First, I would like to reassure those of you who might actually look at the subscription numbers on the masthead: we did not loose over 70 readers since last issue – I cannot add. Sorry. The present circulation number is correct.
Second, as I have a little more time and space, I would like to explain the dates that appear next to each story in the Table of Contents. When I took over the Dargon Project, I thought it would be a good idea to try to give the stories some kind of common reference to help the reader understand what was happening when. (This should become very useful in a few months when some very interesting things will be happening in Baranur, and you will all want to keep the stories as straight as possible…) Of course, the best way to do this would be to have all of the stories cross-reference each other – but that takes a lot more time and coordination than we as a group of authors are capable of supplying at this time. So, I decided that it would be a good idea to date each story and to tell the readers what the date was. Hence the date column in the TOC.
Now, to explain what the dates mean. In Baranur, there are 12 30 day months and a 5 day (or 6 in the case of leap years) spring festival stuck in the middle. The month names and their Earth equivalents are as follows:
Janis – January
Vibril – February
Mertz – March
Firil – April
Naia – May
Melrin – *Spring Festival
Yule – June
Yuli – July
Sy – August
Seber – September
Ober – October ]
Nober – November
Deber – December
Thus, for example, the three stories in this issue are occurring in mid-to-late May, in Earth terms (more or less…).
Well, that’s about it for this issue. Next time (with luck, no more than a month or so away), we will continue Ms Henniquin’s Trial by Fire and begin a story by a new author to the project. Feel free to send me mail if you have any questions, or mail the authors or myself with comments about the stories.
And until next time I remain,
Dafydd, Editor DargonZine
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