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Thursday, June 30, 2016

MUTANT RAIN FOREST ISSUE


  WELCOME TO THE 20TH ISSUE OF THE FREEZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

For this extra special edition of our nonprofit cyber-rag, we're featuring four short stories: INEVITABLE, by Sanford Meschkow, MEERGA by John Shirley, THE RECIDIVIST by Brian "Flesheater" Stoneking, and LATE NIGHT EXTERMINATOR by Vincent Daemon; in addition, we close out this special commemorative issue with five poems by Bruce Boston reprinted from the 1992 Horror's Head Press collection he co-authored with Robert Frazier CHRONICLES OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST.

Click the images below to read the stories and poems in this issue:

INEVITABLE    by Sanford Meschkow art by Les Bossinas for NASA
                       
In this vision of a crew aboard the space craft Ultima Thule, the author explores the questions of whether it's a commanding officer's duty to motivate junior officers toward a promotion along with more startling inquiries into the nature of their mission to space.



MEERGA     by John Shirley                                                   art (detail) by Will Ferret

In this moving short story about a near future where synthetic women are mass produced as sexual pets, the author looks beneath the genetically modified skin to peer deeply into our real human condition. Here's a tale about the triumph of the human spirit battling sexual objectification at its most perversely extreme. 



THE RECIDIVIST  by Brian "Flesheater" Stoneking    art by Jason Heckenliable

Personnel in hazmat suits at a military quarantine lab are holding a very special prisoner in lockdown. He is the perfect killing machine and carries with him a terrible secret. It's up to General Manning and his crew at the research station to insure this rogue agent does not escape to kill again. 



LATE NIGHT EXTERMINATOR     by Vincent Daemon              art by Kara Koma

We return to Vincent Daemon's twisted world of Dolton, Pennsylvania with the mis- adventure of Lee, who is not a doctor nor a paramedic, he's an exterminator.  He fucking kills bugs.  Lee's seen a lot of sick things in and around this tweaker town.  Lee's ready for the job when he gets a desperate call after midnight. The question for our readers remains: are you prepared?



5 poems by Bruce Boston from CHRONICLES OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST
        featuring 4 watercolors by Marge Simon plus an illustration by Shasta Lawton




And that's a wrap for the 20th issue (count 'em)of the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  I want to give an emphatic shout out and props to the following authors and artists for having dared to contribute their outstanding stories and artwork to keep this free experimental weblog/zine going well into it's seventh year. Thank you to Sanford Meschkow, John Shirley, Brian Stoneking, Vincent Daemon, and Bruce Boston for contributing your original material to our cause. Thank you to Marge Simon for the four beautiful watercolors that went along with the first four Mutant Rain Forest poems; and thank you to Shasta Lawton for contributing the banner art in addition to the illustration for the fifth Mutant Rain Forest poem.  A heap of thanks goes out to Jason Heckenliable for allowing the use of my cellphone snapshot of his reptoid painting for Flesheater's The Recidivist; thanks to Brother Chief Cat Will Ferret for his gracious contribution providing a visual counterpoint to John Shirley's story; and a million thanks goes out to Kara Koma for her bugged out illustration used in Vinnie's Late Night Exterminator.  




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MUTANT RAIN FOREST: V

THE MUSIC OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST

by Bruce Boston


                                                                             art by Shasta Lawton



is a completely natural music
born of transformation,

a thoroughly mutated music
born from corruption.

The Mutant Rain Forest
comes alive at night,
and that is when
its orchestra tunes up
in a wild cacophony
of unnatural selection:

the hissing baritone
of a millipede python

the hypnotic drone
of the blood orchid,
drawing predators
that become prey,

the rising falling hum
of insect swarms
as they live and die
and evolve into
twilight dawn,

the raucous squeak
of the parrot hawk,
a ravenous bird,
a shadow bird
except when it feeds
and a feathered ruff
rises in garish
rainbow array
around its neck,

the hard bone click
of horned tapirs
clashing by night
for control of the herd,
the roars that
rake their throats,

and always
the sudden intermittent
sounds of death and feeding,
the cries of the conquest
and of those eaten.

And intertwined and echoing
within and beyond it all,
the sibilant and husky
language of the cat people,
a constant refrain,
whispering yet insistent
in its seductive complexity.

For no rational reason
you wait for them to finish,
but they go on and on,
this endlessly tuning up.

You wait for the
conductor to appear
in his tie and tails
with baton in hand,
tapping the stand
for attention
and silence.

