VOTE: June '09 Challenge

[kailhofer]

The challenge was to craft a steampunk flash story that included or made reference to a steam-powered airship or spaceship.


The following entries were received:



Contents Under Pressure



1899 - Internal Note. Limitless Automaton Man Body 7 of the Trevithick Hisashige Steam Automaton Company. Stimuli mingle in my tubing. Past, present, images, sounds, facts and emotions all mix in a cacophony of information. The only way I can tell them apart is the date notation. All of this is happening in a single moment, a mockery of what humans describe as “seeing your life pass before your eyes”.

1842 - I am aware of the disk deep within me protected by a seal. This is my magnetic radiating apparatus which binds be in one functioning form. I am aware of the great heat, pressure, and steam that explodes a million times a million within me.

1843 - External audio. “Gentlemen, this L.A.M.B.7 Steam Automaton is a singular work of genius. The L.A.M.B 7 is a multi system reciprocating and rotary steam powered unit with multi functioning capacity in both the physical and pseudo mental arenas. It has the ability to communicate needs, self service, and receive unlimited instruction through the insertion of these small punch cards we call frameworks. It employs a novel technology called the Inverse Coil Magnetic Corpus by which the whole form of this automaton can contain vast amounts of steam pressure.

We are living in a mechanized steam utopia. L.A.M.B 6 units are building armies for the future. But L.A.M.B 7 has pseudo thought and will command your other Automatons for you!

Who would like to start the bidding?"

1865 - Visual Replay. Thousands of entrenched soldiers are dug into fields of blood and burnt earth where cows once trod the veg. A great wall of violent air, black and streaming lighting, rolls toward them from the South. Guns are filled with powder and shot, steam cannons pressurized and readied, but the wall of storm is more than three miles across and approaching so quickly they cannot judge its distance correctly. Hundreds of spiked machines of destructions, like Abaddon’s fancies enlivened, breach the storm surge wall at its base while brunneous bulbous steam driven dirigibles break from the blackness of the upper reaches into the clear event horizon above the entrenchments. Nature’s cyclonic performance is but a reaction to the vast quantities of steam, coal smoke, and displaced air. How could those entrenched genteel men know that whole weather systems could be created as the result of so many steam machines surging in tandem? Thousands are crushed and ground into paste under the spiked war wagons that snort forth torrents of steam like so many fattened hogs engorged and vomitous from a glut. Those left unmolested from the war wheels are quickly incinerated by the excremental death being dropped from the dirigibles.

1865 - No. This is all wrong. No, No…

1871- Repurposing Directive- Audio. “Under direct orders of The New London Council on Steam Automaton Safety you are recommissioned to mortuary duties. You Tom-Tons will count, identify, and lay to rest those poor bastards you see in the fields before you."

1872 - I put Johnny Rebb’s hand in my pocket; I found it in the earth.

1870 - The automatons did not tire as the humans did, we did not suffer the scalding of the steam cannons, or feel the heat from the airship’s excrement. Certainly my comrades were crushed by the war wagons but even then we fought on. And now we dig graves so vast we must strip mine the precious metals first and then bury the rotting masses.

1874 - I had no idea the colors of decay could be so varied. They blame us. I think they are destroying us. I am the only L.A.M.B. 7 though and as such coveted, or maybe feared. My time may be short.

1880 - External Recording, Mass Grave 498.75 “Mummy, look at that old Tom-Ton down in the death pit, his skin looks funny and he is talking to himself.”

“Sh! Darling we are Luddite Reform and we must not allow them to hear even a peep from our lips. For as the Book of Ag states, ‘So God created man and ordained husband and wife to cling to each other to create man again. Let no word escape your lips, nor your eyes rest upon them, lest the tools of Man become as Gods and we worship false idols.’ Now hold your nose and my hand until we get to the memorial shrine."

1885 - Free of the death pits, but running and watched…

1884 - External Audio - Leader of the Luddite Reform church Speaks outside Bodley Head Publishing House. “The tyranny of technology has destroyed the working class, brought war to rival all wars, and filled the land with disease and death. What more can I say Brothers and Sisters than…this is the End Time and we must prepare for Rapture. As the Book of Ag states in Chapter 22, verse 10 ‘The Lamb shall open the Seventh Seal and Darkness shall fall upon the face of the deep. The Earth shall rock, the oceans shall rise, and Chaos shall be unleashed. Man’s hubris shall call forth the end.’ "

1899 - Yes, the L.A.M.B. shall open his seal.

