Like a Virgin

In PRINT for the very first time: "Captain Quasar and the 'If Only' Elixir of Opsanus Tau Prime." This little tale made its debut on the Every Day Fiction website back in August and has somehow managed to remain one of the top stories ever since. It also placed third during this year's Preditors and Editors Readers' Poll, but I still don't know who nominated it. (Thank you, whoever you may be!) Regardless, seeing it published this week in The Best of Every Day Fiction Three anthology was proverbial icing on the cake.

Along with 99 other great stories by EDF authors like Stephen V. Ramey, Aaron Polson, and K.C. Ball, "Captain Quasar" makes its appearance on page 281. That's right: I have it memorized, and I doubt I'll ever forget it. You see, this is the first time my work has been published on paper and ink not from my own printer. So yeah, I'm pretty darned excited.

Here's how it opens:

“If only. Have any two words expressed more profound regret? Such magnificent loss?” Bartholomew Quasar leaned back in his reclining captain’s chair and stared up at the starlight rushing past a wide porthole in brilliant streaks of frosty white.

“Huh?”

His navigator, the only crew member currently on the bridge, was a very hairy biped named Hank. Not one for conversation, Hank sat slumped in his swivel chair at the com with all four loose-hinged arms hovering over various controls on the blinking display. He looked like an overweight sloth suffering through a mean hangover.

“If only!” Captain Quasar repeated with feeling. And he raised a clenched fist, striking a meaningful pose. Then he frowned at the back of Hank’s hairy head. “Don’t you have any regrets, man?”