You wait for him
to raise his arms
and strike that
hard blow
against the air
with his stick
that starts the concert.

But he never does.

There is
non-conducting.
The concert
never begins.

And that arrhythmic
beat keeps changing
with every measure.

You are frightened
yet drawn by
its random oscillations
and savage insinuations.

Then you realize
that you are already
listening to the concert,
this endless tuning up
for a performance
that never occurs
and occurs forever.








Click Image Below
for all 4 stories + 5 poems
to be bundled together into the


featuring writing by

SANFORD MESCHKOW
JOHN SHIRLEY
BRIAN STONEKING
VINCENT DAEMON
BRUCE BOSTON


and artwork by

WILL FERRET
JASON HECKENLIABLE
KARA KOMA
MARGE SIMON
SHASTA LAWTON



only on
the FREEZINE of
Fantasy and Science
Fiction 




Wednesday, June 29, 2016

MUTANT RAIN FOREST: IV

THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST MEETS THE SEA

by Bruce Boston



                             watercolor by Marge Simon



All-night cantinas are still.
Shabby film-noir hotels
are steeped in shadow
deeper than their stains.

The vines are everywhere,
like scouts of an army
hard upon their heels,
like mad organic lace,

a grand ophidian opulence
leafing the listing
masts that dot the harbor,
caging the empty plazas

and abandoned streets
in tendrils that stray
along pastel walls,
across rust tile roofs,

twining through windows
with sinuous grace,
toppling lamps aside,
indifferent to remains,

mute green strength,
blind and vegetative,
about to pull the city
down into its waves.






Return Tomorrow to read





Tuesday, June 28, 2016

MUTANT RAIN FOREST: III

ILLUMINATION IN THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST

by Bruce Boston





                             watercolor by Marge Simon




Rebel saints and stray pariahs,
   clever con artists and stalwart desperadoes,
     mad adventurers and rogue fanatics,
devotees of all that is outré and fantastic...

embrace the transfigurations of this spacious borderland,
   this unexpected frontier where individual imaginations
            can chance freedom and death beyond
                        the hermetic wisdom of dome-dweller cant,
beyond the futureless ghetto entrapment
of the unshielded urban sprawl...

where it is rumored that in a valley yet to be mapped,
somewhere in the vast interior of this organic labyrinth,
   light, the very spiritus lux incarnate,
     roams the treetop canopy silently
        from branch to intertwining branch...

spilling a liquid radiance from the cups of flowers,
   rifling the hidden plumage of exotic birds,
     peeling an ebon sheen
        from the chitinous backs of arboreal beetles...

gathering diverse shades and blending unseen colors
   to cast an illumination so archly pure
          in its dusk light clarity
   that it fills the leaves with a rarefied translucence
for miles in every direction...

so potent in its distillation
   you must smell and taste and savor
     its foxfire nectar with every intake of breath,
        so vital in the implications
     of its visionary promise
        that tears will rule your cheeks...

and you will know with a certainty akin to madness
   that all the unnamed appetites of your questing soul
          could soon be sated...






Return Tomorrow to read
appearing online only on 
The FREEZINE
of Fantasy and Science
FICTION 





Monday, June 27, 2016

MUTANT RAIN FOREST: II

A GOURMAND OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST

by Bruce Boston


                         watercolor by Marge Simon 





His jaded palate
is startled and refreshed
by a wealth of flavors
so subtle and provocative
that frissons of delight
shudder up and down
his meaty back,
by pungent aromatics
so utterly unique
he once again discovers
the first unbounded passion
of his sensual decay.

From a penthouse suite
safe within the Seattle dome,
he expends his fortune
on delicacies more
bizarre and illicit
than a cannibal's feast.
He bribes customs officials
and employs unsavory sorts
so that he might savor
the fruits and meats
of a furious ecology,
so that his taste buds
might embark upon
vicarious exploration
of far rivers and climes
he would never dare
to visit in the flesh.
Even the pains which
rack his portly belly
do not lessen his desire
for spiny bone-white guavas
seasoned with banana moss.
The rash of radiation welts
which erupts upon his chest,
his throat and forearms,
does not delay his hunt
for the perfect table red
to complement the spicy
roasted sweetbreads
of the anaconda sloth.

He is discovered
one morning slumped
before his laden table,
nearly unrecognizable
in the stench of his decay.
The slender stalks
of saffron fungi
which sprout
from all his orifices
have reduced him
to an ectomorph
and scoured
the plates before him
till they shine,
yet have left
a ghastly rictus
of gluttony revered
upon his face.