1898 - Government detainment- External Audio - “But sir, the Magnetic Corpus has never been breached in the testing phase. It is beyond our understanding. With Hisashige’s death the secrets of the L.A.M.B.7’s magnetic radiation envelope went to the grave. Look at this article on Earth Crustal Displacement theory. Just think what a Magnetic bomb would do to the magnetic field of the earth!”

1899- Escaped…run you fool, run! There, the church…

1899- And so the L.A.M.B.…

1876- Is that Hiram Sturth and the Seventh Brigade in the meat paste? I will have to pull them apart as well…

1899- …opened the Seventh Seal.

1877- Eyeball number 5,214… Color hazel.

1899- External Audio- “Ahg, a Tom-Ton in this House of God! How dare you, demon!

“What is he doing?”

“He is reaching inside himself ….he glows there…what is that sound!”


[align=center]The End[/align]




AIRSHIPPING BUSINESS



Charles, Chuck or Chuckles, as he was known to his current friends and fellow inmates, was recently released from the Rahway State Prison after serving his penance. He and a few others of his young cohorts had once hijacked a steam-powered airship freighter, out of total boredom. The airship, belonging to MARIO’S AIRSHIP FREIGHT/ITALY-AMERICA, Inc., had been moored on the New Jersey Air Path rest stop on its way to New York to unload fresh tomatoes, and imported goods from Sicily. Chuck and his young friends hurt no one and only took it for a joy flight. The judge, Franco Antonelli, didn’t see it that way. “Five to Ten in the pen,” and the gavel hit the bench.

Eight and a half years later, he’s out early for good behavior and on probation. His wife had divorced him. He fought for visitation rights and lost. He IS an ex-con and his presence in polite society was not welcome. Of course his real friends will talk to him. There are not too many of them considering he went in at 21 and got out at 30. That was a lifetime ago. Most had settled, gone on to careers or were dead from the wars.

Chuckles used his connections, past, prison and family to locate a job that would allow him some needed freedom. He landed a job as a buyer of used airships for a wholesale airship auction house CAPITAL AIRSHIPS, LLC., in da Bronx, New York. The company salesmen would fly all over New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and sometimes even New England to other airship dealers purchasing used and traded-in airships. They would have them flown back to the clearing house in New York by sales and pilot trainees. In this manner of gainful employment, Chuckles got around the probation restrictions on travel. He acquired a good paying respectable job that required interstate flying. He didn’t have to check in every time he traveled. It was always for business. Probation agreed, grudgingly.

Charles was an excellent salesman. He dressed in the best hand made suits of the time. He followed the fashions. He kept up on the times. He could converse with the mechanic to the presidents of the world corporations. Charles would keep copious notes on every sales person and their families he dealt with; referring back to them to make sure he had his facts straight before he landed. He always had a decent gift for the managers usually a bottle if fine wine, never anything as crude as grain liquor, and a good cigar. Business was conducted in a slow easy manner. A glass of port, some bread, meats and the cigar. In between this leisurely and preliminary activity, there was some business talk.

“I like the red one with the white stripes, and the deep green one with the black enamel carriage.” Chuck had an eye for saleable airships and always said, “Better a ship should look good then fly well. You can always sell a looker.”

The sales manger Frederick, looked at him thinking, of course you do, they are some of the best previously flown certified steam-powered Caddies® we have. “Chuck,” Frederick knew him from early days and always called him Chuck, “You can have those if you take a few in the back. Let me show you.”


Charles knew this was how sales worked. It was an art. In order to get the good ones he would have to take a few leaky air ships, acting insulted at the very thought. They were so disreputable if the trainees were lucky enough, they wouldn’t explode in mid air or crash. Not my problem they were insured.

“How nice Frederick. Where did you acquire these?”

“A guy won a jackpot at the track in Freehold. He came here in this wreck,” pointing to one most unairworthy specimen of a craft Charles had ever seen, “and paid cash for a loaded one. The other one we took in trade from an old and valued commercial customer,” pointing to a patched up wreck just as bad. “It was in his air barn for years. You want those two in front…you take these off my hands. You’re the first auction guy here today. I can’t even give them away. Here’s what I paid for them. I want a hundred over, each. I’ll give you a deal to clear my landing plot. Now on to the two up front.” Chuck knew his real sales skills would now came into play. Charles lit a new cigar. His was going to take a while. Frederick raised one of his heavy dark eyebrows. He enjoyed business with Chuck. Incarceration did not alter his gentlemanly manners.

