Aphelion, Comics, and More.

E-Zine and E-Books
Issue 124 of Aphelion: The Webzine of Science Fiction and Fantasy is up. featuring:

Bleach By David Brookes
When the government had a mess too big and nasty for anybody else to clean up, they called in Mel Dulton.

The Season Without Sun By James Lecky
In a world of endless winter, the Amjak people had to fight to survive. Their enemies: the cold, the scarcity of game -- and the brutally warlike Dajzyn.

Cold Spot By Jeani Rector
Troop wasn't really running away -- he just wanted to remind people that he was still alive (unlike his little sister), and his 10th birthday was only days away. But the woods were a lot scarier than he had expected...

From The Very Face of the Earth... By J. B. Hogan
Dora Pearcy found the voices that she picked up on her curlers sometimes comforting, sometimes terrifying, but always worth listening to. Her neighbor Mr. Chase, on the other hand, was always repulsive. Of course, she had ways of dealing with problem men.

When the Gods Fall By John Hickman
The fifth mission to the planet of insect-like sentients was supposed to monitor the effects of earlier efforts to advance the bug-like natives' civilization. But they discovered that the 'gods' planted by the previous expedition had not had the desired effect...

Memories of Dinners Past By Chris Sharp
Madame Melanie was a medium with a difference. She was Mexican, for one thing; for another, she specialized in bringing back the past.

Omni-Corp Home Network By Joseph T. Christopher
The Omni-Corp system handled communications and monitored and controlled everything around Zeke Stone's home and office. Some things, however, it could not handle.

The Genesis Solution By Lee Gimenez
Anna Williams is wary of men after a bad breakup, but Simon seems like such a nice guy -- just the kind you want to have around when things are going well, and even more so when the world seems to be going to hell. She thinks he's different -- and she's more right than she could ever imagine.

Human Resources By Nora B. Peevy
Brenda thought her new job came with the usual problems -- annoying superiors, too much work for too little pay -- but better-than-average benefits. It seemed very kind to employees with medical problems, for one thing.

The Sweet Loop Incident By Kim Rush
On Throaten, Matts made the innocent mistake of eating what he thought was a stray bit of his favorite cereal. The results were noisy and noisome -- and made him very popular with the Throatorian men.

And much more, available Here

Tobias S. Buckell has a new story set set in his Crystal Rain universe "Resistance" available online Here. [Via SF Signal]

Manybooks has added a couple of stories by great genre writers. Though these stories are borderline to being "on topic" here, any story by the likes of Robert Howard [Conan] or Bram Stoker [Dracula] gets cut some slack.

"The Crystal Cup" by Bram Stoker is Here. and
"Fist and Fang" by Robert Howard is Here.



Comics
More fun online comics. The Horrors Of It All adds another supernatural horror gem "The Black Candle of Life" Here. (note, this story is about PG rated but the comments section is at least PG-13). And Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine adds to the fun with more supernatural horror in "Syr-Darya's Death Song" Here featuring the sweet young lady pictured.


Datajunkie has a posted couple more comic books for PDF download, including the shown episode of Space War. Available Here.








Essays
BestScienceFictionStories.com continues its very fun series of having writers and bloggers share their favorite SF short stories . Today it's me! Oh well, maybe there will be someone cool tomorrow. But, the story I picked is quite enjoyable (and Rusty found an online version!) so check it out Here.

After checking out the post, here (at QDII) is a scan of the art from the first two pages of the original magazine publication. Following precedent, I won't name the story here. However, since book versions rarely include the original Galaxy "teaser," here is a slight hint.

"Only partners could fight this deadliest of wars - and the only way to dissolve the partnership was to be personally dissolved!"

That's all for now but there will very likely be a second post later today. Until then - good reading!