Revitalizing Features: Call for Submissions

[doc]

In the last few years, the Features section of the zine has been fairly moribund, and I'd really like to see that change this year.

Read a good SF book lately? Been to a good genre movie? Heard a great filk album, or even an album of music from a mainstream artist that might appeal to a science fiction fan? Why not write a review for Aphelion? Gone to a convention and you want to tell everyone what someone said?

Reviews should be 500-1500 words long, on a single subject. If you'd like to do a multi-subject review (as you might, say, to overview particular sub-genre...see my "Comics for Adults" article from Way Back in the Archives), contact me seperately and we'll work something out.

Is there someone writing for Aphelion you'd like to know more about? Consider conducting an interview of your fellow writer. Interviews may be of variable length, depending on the subject and their responsiveness. Take a look under Jeff Williams in the archives for examples of previous Aphelion Interviews.

Is there something going on in the SF or wirting field that you just want to talk about? Essays are welcome. Let me know if you'd like to borrow a soapbox.

Features content may also be used offsite for a promotional project I'm starting to put together, as well.

Too long, the features have been dromant. Let's get them up and rolling again.

[doc]

As for Book Reviews ...

I'll need some guidance upon how new the books in question should be. Half the SF in my library would be over 5 years old, and I'm working on a project about how certain FIFTY-PLUS year old short stories are suddenly becoming devastatingly relevant to the cutting edge of today's news.

---TaoPhoenix

That sounds like a fun essay, actually, and would fit neatly in the Features section.

[doc]

When I'm not making pretty little piles of the BackStacks, I might also be able to contribute some movie & book reviews.

Here's one I wrote under inspiration from Rotten Tomatoes.

Is this what y'all are looking for?

This is half of a good review. There should be a couple of paragraphs describing the hook of the film -- what is it about, who is in it/directed it, notable stuff like that. The reviewer should assume that the reader is looking to them for some information about the movie, not just an opinion, since most folks read revies to determine if they want to see a film, not to see what someone thought of a film they already saw.

Otherwise, good start!

[doc]

I might be interested in doing an ongoing column about mythologies. More specifically, the more obscure myths and folklores that receive scant attention outside their regional areas.

That sounds like fun!

[Robert_Moriyama]

The Phoenix is also astoundingly undeveloped as a theme. I've been searching for material all my life and I'm still under 10 pages of serious data. The fictional treatments are not far between.

And that's not counting the Marvel Comics 'Phoenix Force' / 'Dark Phoenix' saga. There was even a short-lived TV series, I think, starring Judson Scott(?) as a character with superhuman attributes...

Just looked it up at IMDB.com --

The Phoenix (TV, 1982)

"An archaeological expedition in Peru exploring ancient Incan ruins uncovers a strange casket. When the seals are released, a white man, somehow still alive is discovered. The man turns out to be Bennu, a visitor from another planet. Information he was supposed to have had been stored in the casket, but was destroyed by the archaeologists when they opened it. Bennu must learn to survive on earth, avoiding Peruvian government representatives who want to worship him as a god, and US government agents who want to disect an alien. Written by Diane Mullen {vdm22906@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu}"

As I recall, Bennu had powers that were linked to light and the Sun. There may have been a bird-shaped amulet that served as the source of or at least a focusing device for his abilities (hence the title -- aside from the whole rising from the should-be-dead theme).

I have a honkin' big book titled "Mythology: The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth and Storytelling" that might be of some use in this effort -- whatever the topic of an essay-in-progress may be, let me know and I'll check to see if there is anything in there not found in your other research.

Robert "It looked interesting, so I picked it up*" M.

(*Hence the THOUSANDS of books cluttering my living space.)

[doc]

Early-Stage inventors/funding groups are working on prototypes of Vending machines for books!

I actually saw a book vending machine at London's Gatwick airport in February. :)

[doc]

Nah, it was just bestsellers. Typical airport books, really.

But the fact that it was there pleased me greatly. :)

[Robert_Moriyama]

Remember the 'french fry' vending machines? They would extrude a reconstituted potato mixture into uniform strips and drop them into hot oil (more like rectangular-solid Pringles than true french fries) ... they didn't catch on / last long, probably because they were expensive, tricky to maintain, and the product sucked (I would guess). Would a self-contained, self-service book POD kiosk do any better?

I would assume that the machine that Rob saw in England was one that sold pre-printed paperbacks, rather than a print-on-demand rig. At present, I don't think there is a printing technology that could output a full-length novel in a reasonable length of time in a self-contained, free-standing unit. Now, if you had a manned -- er, personned -- booth where customers placed an order, then returned (when paged? I SWEAR, this was not intended as a pun) when their book was ready -- THAT might work. Any compact, free-standing printer-cum-binder fast enough to print (say) a 500-page book (i.e., about 250 leaves plus covers; about 125 sheets plus covers assuming double-sided printing with 4 pages (2 leaves) per sheet) in under 10 minutes would (a) be very susceptible to paper jams, and (b) tend to run out of consumables -- ink or toner, paper, and (depending on binding technology) glue or clamps/cerlox-type spines -- rather often. Hence a human attendant would be necessary unless the thing only processed at most one or two orders per hour ...

Hell, so far, even burn-on-demand music-CD booths haven't become popular or widespread (possibly because they have been overtaken by downloadable media?). Self-service digital photo printing kiosks, on the other hand, seem to be pretty common now, but they are likely printing the equivalent of maybe 30 'pages' worth of graphics per order (maybe less, if the appeal is that you can get prints of just the pictures you want).

What was this thread about again? We seem to be digressing ...

(Rob, were you pleased by the assumption (presumably borne out by sales) that at least SOME people are still READING? And that technology was being deployed (for a change) to facilitate that rather than supplant it?)

Robert M.

[kailhofer]

Is this call for submissions going to be in the zine as well, or just here?

Announcements in the lettercol are great, but if you want to reach a bigger audience of potential contributors, I think you may want to mention it in the zine also.

Advertising in only one spot only reaches one set of people. For example, when I took over marketing and circulation for a newspaper (which I don't do anymore--that paper grew in market share until it was bought a national group), I found the people before me only advertised in their own paper for subscribers--but only people who subscribed got the paper in the first place. It was kind of "preaching to the choir", if you know what I mean. The lettercol is a smaller pool of people, and mostly frequented by regulars who are busy writing stories, just wrote a story and are looking for comments, critiquing, or editing.

Just a suggestion.

Nate

[doc]

Is this call for submissions going to be in the zine as well, or just here?

This *is* in the zine. :)

Honestly, Nate, patience. Give me a couple of months, and then we'll blow your mind. I'm not going to blow your mind ahead of schedule.

There's methods to my madness. Or at least a madness to my methods. ;)

[kailhofer]

Is this call for submissions going to be in the zine as well, or just here?

This *is* in the zine. :)

Honestly, Nate, patience. Give me a couple of months, and then we'll blow your mind. I'm not going to blow your mind ahead of schedule.

There's methods to my madness. Or at least a madness to my methods. ;)

Um... You've confused me.

Were you trying to say that because the call for features submissions is here, that counts as in the zine, or that the call is on the index page?
'Cause I don't see any such appeal for submissions on the page. Perhaps I missed it.

All I was trying to make the point that those who look at the index page are not necessarily the same people who read the lettercol, so if you wanted to reach a broader audience, you might want to put it in both places.

Do what you want.


Nate