At the end of negotiation Charles had the two he really wanted, the two wrecks at cost and three other middle of the road airships that would move quickly at auction. He wanted the black and green one for himself. It was an impressive airship with all the best accessories. The steam based powerhouse was silent. This would be his sales vehicle for some time. He marconied the auction house, “Fly seven trainees down. I’m swapping out the air registration here on a new one.” He gave Rocco, the flight boss the registration numbers and continued. “And, you know you can sell my Handsome® flyer, for a huge profit. Oh, by-the-way and a heads up, two of the ships are in rather poor condition. It might be better to send a few experienced flyers. They may not make it back with raw trainees.”

”Chuckles, why do you even….”

“Rocco, you will understand when you see the total fleet I am bringing in… trust me,” he interrupted in his best New Jersey/New York manner. This was good. No, it was better, it was excellent. His commission would be a fat one from this auction alone. That meant, potentially, a good date, good food and… one could hope. Chuck air lifted a happy man.


[align=center]The End[/align]




The Transfinite Gate



"Well, Professor, so much for the steam-powered ping-pong player. Perhaps you have produced something a little more worth my valuable time?" snarled the General, impatiently. "If the war against the Rassians wasn't going so well, your funding would have been cut off already."

"It does break new ground in the fields of autonomous control and object recognition." replied the Professor, meekly. "I'm afraid that the only other recent invention I can lay claim to is the Transfinite Gate, and that's really more a toy than anything else. Just a mechanical verification of certain theories that I don't believe any modern man of science seriously doubts. I can't see any possible military use."

"I shall be the judge of that!" boomed the General, marching towards a large device off to one side of the well-appointed laboratory. "Is this it?"

"Yes, General."

The General peered at the device for a long moment. It appeared to consist of an ordinary wooden door, surrounded by the apparatuses of science; long coils of wire, tightly wound, tall steam pipes, and glass tubing through which variously coloured liquids bubbled.

"Well?" he snapped, finally. "Make it work!"

"Ah - yes, General." The professor hurried off to fetch some coal and shovelled it into the boiler, which he then lit and carefully worked to an immense heat.

"Why is it not on the main steam pipe?" asked the General, immediately.

"Ah, well, you see General, it does consume a fearful lot of power. Putting it on the mains supply would reduce the pressure to all other devices to an unacceptable degree."

"Very well." replied the General, before returning to his observations in stoic immobility.

Fairly soon, the boiler was at the required heat, steam flowed through the pipes, and whistled from the pressure release valves. Sparks flew along the wires and crackled from the two large metal spheres placed atop the device. The coloured liquids bubbled and moved, but rarely mixed. The professor stopped adjusting dials and valves and stepped back.

"Um, it's, er, ready, General."

The General gave the machine a close look once again. "Is that all it does?" he asked, incredulously.

"Um, wait, I forgot." The Professor checked a dial, and then opened the door.

The General, who had very little faith in the Professor's abilities, had rather expected to see a brick wall. He was therefore somewhat surprised to note that the other side of the door showed a vast field of corn, gently waving in the breeze.

He took several steps forward to take a closer look. "Where does this come out?" he asked, brusquely.

"Um, here."

"Ah. Time travel then?"

"No. Here and now. But, um, here and now in, as it were, a different universe. A parallel timeline."

"I see." The General looked through the door again, and then closed it. "And now?" he asked. "Can anyone on the other side get here now?"

"Not unless they duplicate the machine, sir, which would be impossible."

"Why?"

"Well, sir, it seems that the laws of nature in that universe are different to the laws of nature here. I have made intensive investigations, in fact, and it would appear that the luminiferous aether does not exist in that world."

"Impossible! I could see right across the field!"

"Yes, sir. Light exists, but it either propagates by a means completely alien to me, or it does so through an aether whose properties are substantially different to ours. My aetheric intensity reader gave a value of zero in the area on the other side of the door. Of course, I've only just begun looking into it..."

"The wall." snapped the General. "That was a cultivated field of corn surrounded by a stone wall. Who built the wall?"

The Professor looked surprised at the question. "The natives, probably."

"Natives? Do you mean to say that there are people living there?"

"Well, yes. Naturally. They look much the same as us, and even speak a broadly similar language. There are also interesting historical similarities..."

"Then, no doubt, they have a Britlish empire as well?"

"Theirs is called the British empire..."

The General snorted.

"...and it collapsed several decades ago. The predominant power appears to be their analogue of Ameroca, which declared independence some time back, quite successfully."

"How dare they?" thundered the General. "To ignore the Queen like that - the insult!"

"Actually, it appears that the Queen in the other universe has little direct power. Governmen-"

"WHAT!" roared the General. "Foreigners are one thing, but for the good people of Britlin -"

"Britain." corrected the Professor.

"- to ignore their monarch is another matter altogether! We shall declare martial law! We shall march through the streets! We shall conquer their world as we have conquered our own! We shall send through enough war zeppelins to darken their sky! We shall make the streets run green with blood!"

"Actually, their blood is red..." began the professor; and then his brain caught up with what his ears had been hearing.

"You want to declare war on them?" he asked, incredulously.

"It's the only possible course of action!" boomed the General. "They are inhuman monsters taking human form, they are showing disrespect to the very person of the Queen herself! We shall take control of their world as we have taken control of our own!"

The Professor looked at the General in horror...


[align=center]The End[/align]




Nightside



-Sometimes the best risk is a sure thing

The announcer had the entire audience in an uproarious fervor. From his place in the blimp overhead he was working the horns to blare every minute detail that could be seen from a spyglass. For more than half the race now it had been a dead heat. Three horses surpassing all the rest.

Sleek was the favorite as everyone knew. He'd won all the Willis races the last two years running and no one saw any reason for that to be changing. The expected rival, a beautiful white creature just inches behind him, named Brazen was doing even better than expected. The queer spectacle though was the third in the leading pack. Named Nightside she was a true dark horse in every sense of the word and had been flown in just that morning via atmotrain from Utah.

In part this was what had drawn out such a large crowd on a cold November day.
The turnout was of particular interest to one man sitting toward the back almost invisible behind a gaggle of gaily clad ladies. It was he who had brought the new horse. He had refused a private box opting instead for the main stands. No one was quite sure why though had anyone taken the time to notice they might have heard him muttering to his compatriot and scribbling furiously on a notepad.

Mist sprayed from the horses mouths as they pressed their speed trying to break into a clear leader position. Finally after what seemed an interminable time nightside began to push ahead. The announcer was nearly screaming now and the shock of the crowd in elation, dejection and everything between was palpable. Just ahead now was the finish line and the strain was amazing. Each horse putting in its last efforts. Brazen and Sleek were sliding back and forth for the second place position but nightside continued to slowly gain against them. It was not even a close finish though one had been guessed at by the announcer. In the end Nightside cleared her entire length before the competition reached the line.

A thousand fortunes were won and lost that day. Mostly lost as few people bet on the horse with 25:1 odds. The man who had entered the horse made the tidiest profit though he had barely been able to afford the entry fee. All the hard work had paid off. His little scheme had come to fruition and his designs proved flawless. As the Atmotrain lifted into the sky in a private car the man combed Nightside, Oiled her, Tightened a few bolts, Wound up the clockwork mechanism and told her what a good horse she was.


[align=center]The End[/align]




Bonickhausen's Hectopede, or The Perambulating Steam Bridge



June 25, 1885. Lebanon, Kansas.

“Donny! What are ya doing lad?” Hugh called after his son while he wiped grime from his hands. The boy was a hundred yards away looking up at the sky, about to be engulfed by a huge shadow, but he looked back, and Hugh knew he heard.

Wind off the prairie whipped through Donny’s hair. The air was warm, but still refreshing, not stifling like the fumes in the dock. He stared out across Central Field; mooring masts, towers 200 feet high shaped like lighthouses dotted the landscape. Airships, helium-filled dirigibles 800 feet long, were moored to the tops of the masts. Huge shadows from the airships splayed across the flat ground like puddles after a rain. Donny watched as people moved up the towers in steam-powered lifts, loading cargo or boarding for a trip to one of the far corners of the country. Arriving passengers exiting the towers, luggage in tow, were zipped away in three-wheeled steam-powered motorwagons. Behind Donny were five massive airdocks, structures that could house the airships for maintenance. Donny’s father was chief boilermaker, head of a crew trained in the construction and maintenance of those riveted wrought-iron and steel boilers that constrained the raw energy that powered the airships, and Donny was his newly minted apprentice.

