALS/NOVELLAS, and EDITORIAL departments coming along? (Time for those reminder e-mails / posts / private messages?)

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Okay gang, time for a town meeting.

(Someone dig up Doc. He's gonna need to be a major part of this!)

In the last few months, we've grumbled a little about declining memberships, etc. We have a 10th Anniversary occasion... because of the previous Herculean Efforts of the staff crew, and the "Usual Suspects" group of power-posters.

Some long time back Dan apparently had a hardware crash, and retrieved the front indexes, but the stories became COMPLETELY unhooked.

Readers might forgive a stray picture missing ... but they absolutely will not forgive 1.6 year's worth of stories missing out of a 10 year celebration.

We're at a kind of Decision Nexus. We can't simultaneously claim the "no one cares if the basement is a mess" luxury of a small club, and then wail about declining numbers. Presuming a 10th Anniversary is the best chance we'll EVER have to kickstart new upswings, we don't dare trumpet "it's a 10... no wait, an 8.4 year anniversary!!) to a readership with every pro magazine on the planet to compare us with, our "mostly-volunteer status be damned".

Anyway, we miscounted!
97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 2007
We "put 10 years to bed" ... and we are starting the ELEVENTH YEAR!!

For all these reasons, let's take the time we have - essentially half of this year - to to the Decade Overhaul to make our little magazine, one that's giving every other webzine a serious run for the money, shipshape for new visitors. (And extracting old members from wherever they disappeared to?)

Plus, virtually no one except Robert M. has posted anything on this topic. All these signs scream "Rushed!!"

Now, the good news is that I *THINK* the stories are available, in the Author Archives. This means it's just a mechanical linking process to rebuild the past issues. Rob, I'm guessing it could take you the better part of an hour per issue to put the stories back. I MIGHT be able to partially do the code and chop off about half of the time if Rob wants. In an extreme emergency, I MIGHT be able to host ALL of the missing issues as a deep link to my own (currently experimental) personal page. If so, I'd seriously need some time to buckle down and completely shuffle my page. (This would be on top of generating shortlists for the remaining years.)

Summary: Just drill out the February issue with whatever regular stuff it has, and talk about this for at least 2 weeks, and a minimum GoLive deadline no shorter than 10 weeks. (May 2007)

:-/

TaoPhoenix

Um, Tao, completion of the nth year / start of the n+1st year IS the usual definition of 'nth Anniversary'. Hence one year after a wedding, you celebrate the 1st Anniversary ...

I used the Back Issue index files to find the author names and story titles for 1997 and part of 1998, then went through the Archives/Author Index to retrieve the actual stories. For the sake of completeness, EVENTUALLY we should rebuild things so both access methods work ... (updating the Archives is one of my back-burner (waaaay back) tasks). Note that even some of the Author Index links are dead, presumably due to stories removed per author request. Sadly, that means that those stories are out of the running, even if it is because they sold for $$ to paying markets (o bitter irony).

I would still like to include nominations for 1997 - 1999 (at least) in this issue. (Interestingly, I'm not sure how much overlap there is between your 1997/1998 short lists and mine -- empirical proof that Tastes Vary!)

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Tao and anyone else paying attention

I just combined Tao's list and mine to see how much overlap there was. NEITHER of us has made any picks for April/May, June/July, August/September, October, November, or December of 1998 so far. Of the periods we have both looked at, out of dozens of stories, only THREE appear in both lists:

The Devil They Knew (Frederick Rustam), July 1997
Alice and Eve (Chad Cottle), July 1997
Copilot (Thomas Allen Mays), August 1997

That seems like a good indication that those might do as nominations for 1997 ...

For January and February/March 1998, I have a few including  Kate Thornton's first Aphelion appearance ('Language Barrier', January 1998), Frederick Rustam's 'Calling All Stars' (Feb/March 1998), and W. Fraser Sandercombe's 'Backstreet Gambler' (also Feb/March 1998) - I'll have to make a very fast run through the remainder of 1998, then try to pick a few from Tao's 1999 list.