Click Below to read
appearing online only on 
of Fantasy and Science
FICTION 





Sunday, June 26, 2016

MUTANT RAIN FOREST: I

THREE EVOCATIONS OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST

by Bruce Boston

                                     watercolor by Marge Simon 


Evolution

When young Charles rode the Beagle round the Cape
bound for the revelations of the Galapagos,
little did he know that war and rampant
radiation would turn this continent
he circumnavigated into a land
which would first prove his
theories of survival
and selection,
not in millennia but months,
and with like rapidity prove them
as useless as Newton’s linear equations
to the curving temporal attenuations of space.

And now even his special island is rife
with protean life and the unique
and isolated species he once
cataloged with such care
have vanished
in an onslaught far more
unique and constantly changing,
more fertile than flights of pure imagination.



Expansion

From space, with each revolution of the planet,
the dark arboreal palimpsest seems to lengthen.
In the time lapsed motion of satellite tapes,
it swells like a gargantuan amoeba in mitosis.

Rio. Caracas. Sao Paulo. The coastal cities
which survive do so by a daily confrontation.
The lines of armor clad troops advance warily,
spraying gouts of liquid fire into the wilds.

Napalm. Cyanogen. Agent Orange. A poison rain
of defoliants and excoriation falls in waves
from the decks of combat planes and choppers,
yet the flames are strangely dampened and die.

In a makeshift refugee camp, a native Indio
from the abandoned interior, drafted to fight,
sleeps in battle fatigues by his pregnant wife.
All his dreams have been transformed to frights

in which the serpentine vines he burns by day
have rooted deep within their displaced lives,
to twine and strangulate the bloody umbilical
and suffocate the breath of his unborn child.



Elan Vital

Beyond the claws of bestial battle,
beyond the green on green attrition,
some say a force is dwelling here
which links its manifold creations,
a rank and raging barbaric spirit,
a dim but still awakening sentience,
which touches and taints our souls
and gives rise to stray obsessions.

The banks of thunderous cumuli
stacked against the Andes range,
fall east to meet miasmic mists
which rise in streaming drifts
from the swamps of lowland basins,
and in this airborne compilation
dense and brackish figures evolve
in an endless surreal cinemontage
of unconscious organic visions.

Some say that far and farther south
beyond the Rivers Negro and Parana,
beyond the encroaching vegetation,
a retreating tribe has suffered
an enchantment and possession
in the shadow of the forest wall,
for now they divinate its growth
and foretell our changeling future
as they read the clouds’ collisions










Click Below to read
appearing here online only on 
of Fantasy and Science
FICTION 





Archive of Stories
and Authors

Callum Leckie's
THE DIGITAL DECADENT


J.R. Torina's
ANTHROPOPHAGUS


J.R. Torina's
THE HOUSE IN THE PORT


J.R. Torina was DJ for Sonic Slaughter-
house ('90-'97), runs Sutekh Productions
(an industrial-ambient music label) and
Slaughterhouse Records (metal record
label), and was proprietor of The Abyss
(a metal-gothic-industrial c.d. shop in
SLC, now closed). He is the dark force
behind Scapegoat (an ambient-tribal-
noise-experimental unit). THE HOUSE
IN THE PORT is his first publication.

Sean Padlo's
NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW

Sean Padlo's
GRANDPA'S LAST REQUEST

Sean Padlo's exact whereabouts
are never able to be fully
pinned down, but what we
do know about him is laced
with the echoes of legend.
He's already been known
to haunt certain areas of
the landscape, a trick said
to only be possible by being
able to manipulate it from
the future. His presence
among the rest of us here
at the freezine sends shivers
of wonder deep in our solar plexus.


Konstantine Paradias & Edward
Morris's HOW THE GODS KILL


Konstantine Paradias's
SACRI-FEES

Konstantine Paradias is a writer by
choice. At the moment, he's published
over 100 stories in English, Japanese,
Romanian, German, Dutch and
Portuguese and has worked in a free-
lancing capacity for videogames, screen-
plays and anthologies. People tell him
he's got a writing problem but he can,
like, quit whenever he wants, man.
His work has been nominated
for a Pushcart Prize.

Edward Morris's
ONE NIGHT IN MANHATTAN


Edward Morris's
MERCY STREET

Edward Morris is a 2011 nominee for
the Pushcart Prize in literature, has
also been nominated for the 2009
Rhysling Award and the 2005 British
Science Fiction Association Award.
His short stories have been published
over a hundred and twenty times in
four languages, most recently at
PerhihelionSF, the Red Penny Papers'
SUPERPOW! anthology, and The
Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. He lives
and works in Portland as a writer,
editor, spoken word MC and bouncer,
and is also a regular guest author at
the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.


