Aphelion

Congrats, Jason & Jontrue!

Cute! Thanks!

Wow, Robin has a good one. I think ... may not be room for that much, with the regular month's content (I'm putting up two pieces). I suppose you could just post the link(s) to it. Is bragging okay? How about making a list of successful professional writers whose work has appeared here? Are there an...

"That"--I had to laugh my ass off. Hopefully the jerk who told you that is begging on a street corner somewhere and getting shat on by pigeons every day. Really, though, the publishing industry--as it's run by the big names, at least--is no more rational than the government. Anyone can self-publish ...

And mine. Tough choices this month.

Just a tip, from years of experience--if you have to hit yourself on the head with a board--use balsa.

Thanks for the news, and I'm glad you're well and not too inconvenienced.

Wait, what--sewers clog baseballs--?

Well, then ... congrats to BOTH of you!

HAHAHA! Shit-eating bears! And I thought shit-eating dogs were bad enough (I had one that used the cat's litter-box for a snack tray).

Cute. The guy has a toilet that follows him around.

Thank you both for your kind words! It means a lot. I struggled a lot with that last bit -- "may be tasteless for some readers" -- before submitting this piece. I don't think I ever found the right balance between unsettling the reader (showing how viscerally uncomfortable a situation it is for Chr...

I'm the first to get my vote in, I see. I really wanted to get an entry in this one. I was thinking of some kind of meetup between the crews of _Chanur's Legacy_ and _Serenity_, and I also wanted to include some kind of romantic angle to coincide with Valentine's Day. Just couldn't bring it together...

The author of this piece raised a question that he didn't answer, which is: What happened to the merman--the male--that Christian sighted first? Beyond that, it was interesting to see the give-and-take in the relationship between Christian and the mermaid, how he treated her and how he reacted to he...

Wormtongue wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote:Hmm ... this could get totally nutzo.

You say this like it's a bad thing...

Clearly, you misunderstood.

I've added a new listing under REFERENCES--it's from NASA and briefly touches on a few popular sci-fi topics.

Hmm ... this could get totally nutzo.

What's embarrassing about that? Congrats, Iain! And if there were points available for such, I'd give you a few extra for your remarkable efficiency with the word count.

I like the soup poem. And yeah, a lot of people just love to fuck and aren't interested much in relationships.

"I know we broke up but can we still fuck?"

Wow, what a way to devalue another human being: a walking dildo. He deserves to be rid of her, and she should just go buy a few zucchini.

I remembered to vote this time ... and I'll add my congratulations to Sergio on the results of the P&E poll.

Nice. You ever see the movie "Nanook of the North"? If not, check it out. Utterly amazing how those people live (or, *used* to live). Guy builds an igloo in a few hours, cutting snow into big blocks with a special knife ... it's more like a sword, and the serrated blade is made from a walrus tusk; s...

Hey, off-topic a bit, but when I saw this I remembered your stone-powered boats ... this is a level higher in sophistication, but still has no moving parts. Kids will need adult supervision with fire, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_pop_boat

Congrats again, Jon!

I'm slipping; I completely forgot to vote this month.

Reminds me of a little story I heard some guy tell. He said he and a couple buddies went off on a camping trip. Young guys, with beer. One of them got to complaining about how horny he was, and then proceeded to grab a stick and dig a hole in the dirt with it. Poured the hole full of beer, pantsed h...

I remember the old hardware stores; they had everything, including guns and ammunition, and poisonous chemicals that you'd need a federal permit to even ask for today. Dad had a box of cyanide powder he'd use to kill wasp nests with--he had a coffee can nailed to a long stick, dumped some of the stu...

Boris--? I call him 'Bore us''. Look carefully and you'll notice that all of his action figures look just like plastic dolls, in that they're always in static poses. Both feet on the ground, in poses that a live model could hold still in for 15 or 20 minutes to get a rough sketch from. Nobody at ris...

Desperate and dateless, timid bear attempts gentle seduction of random strangers. LOL!

Congrats, Indie!