“Donny, if yer going to be an apprentice, you can’t leave yer post,” Hugh scolded as the boy came moping back. “Fire watch is deadly serious work. I know it’s not as glamorous as being an airship captain, but there’d be no captains without people like us.” The boy didn’t say anything, but headed back into the monstrous dock, and a darkness lit by forge fires. Hugh followed, thinking again he was being too hard on the boy. Perhaps it was too soon for an apprenticeship, but with no mother to raise him... Still, it nagged Hugh that the expression on the boy’s face when he looked up at an airship, the exhilaration, was never evident when Hugh was explaining the finer points of his metal clanking art.

“Bonjour Monsieur,” a gentleman said as Hugh walked into his office.
The man had intelligent eyes, wore a finely-trimmed goatee and a fancy frock coat. “Chief Millar I presume?” There were two other men with him. One held a large case.

“I’m Millar, what can I do fer ya?” Hugh walked around to his desk, moved a stack of papers to one side and motioned for the gentleman to sit. Donny waited in the doorway, trying to be inconspicuous.

“My name is Andre Bonickhausen. I recently accompanied La liberté éclairant le monde on her historic transatlantic voyage extraordinaire.”

“I hope the voyage was smooth,” Hugh said.

“Our ship was nearly lost in rough seas. But La liberté… she persevered. She is after all a symbol of my people’s fraternity with yours. We are separated by an ocean, Monsieur Millar, but united by our common love of freedom and, might I add, l’Esprit de l’invention. La liberté shall be dedicated next year. I should like to attend, but I have a project in mind that may have me occupied and may interest you as well.” Bonickhausen motioned to the man with the case and he came forward, set the case in the center of Hugh’s desk, and removed the cover.

What was inside was at first a mystery to Hugh. It was a steam machine, but in miniature. He recognized not one, but five boilers, each matched with engines and a stack. These were laid out end to end. There were compartments behind each engine that would, at full scale, house passengers. And the five engines, while appearing more rigidly attached than the cars following a locomotive, did bear some resemblance to a train. But instead of wheels like a conventional locomotive it had long legs, twenty to a section, fifty pair in all.

Bonickhausen set to work firing the tiny steam engines and then flicking levers until steam started to puff out of the five tiny stacks. Finally he shifted the last lever and the machine started to walk. But the real surprise came as it reached the stack of papers on Hugh’s desk, and the legs in a telescoping fashion adjusted their length to compensate for the change in elevation.

“Fascinating model,” Hugh said.

“I haven’t a name yet, but its design suggests hectopede,” Bonickhausen said with a smile.

“It looks like a walking bridge,” Donny said. Everyone turned and for the first time realized Donny had been watching.

“Monsieur Bonickhausen, this is my son, Donovan.”

“Very astute. If its name be hectopede, perhaps perambulating steam bridge might be its nom de plume.” Bonickhausen chuckled. “A bridge is a means to cross a gap. But where is the efficiency in building a bridge over every gap? Why not build a single bridge and move it about?”

“That’s fine if you don’t want anyone else to cross,” Donny said.

Bonickhausen continued. “Well, imagine you are exploring the heart of Africa, or searching for the pole, you wouldn’t want to take the time to build a bridge, or roads, or lay rail.”

“Why not take an airship?” Donny asked, refusing to look at his father, whom he knew must be scowling.

“Fine for cartography,” Monsieur Bonickhausen said with absolute patience, “but wouldn’t you like to see below the treetops? Imagine being only a hundred feet up on a mobile observatory. At least in the case of exploration my conceit holds up. Don’t you think?”

Donny smiled. The steam bridge was amazing.

“So what does this have to do with me?” Hugh asked.

“Ah, to the point,” Bonickhausen said. “I’m an engineer, but I need a man such as you to supervise building it. See here, she’s all boilers.”

Donny’s eyes lit up and he looked at his father the same way he looked at the airships outside.

Hugh looked at the excitement in his son’s eyes.

“All right, Monsieur Bonickhausen,” Hugh said, “tell me more.”


[align=center]The End[/align]




...But That's Another Story


REMOVED FROM COMPETITION AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST DUE TO POSSIBLE VOTE TAMPERING

[Megawatts]

All the stories are good! I was working on a steampunk story, but here in Johnstown our 'Thunder in the Valley' motocycles week has started and I missed the deadline! Sorry about that!