Tim Fezz's
BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

Tim Fezz's
MANY SILVERED MOONS AGO

Tim Fezz hails out of the shattered
streets of Philly destroying the air-
waves and people's minds in the
underground with his band OLD
FEZZIWIG. He's been known to
dip his razor quill into his own
blood and pen a twisted tale
every now and again. We are
delighted to have him onboard
the FREEZINE and we hope
you are, too.

Daniel E. Lambert's
DEAD CLOWN AND MAGNET HEAD


Daniel E. Lambert teaches English
at California State University, Los
Angeles and East Los Angeles College.
He also teaches online Literature
courses for Colorado Technical
University. His writing appears
in Silver Apples, Easy Reader,
Other Worlds, Wrapped in Plastic
and The Daily Breeze. His work
also appears in the anthologies
When Words Collide, Flash It,
Daily Flash 2012, Daily Frights
2012, An Island of Egrets and
Timeless Voices. His collection
of poetry and prose, Love and
Other Diversions, is available
through Amazon. He lives in
Southern California with his
wife, poet and author Anhthao Bui.

Phoenix's
AGAIN AND AGAIN

Phoenix has enjoyed writing since he
was a little kid. He finds much import-
ance and truth in creative expression.
Phoenix has written over sixty books,
and has published everything from
novels, to poetry and philosophy.
He hopes to inspire people with his
writing and to ask difficult questions
about our world and the universe.
Phoenix lives in Salt Lake City, Utah,
where he spends much of his time
reading books on science, philosophy,
and literature. He spends a good deal
of his free time writing and working
on new books. The Freezine of Fant-
asy and Science Fiction welcomes him
and his unique, intense vision.
Discover Phoenix's books at his author
page on Amazon. Also check out his blog.

Adam Bolivar's
SERVITORS OF THE
OUTER DARKNESS


Adam Bolivar's
THE DEVIL & SIR
FRANCIS DRAKE



Adam Bolivar's
THE TIME-EATER


Adam Bolivar is an expatriate Bostonian
who has lived in New Orleans and Berkeley,
and currently resides in Portland, Oregon
with his beloved wife and fluffy gray cat
Dahlia. Adam wears round, antique glasses
and has a fondness for hats. His greatest
inspirations include H.P. Lovecraft,
Jack tales and coffee. He has been
a Romantic poet for as long as any-
one can remember, specializing in
the composition of spectral balladry,
utilizing to great effect a traditional
poetic form that taps into the haunted
undercurrents of folklore seldom found
in other forms of writing.
His poetry has appeared on the pages
of such publications as SPECTRAL
REALMS and BLACK WINGS OF
CTHULHU, and a poem of his,
"The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner,"
won the Rhysling Award for long-form
poetry. His collection of weird balladry
and Jack tales, THE LAY OF OLD HEX,
was published by Hippocampus Press in 2017.


Sanford Meschkow's
INEVITABLE

Sanford Meschkow is a retired former
NYer who married a Philly suburban
Main Line girl. Sanford has been pub-
lished in a 1970s issue of AMAZING.
We welcome him here on the FREE-
ZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Owen R. Powell's
NOETIC VACATIONS

Little is known of the mysterious
Owen R. Powell (oftentimes referred
to as Orp online). That is because he
usually keeps moving. The story
Noetic Vacations marks his first
appearance in the Freezine.

Gene Stewart
(writing as Art Wester)
GROUND PORK


Gene Stewart's
CRYPTID'S LAIR

Gene Stewart is a writer and artist.
He currently lives in the Midwest
American Wilderness where he is
researching tales of mystical realism,
writing ficta mystica, and exploring
the dark by casting a little light into
the shadows. Follow this link to his
website where there are many samples
of his writing and much else; come
explore.

Daniel José Older's
GRAVEYARD WALTZ


Daniel José Older's
THE COLLECTOR


Daniel José Older's spiritually driven,
urban storytelling takes root at the
crossroads of myth and history.
With sardonic, uplifting and often
hilarious prose, Older draws from
his work as an overnight 911 paramedic,
a teaching artist & an antiracist/antisexist
organizer to weave fast-moving, emotionally
engaging plots that speak whispers and
shouts about power and privilege in
modern day New York City. His work
has appeared in the Freezine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction, The ShadowCast
Audio Anthology, The Tide Pool, and
the collection Sunshine/Noir, and is
featured in Sheree Renee Thomas'
Black Pot Mojo Reading Series in Harlem.
When he's not writing, teaching or
riding around in an ambulance,
Daniel can be found performing with
his Brooklyn-based soul quartet
Ghost Star. His blog about the
ridiculous and disturbing world
of EMS can be found here.