This means that the nominations we can include in the upcoming issue will cover at most 1997 - 1999, and may be rather spotty because the two main 'judges' obviously have different tastes!

Dan, Rob -- what is the cutoff for content for the index2 file? As I said before, we can omit any specifics on the 'cover' about the years for which we are providing 'Best of' nominations ...

Robert "I may never read anything ever again after this" M.

PS Tao, some of the month references in your nominations list are off -- I think you were taking the issue number as the month, whereas it is always off by one (since Issue #1 was in February 1997). Of course, since I was looking at the lists for all of 1997 to pick a mere two or three stories, the exact month of appearance was pretty much irrelevant.

[kailhofer]

I've been looking through the serials for the '97-99 period, and I'll nominate 2 as better than average. Both concluded in Nov. 98, with links that work to all the previous parts from that issue.

Trigeminus by Dennis Talent
Life at the Top by Stephen Lipscomb


Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

At this point, I think I will be doing FOUR noms per year (on the assumption that anyone who cares can then vote for their favorite in a Poll) for 1997 - 1999. I have my 1997 and 1999 lists more or less settled, but have to cut my 1998 list in half. I don't THINK I have any 'novella' length stories in the lists, but a couple are pretty long, so I'm not sure.

1997 will include the three that Tao and I agreed on, plus one more;
1998 is based purely on my quicky scan of stories (rejecting those that didn't grab me in the first page or so), plus one recommendation by Rob Wynne -- leaving me with EIGHT to be winnowed down to four by this evening;
1999 is a subset of Tao's 1999 recommendations.

I have excluded Mare Inebrium stories, as I think Dan should have the privilege of choosing his favorites; Cary Semar and McCamy Taylor have been considered eligible, since neither is currently a Mafioso/a (and they had some good stuff in 1997 - 1999); even Iain Muir has one in the 1998 short list (who know he wrote space opera?).

Anyway, I will upload the twelve stories and provide titles, authors, and links this evening. And THAT should mean that we MIGHT be able to get the issue up this weekend, depending on where Rob and Dan are with the cover and Editorial.

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Final(?) status report: uploaded 4 stories for 1997, 5 for 1998, 4 for 1999. Sent list of titles, authors, and links (no blurbs) to Editorial Mafia.

So ... I guess I should start reading for the March issue, and 'Best of 2000 - 2002 (or 2003?)'.

Robert M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

'kay, so Tao and I, between us, are going to try to short-list nominations for Best Short Stories of 2000 - 2002 within the next week or so (so we can get the March issue online around mid-month again). There were APPROXIMATELY 300 short stories published during that period (not including 'Best of' selections, mainly from 1999, that were used to fill the February 2002 issue), so that whimpering sound and squoshing of Visine[sup]TM[/sup] bottles will be coming from the Virtual Bullpen where they keep Editorial Mafiosi chained to their keyboards.

On the plus side (from my point of view), 2006 was not the first year Aphelion had to skip more than one issue due to personal and professional pressures faced by the staff. (Check it out -- there were TWO months missed in 2002, if you count the February 'all Best of' issue.) It was, however, probably the WORST year to date, and a record we hope we never even come close to matching in the future.

Robert "2003 - 2005 will be easier, 'cause we'll just use existing 'Best of' Lists" M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Hokey smokes, Tao, obviously you have been burning the midnight electrons. I will finish running through 2002, then try to pick favorites from YOUR favorites ... then pick some new material to flesh things out. Target will be to have everything ready by Friday or sooner.

Robert "Too old to keep up with phoenix-fire-fuelled pacing" M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Not only did Tao nominate 'Rivers of Olympus', but I seconded that emotion, so the story is one of those that will appear in the [s]March[/s]April issue as a 'Best of 2000' selection. :)

Robert "Buttering up authors we haven't heard from in a long time" M.