[Robert_Moriyama]

Okay, who is the smart ass who has tampered with the voting on my story! I know my style of telling versus showing gives the authorship away as it always does. So someone is having a laugh at my expense.

I started out today with 5 votes sometime around noon eastern standard time. First time I have been proud of my showing (voting wise) for a long time. Then an additional 9 votes were cast between noon and 3 pm.

When you cheat with the voting, whether on your own story or someone elses to make them look bad, you ruin the experience for everyone.

I leave it to Nate to figure out how to fix this and remove the cheat votes and if he cannot fix it, then I remove my story from consideration.

Mark

Seriously? If one assumes that most of the votes come from people who know one or more of the authors, but do not necessarily which story belongs to their friend, maybe some of YOUR friends thought the story that garnered a big boost in votes was yours. Personally, I have never told anybody that I was entering a story in one of the Challenges, and have often received only one or two votes that were not ME voting for myself*. Am I that bad at flash fiction? Or are most of the votes biased to some extent?

Calling the influx of votes a cheat sort of assumes that honest voting MUST fall in your favor -- should we ask the Iranian Guardian Council to do a recount?

(*I was desperate, and hoping to prime the pump. Unsuccessfully, at that.)

RM

[kailhofer]

Actually, it's not the first time that the vote was "bought" by friends trying to help out. It's not a perfect setup, but it's the one we have to work with. On the old system Rob Wynne could check by IP address to see if all the votes came from the same subnet. I don't know if this one does the same. Plus, on the previous system, the same ip addresses used to cancel each other out.

Looking at the newly joined members, there are seven of them named observer. Awfully suspicious.

Do you know for a fact that none of these people read all the stories?

I mean, some (or perhaps even all, to be fair) of these votes could be legitimately for you having read the competition. Jumping from 3 to 5 isn't unheard of, which would put yours in a good heat with "Contents". You know it is possible that the tone of your story appealed to the audience.

Nate

[kailhofer]

Personally, I have never told anybody that I was entering a story in one of the Challenges, and have often received only one or two votes that were not ME voting for myself*. Am I that bad at flash fiction? Or are most of the votes biased to some extent?

Hmm... Are you trying to say the two times you tied for the win were just an example of even a blind squirrel finding a nut now and again? I don't think so. You're a good writer.

Challenges are hit or miss. The winner is usually a runaway, where everyone pretty much agrees that one is a lot better than the others. The last few times have been much harder, but generally speaking, that's the way it goes.

So, if you want more wins, you have to enter more often, and write well, too. That's all there is to it.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

Robert,

I don't know what you are referring to or what point you are trying to make. I know I checked in at noon today and I had 5 votes. I checked back at 3 pm and I had 14. There are not many who normally vote for any given challenge and so yes, I'd say it was either cheating or a joke. I certainly would not ask for this and as I said in my last post, I was kind of excited to running a close second this time around, when I normally have only gotten 2 or 3 votes for most of the challenges I have entered.

As far as you being a bad flash writer, you are no worse than I am.

Don't make something more sinister out of this or point the blame at me. I am angry about this which is why I made my last post.

Mark

Oops. I assumed that you were complaining because somebody had magically conjured up 9 votes AGAINST you. (I haven't actually read any of the stories, so had no idea which one you think would be identifiable as yours based on style.) You were actually being noble about what you saw as an unfair advantage (of the Carrie White as Prom Queen variety).



RM

[kailhofer]

Voting has now closed.


Due to possible vote tampering, the contest cannot be called at this time. While I am an Editor, I do not have access to the ip addresses of those who voted, so the formal announcement is on hold until I can hear from the man who does.

However, I do thank Mark Edgemon for blowing the whistle on his own supporters. Very honest of you, Mark, and I know you want to have earned it if you are declared the winner.


Regardless of how the final result will turn out, I can reveal the authors at this time:

Contents Under Pressure by Sepp Rosario
AIRSHIPPING BUSINESS by Richard Tornello
The Transfinite Gate by Casey Callaghan
Nightside by Spacer
Bonickhausen's Hectopede or the Perambulating Steam Bridge by J. Davidson Hero
...But That's Another Story by Mark Edgemon


Thank you, authors, for your hard work. I thought all the stories were quite good and very entertaining. You should all be proud of your work.

I will post updates as I learn them.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

In fairness, I have to remark that "attempting to prime the pump with your own vote" is the same category - working to reduce the psychological penalty of being "the only fella who voted for that little ol' story in the corner". ..

