What's that, you ask? Oh, the title, as Cyrano famously replied before dissecting a bad actor with a rapier. We're not that analytical, sensitive, or critical. If you don't like it, stand further back¹.

Oh, all right. The name of the game this year is for our writers to expand on something they've already started. Which gives them a pretty wide latitude. Some have opted to pull that short story out of the archives, dust it off, and see where it leads. Your Editor, having realised that nothing good would come of a sequel to any of the previous novels – the heroes being either at war, divorced, or straying into dubious theological territory – has decided that discretion is the better part of valour and done a riff on an old theme. That falls under the 'paralipomena' category².

We also decided to start in January, thus making a full break from all that 'write a novel in November' nonsense. There were several reasons for this – the field is too crowded in November, people are tired of reading then, you can't write anything good at that pace and besides, some people have jobs and kids – but the main one was that, after finishing our last ones sometime last summer and spending months getting them ready for sale, we needed a break. Now we're raring to go – at least, most of us are, Your Editor is still dithering – and hope you're ready to do some reading.

You'll get a chapter a week until these are done. Be prepared for wild rides.

Herewith the List

Lives of the Gheorghenis. By Your Editor, obvs. Everybody wants to know about 'genre' these days, so first off: this is a digressive fictional history. Yes, that's a thing. Never heard of Tristram Shandy? What about Don Quixote? No, I know you've never read either of them. But you know how to pretend you did. If you don't read this one, you'll have to wait for the Cliff Notes version to come out in order to pretend you read it. That might take a while. Probably better to read it now and get it over with.

What's it about, you say? I haven't the faintest idea. Other than it's about Gheorghenis. They're a dodgy bunch. I imagine they will have adventures if they ever stop talking. I think I'll tell you about them – if I can keep my mind on the task. You'll probably need a dictionary for this one, and maybe an atlas, but I'll try to be informative as well as entertaining. The action, such as it is, appears to be starting in a Roman town in the year 42 CE.

Mister President, Nebraska is Missing. . . By Paulh. President Woodhed is having a bad day: his reelection bid hinges on carrying his home state of Nebraska. Then NASA tells him that Nebraska has vanished off the face of the Earth. While he is processing that, the phone rings again, and he hears from the technologically advanced HTTP Indians that they have spirited the state to another planet, and will demand ransom for it. Meanwhile, trillionaire Irving Sprilznick and Spot the Wonder Dog are heading for Nebraska to do some duck hunting. When the state turns out to be missing, they call Woodhed.

Spot decides to call in Deus Ex Machina, the organization that he formed to cope with threats to the Earth. The Board of DEM consists of Spot, Sprilznick, Doctor Neinstein (the blind inventor who once used Spot for a seeing eye dog), Nostradamus, and Extraterrestrial Weasel. They meet in Weasel's apartment on another planet to plan their response to the Indians. Doctor Neinstein's new assistant, an android, turns out to know the language of florgars, the sentient plants in Weasel's solarium.

Will they get Nebraska back? Will the florgars turn out to have helped the HTTP Indians get the technology they needed for abducting Nebraska? Does the future of the universe hinge on a college student in Amherst, Massachusetts? Read the story to find out.

Robyn Hoodie: The Virgin Diary: By Caiman Raptor Elk. You thought those lockdowns were bad?! (well, you are right, they were. . .). Robyn Hoodie's as yet unnamed sort-of-older-twin-brother has found new absurdities to commit to his spanking new diary, once he manages to find it in the rubble. Will the Girl Geeks Trying to Save the World (or part thereof) survive higher education? Disclaimer: May contain trace elements of lace elephants.

I See You, Jack!: By Freewayriding. After saving the life of a stranger, struggling author James Riding, is given a gift.

The gift of time, or more accurately, the means of travelling back in time. Witnessing events rather than researching them, shedding light upon some of history's most infamous crimes.

His first book, I See You, Jack!, is a global best seller, but Riding becomes obsessed with the discoveries he makes.

Haunted by his past, hunted in his present, and faced with the elimination of his future, Riding soon discovers that there are far more dangerous things to contend with than Jack the Ripper.

The Sea of Grass: by Tavaron. The Sea of Grass will be a story about the end of a journey, a new home and a new beginning. We will explore this place together and find out which adventures will await here. Will everything go as planned? Well, that would only be half the fun, right? I have no idea what exactly we will find.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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