…Jody Giardina, with “Merdeux,” a wonderfully JDPish story of Afghan war vets, space aliens, and a restaurant with a very special menu. To describe it in any more detail would probably spoil this darkly inventive science fiction tale. Suffice to say that Eirik spoke for all of us when he said of Jody’s work, “”Elegantly crafted poop stories are why I became a writer.”

We can’t wait for you to read “Merdeux” in our August Issue and it won’t be alone. Nick Kimbro’s neatly crafted horror story, “Surface Interval,” was a unanimous choice for runner-up. The author said he was going for Jean Ray via Lovecraft, but the end result put us more in mind of the original Alien or John Carpenter’s The Thing. Pick any one of those and you’re in pretty good shape.

As good as these stories were, it wasn’t an easy call. Sam Bradford, K. Marvin Bruce, Jimmy Grist, and Allan McDonald also made the short list with very strong submissions. Unfortunately, we couldn’t publish them all.

Thanks again to everyone who entered our inaugural Novella Contest, which we are officially declaring a success. And one more round of congratulations to Jody and Nick.