Not really -- unless you actually like somebody else's story better than your own, but vote for your own story anyway. I used to vote twice, once for my own story under my own userid, and once as Guest for my (usually) second choice. That way I 'primed the pump' but cancelled myself out...

The most obvious violation would be asking friends to 'vote for my story "Joe Blow Rigs The Election"'. Next up would be saying 'go to (URL) and read the stories and vote for the one you like best. By the way, I wrote "Joe Blow Rigs The Election"...'.

Mark E. is afraid that he may have done the latter inadvertently (since the actual story was available on his website and therefore clearly identified), because ALL the new votes went to him. If they had been split across two or three stories, he wouldn't be as concerned, since that would be consistent with the pattern before that point. Of course it is possible that his friends honestly prefer what he deems to be his distinctive style.

RM

[kailhofer]

What about totally blind votes until the contest ends?

Actually, the times we've tried blind voting has resulted in fewer votes being cast. Something about the visible competition brings out the vote.

And, I don't even see that as an option to choose in making a poll.


So far Rob hasn't responded to my email. He may be on vacation, considering the holiday weekend here.

[kailhofer]

Due to my breach of common sense by posting my story on my site while it was in competition in the challenge, I remove my story from consideration. No need to wait on my account...

My apologies to the other writers of the competition.

Very well. I will respect your wishes and withdraw your story from contention. The story was deleted, but I cannot change the poll.


Congratulations to challenge newcomer Sepp Rosario for the story "Contents Under Pressure". You are the winner of the Steampunk Challenge.


Everyone can look for a "Busting Writer's Block" challenge to be posted next Thursday night or Friday morning, depending when I finish my example story.

[kailhofer]

I would have to question the integrity of the additional vote you're talking about. How does seeing a total encourage people to read the stories and vote?

Blind voting, if still possible, would remove that "I only need one more vote to win" moment that would tempt someone to cheat. It wouldn't prevent cheating, but it would remove some temptation.

Hero

Again, blind votes are not an option in this system, at least, not that I can pick.

But I wouldn't pick it if it was, because past practice has shown significantly lower numbers of votes cast any time it was hidden. I don't know why, but that is the way it worked. I would rather see a winner declared between 16 votes than only 6 or 7. (Actually I'd rather see a whole lot more votes than 16, but that's another discussion.)

Yes, it would remove that temptation for someone who's close, but I don't think you're giving yourself and your fellows enough credit. In any instance of tampering we've had it was always some friend who thought they were "helping". I've found the people who have entered these challenges to be persons of the highest integrity when it comes to their art: impassioned, creative individuals legitimately interested in bettering their skills and also sharing their works. Not one of you wants to win cheaply. You want to earn it when you win, all of you, and I'm touched each and every time I see the quality of work that's submitted. You all make me proud.

Personally, I think some people check the vote when they're not logged in, so they see the numbers. Something in that makes more votes. *shrug*


Rob Wynne tells me that this system records the addresses of who voted, but not whom they voted for, so there is no way to tell about the suspect votes.

This wasn't why things switched, but I know some disliked the practice of guest votes on the old system. However, since it really only allowed one vote per ip, it turns out this system is actually less secure. Anyone can sign in again as another user and get another vote, and then again, as many times as they want. There's nothing to stop them.

*sigh* Well, this is the system we've got, and we're not stopping.

[kailhofer]

It is an important part of the writing process to have someone to not only read the story, but bounce ideas off of and then get honest feedback. I wish more did so in the way that you do. It would make these challenges even more of a writer’s circle and less of a fight club.

I think you might be misinterpreting Aphelion's Usual Suspects. Absolutely, each of these writers would like to beat out the rest, but that's out of mutual respect for each other's skills.

This forum has the nicest bunch of writers you will ever run across. They'll support you when you're down, help you when you're stuck, and keep you from getting a swelled head, too. At times, they may seem like an "old boys" club, but it's not so. It's just that a lot of us have been here for years, and have been friends now for a long time. It's that kind of place.

Everybody has always been welcome, and also invited to join into any conversation going in any part of the forum.

If it weren't for the net being just so immensely huge that no one can really find anything anymore, I think writers and readers alike would be beating down the door to see works and discussions of this quality.

There are usually more discussions than this, but many of the same people have stories in the regular part of the zine, so their attention is a little more spread out than normal.

Nate