Paul Stuart's
SEA?TV!


Paul Stuart is the author of numerous
biographical blurbs written in the third
person. His previously published fiction
appears in The Vault of Punk Horror and
His non-fiction financial pieces can be found
in a shiny, west-coast magazine that features
pictures of expensive homes, as well as images
of women in casual poses and their accessories.
Consider writing him at paul@twilightlane.com,
if you'd like some thing from his garage. In fall
2010, look for Grade 12 Trigonometry and
Pre-Calculus -With Zombies.


Rain Grave's
MAU BAST


Rain Graves is an award winning
author of horror, science fiction and
poetry. She is best known for the 2002
Poetry Collection, The Gossamer Eye
(along with Mark McLaughlin and
David Niall Wilson). Her most
recent book, Barfodder: Poetry
Written in Dark Bars and Questionable
Cafes, has been hailed by Publisher's
Weekly as "Bukowski meets Lovecraft..."
in January of 2009. She lives and
writes in San Francisco, performing
spoken word at events around the
country. 877-DRK-POEM -




Blag Dahlia's
armed to the teeth
with LIPSTICK



BLAG DAHLIA is a Rock Legend.
Singer, Songwriter, producer &
founder of the notorious DWARVES.
He has written two novels, ‘NINA’ and
‘ARMED to the TEETH with LIPSTICK’.


G. Alden Davis's
THE FOLD


G. Alden Davis wrote his first short story
in high school, and received a creative
writing scholarship for the effort. Soon
afterward he discovered that words were
not enough, and left for art school. He was
awarded the Emeritus Fellowship along
with his BFA from Memphis College of Art
in '94, and entered the videogame industry
as a team leader and 3D artist. He has over
25 published games to his credit. Mr. Davis
is a Burningman participant of 14 years,
and he swings a mean sword in the SCA.
He's also the best friend I ever had. He
was taken away from us last year on Jan
25 and I'll never be able to understand why.
Together we were a fantastic duo, the
legendary Grub Bros. Our secret base
exists on a cross-hatched nexus between
the Year of the Dragon and Dark City.
Somewhere along the tectonic fault
lines of our electromagnetic gathering,
shades of us peel off from the coruscating
pillars and are dropped back into the mix.
The phrase "rest in peace" just bugs me.
I'd rather think that Greg Grub's inimitable
spirit somehow continues evolving along
another manifestation of light itself, a
purple shift shall we say into another
phase of our expanding universe. I
ask myself, is it wishful thinking?
Will we really shed our human skin
like a discarded chrysalis and emerge
shimmering on another wavelength
altogether--or even manifest right
here among the rest without their
even beginning to suspect it? Well
people do believe in ghosts, but I
myself have long been suspicious
there can only be one single ghost
and that's all the stars in the universe
shrinking away into a withering heart
glittering and winking at us like
lost diamonds still echoing all their
sad and lonely songs fallen on deaf
eyes and ears blind to their colorful
emanations. My grub brother always
knew better than what the limits
of this old world taught him. We
explored past the outer peripheries
of our comfort zones to awaken
the terror in our minds and keep
us on our toes deep in the forest
in the middle of the night. The owls
led our way and the wilderness
transformed into a sanctuary.
The adventures we shared together
will always remain tattooed on
the pages of my skin. They tell a
story that we began together and
which continues being woven to
this very day. It's the same old
story about how we all were in
this together and how each and
every one of us is also going away
someday and though it will be the far-
thest we can manage to tell our own
tale we may rest assured it will be
continued like one of the old pulp
serials by all our friends which survive
us and manage to continue
the saga whispering in the wind.

Shae Sveniker's
A NEW METAPHYSICAL STUDY
REGARDING THE BEHAVIOR
OF PLANT LIFE


Shae is a poet/artist/student and former
resident of the Salt Pit, UT, currently living
in Simi Valley, CA. His short stories are on
Blogger and his poetry is hosted on Livejournal.


Nigel Strange's
PLASTIC CHILDREN


Nigel Strange lives with his wife and
daughter, cats, and tiny dog-like thing
in their home in California where he
occasionally experiments recreationally
with lucidity. PLASTIC CHILDREN
is his first publication.