Editorial

Pleeze Help, One More Time!

HOLIDAYS ARE COMING. THE GOOSE is getting fatter. Please put a penny in the “Perihelion” hat so we can continue to bring you great science fiction, articles, and comics throughout the new year. Think for a minute what all of this goodness is worth to you. By comparison, a Baconator Mushroom Melt (depending upon where you live ) costs roughly $12.90. Two adult tickets to “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire The IMAX Experience” cost $24.00. A pair of Nike Flex Experience Run 2 sneakers cost $58.50 at Zappos.

Aren’t we worth the price of shoes, a movie, even a fast food hamburger?

Now picture what the world would be like without “Perihelion.”

First off, you’d need to surf over to another online science fiction magazine for the stories. There are many, but none specializing in the kind of “hard” science fiction known for its gripping adventures, sense of wonder, and colorful characters. So you might wind up slogging through narratives that are more speculative than scientific. Or fantastic. Are magical ponies, elves, and fairies really your cup of tea? Buckets of blood? Steampunk? Gasp! (To be fair, in the right hands, steampunk isn’t that bad, and it is more scientific than, say, deals with the devil.)

Next, where do you go for your comic strip fix? Jason Yungbluth’s (one of our own staff illustrators) “Weapon Brown” phenomenon aside, the Internet is awash in webcomics. You’ve got lots of twentysomething strips dealing with relationships, dating, and family life. There are anime-styled manga populated with magical girls, talking animals, and yaoi scenarios. There’s cartoon porn, too.

Articles? Science articles on most news sites are watered down and pablum-ized for the lowest common denominator; that means high school level, max. But you could pay money for access to the many peer reviewed scholarly publications that abound in cyberspace, assuming you have multiple Ph.D.s. That could get expensive. Better to give a fraction of the subscription monies to “Perihelion” and get a variety of articles on many scientific fronts, as well as literary criticism from some of the best reviewers in the field.

If this alone isn’t enough to convince you to open your purses and wallets, let’s look at some cost free alternatives.

We could mutate “Perihelion” into a kind of blogazine—one or two brand-new stories per month, with the rest of the magazine converted into moderated message boards, each one a different topic, on which readers could post messages, or stories. Imagine that. Anybody could post any story without any quality controls or editorial judgment. On second thought, maybe you don’t want to imagine that.

We could morph “Perihelion” into a fanzine. Oh boy! Again, you might have one or two stories per month, but mostly endless gushing over the cast of “The Hunger Games” movies. Lots of fuzzy smartphone snapshots of “ye editors” doing crazy things. Maybe for effect we could produce mimeographed editions of the magazine like back in the day. Does anybody know if mimeographs even still exist?

If we charged $20 per year for access to the magazine, we'd probably be able to get enough subscribers to cover most of our costs. Add some advertising and stir. This is not cross your fingers wishful thinking. It is an entirely feasible alternative. We know that “Perihelion” is worth at least $20 per year to you or you wouldn't be reading this right now. The point is, do you want to be forced to pay a subscription charge, or keep the magazine free and supported voluntarily? Do you want to enter a user name and password to read “Perihelion?”

At first thought you might be saying to yourself that we don’t have to pay for material. After all, isn’t publication and exposure glory enough? Yes, but writers want to get paid for what they produce. Keeps them off the streets, the time clocks at Bed Bath & Beyond, and the unemployment lines. Publications that exchange actual money for manuscripts rank higher up on the food chain. What remains for the non-paying markets are the leftovers. Here’s an example of what you get for free:

A bedraggled old woman of no recognizable age, shape or form carrying breast and bellyfat ten times her weight on elephantine legs that dripped with non-fitting stockings like the skin of a snake midway in the act of shedding, lumbered in front of his vision. Like the Great Wall of China. One arm was a long tentacle, dragging along a small manchild of half-human proportions screaming horrendously while mommy exercised her wrists in slapping motions against the child's face. The child held tenaciously to the ground with feet that bore the same kind of adhesive flies use to walk on ceilings ...

Like it? This is one alternate reality facing “Perihelion” without reader support.

The point is ... drop whatever you are thinking of doing within the next five minutes. Click on the “donate” button to the right of this heartfelt plea, and send some money to keep “Perihelion” doing what it does best, and what you surf on over here for. You can give up one Baconator per year. You already have plenty of shoes. Catch that movie when it is available on DVD. Can you ever have enough of “Perihelion?” We didn’t think so.

Postscript: Do you shop at Amazon.com? You will notice there are a number of Amazon products advertised throughout the “Perihelion” website. We are a sales affiliate of Amazon. We get a small referral fee for products purchased via these ads. Clicking on any one of them will take you to Amazon. But you don’t have to buy the specific product shown. Once on Amazon, the computers recognize you as having come from “Perihelion” and anything you purchase from that point on is credited to us. We get our percentage; it doesn’t cost you a penny more. So feel free to order that $300 HD television for yourself or set of nonstick cookware for the in-laws. We’ll get our cut. It’s a painless way to send some money our way without actually sending us any money.

Sam Bellotto Jr.