·       \4 Star Stories Issue 32

Suspension of Acceptance of Manuscripts for Publication

Winter in the Northern Hemisphere

An annual nexus point of change occurs on Sunday, December 21 at 15:03 UTC. That is the shortest day of 2025 and the longest night of that year. Some places will experience some daylight. Some will experience little to none. Every place will experience its full share of darkness.

So, what do we Humans do when there is little to no light? Bumble around and bark our shins in the dark over and over again? No, not even Neanderthals put up with that. Centuries-old soot on their cave roofs show that Neanderthals lit portable fires, torches, of animal fat. They created a light in the dark, and they carried it with them.

When we bigger-brained humans encounter too much dark, we may put up with a shin bark or two, accompanied by some lightning-and-thunder-rich cussing, then we create a light. Fires of sticks, torches of cloth and pitch, oil lamps, candles, lime lights, electric lights, LEDs. We create some kind of increasingly bright and often portable light. Then, when we need it, we kindle it, ignite it, turn it on, wave our Harry Potter wands and shout “Incendio!” We make the darkness light.

At this time of Winter Solstice and the longest, darkest night of 2025, let me suggest that we each light a candle, torch, lamp, night-light, LED, whatever light you feel comfortable lighting. That we set them high on lamp stands and let them shine brightly. So that we, and any others caught in the darkness of this season, may see clearly, escape unnecessary pain, and find our various ways in safety.

Happy Winter Solstice! Happy Holidays! Happy 2026!

At 4 Star Stories we are aware that you, our readers, care about innovative, creative science fiction and fantasy in the short-story format as much as we do. For years we have prided ourselves on presenting those stories by both new and established authors to you. Up until the present the Editor/Publishers of 4 Star Stories have paid all of the costs for the e-zine themselves.

Now, in 2025, 4 Star Stories needs your help. Events of the last few months have hit the Editor/Publishers of 4 Star Stories hard financially. We hate to say it, but we can no longer afford the expense of publishing 4 Star Stories without help. We would like to pay the writers more, but at $100.00 USD per issue, we can't afford to. Though as Editor/Publishers we happily donate our time and expertise, there are other web-publishing expenses associated with each issue: domain name, web hosting, Microsoft 365 Copilot, etc. We use free (open source) software where possible, but we do have to upgrade to newer computers from time to time. These publication costs add up. Bottom line is 4 Star Stories needs your financial help. To facilitate your helping us, we did some checking and decided to work with the crowd-funding resource Ko-fi. Through Ko-fi you can "buy 4 Star Stories a cup of coffee" one time for as little as $5.00 USD, or you can make a continuing supporting donation in the amount with which you feel comfortable. We have given this a lot of consideration and decided that for 4 Star Stories, crowd funding through Ko-fi is the way to go.

We have been publishing for 32 issues, and we hope to continue to do so. With your help in funding 4 Star Stories we can and we will.

Thank you for your attention!

You can help 4 Star Stories right now! Buy us a cup of coffee by clicking on this link: Ko-fi

Enrich your Winter 2025 literary experience by checking out the links to our five stories below. Also check out our take on the recent termination of support for Microsoft Windows10 on the Guest Artist page. For a more Geek-friendly treatment of Windows 10 EOS and transition to the Linux operating system go to Webmaster Link.