Issue 62, Volume 6 -- August/September 2002

Issue 63, Volume 6 will be online 1st week of October.

"And if you believe that- you'll buy this watch..."
^{Saint Robere Guilams}

Since January 27th 1997

Aphelion is proud to be associated with:

Editorial

Iain Muir filling in for the Senior Editor...

* Muir pulls out his soapbox and coughs nervously *

Good evening and welcome to this issue of Aphelion.  I have volunteered to 
write this issue's Editorial, as Our Glorious Leader, Dan Hollifield, is 
still suffering from a bad case of the "dead computer syndrome."  We, the 
editorial mafia, have striven to put together the issue in his absence, but 
I don't think any of us actually realised how much * work * Dan puts in on a 
monthly basis to pull all of this insanity together.  Days slipped away from 
us, and eventually it seemed more meet to put out a combined August / 
September issue, with added content, than to rush an August issue out and 
delay September, thereby frustrating the authors who were slated for 
September publication.  (Trust us: it's all about service to the community, 
not about buying ourselves more time!)

On to the actual editorial comment.  As you read these words, we are 
approaching the anniversary of the single largest act of terrorism in 
history: the destruction of the World Trade Centre.  At the time, I recall 
feelings of shock, of horror, and a sense that the world had changed, that 
from this day forward, things would never be the same again.  A year on, I 
look around and ask myself: has the world changed?

I look around me, living as I do on the far side of the planet from Ground 
Zero, and I see that for the majority of people, life has not changed.  We 
still go to work, worry about our children, plan for our futures.  There was 
a brief spurt of security consciousness, which has dulled with the lack of 
any further attacks.  Airlines have instituted some new security rules, 
which are of maximum inconvenience to the passenger, but are agreed by most 
security experts to be of minimal effectiveness in stopping another such 
attack.  A government has been overthrown in a foreign country, but it 
appears that the man responsible for planning the attack on the WTC is still 
at large, and the world is no safer a place to live in than it was a year 
ago.

Aphelion deals in Fantasy and Science Fiction, in tales of what may be, what 
might have been, and what should never be.  Niven and Pournelle called 
sci-fi authors "the dreaming fithp," those whose duty it is to ponder the 
imponderable, to conceive of the inconceivable.  None of us foresaw the 
events of September 11, 2001.  None of us, as far as I know, has predicted 
the aftermath of those events.  Reality, it would appear, is not only 
stranger than we know, but also stranger than we can conceive.  Whatever 
your conception of tomorrow may be, it is wrong.  I find that a comforting 
thought.  When I look at the bleak futures some predict, where freedom has 
been curtailed in the name of security, I take comfort that this is a 
possibility, not a certainty.  I take comfort that there is an equal 
possibility that the future may be as bright and utopian as conceived by 
other writers.

In the shadow of tragedy and despair, take hope from the courage and 
strength portrayed that grim day a year ago.  We cannot know what tomorrow 
will bring.  We can only do our best to make today the best we can, and hope 
that tomorrow we can improve on it.  Speculative fiction can show us the 
way: the possibilities for a brighter future, and the pitfalls we should 
avoid.

Dream on, my brethren!

Aphelion Staff: