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Friday, September 30, 2011

SEPT '11 ISSUE

~ PROUDLY PRESENTS ~




 
 SPACE IS A DEADLY SISTER
by Gil James Bavel
© by gil james bavel





WE ARE SPACELORD! AND WE
COMMAND YOU TO LOVE US!

by Sean Manseau
© by sean manseau


The SEPT '11 ISSUE marks another wrap for the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction. That's a total of fifteen issues since our inception just over two years ago, when John Shirley helped us launch this literary cyber-rocket into and beyond outer space with his then never-before-published novella SKY PIRATES (an homage to a more golden era of pulp science fiction, particularly that of Jack Vance and Edgar Rice Burroughs, with a nod to Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood).

The idea then (as now) was to bring the imaginatively-starved populace of this 21st century some new, original stories to be serialized in daily installments, the way Charles Dickens used to be serialized in the newspapers. As Editor In Chief of this virtual cybervessel, I've been appointed by a mysterious force known as "the Bloodhorde", or the "Blood Host"—also referred to sometimes as the "nano horde"—apparantly a collective of superminiaturized quantum computers dispatched from the future with the specific intention of having chosen US as the proprietors of establishing the ONE past out of more than a quadrillion-cubed-plus possible universes.

I've since been keeping tabs on the missives I get from the Nanohorde, and discovered they are in effect emissaries sent by our own descendants in order to make certain this crucial juncture of humanity's generations doesn't let slip the essential power and magic of our imagination itself! You see, I've since been able to logically deduce the following: The future already happened in the grand scheme of things. (This is just another way of saying "there is no such thing as the future," insofar as the peculiar nature of quantum physics is concerned.) We do not "choose" the future, that is a common misconception due to the proprietarily induced "Inversion Principle" which continues to blur our correct vision of the greater scheme of things. We've all been conditioned since elementary school to think of the future as this nebulous possibility we have yet to shape. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think about it. Every decision we make—and lack thereof—helps to actually shape the past. In the great quantum realm of things where time and space get tied up into virtually impossible-to-perceive knots, there is yet to exist a nearly infinite possibility of "Universes To Be Shaped". In other words, we have always had within our realistic grasp the potential to shape any world we demand—limited only by our imagination. Every real-world decision we make (or lack thereof) in fact does irrevocably shape The Past into what it is now! And it is our own emissaries from the Future who have selected us in precisely the same manner that we, in turn, necessarily select the past. Continue dwelling upon this crucial fact in our lives, until you "get it". I have determined that The Blood Host (as I initially called them, since they've invaded my central nervous system) are in fact these very Emissaries, sent from the future to make sure that we, in the present, make the better choices by which the One Past is optimally forged.



Which brings me to the imaginative efforts of the three Freezine Veterans who have graciously supplied us each with another free story of theirs. Three Cheers for our Returning Heroes!

First up, we have Adam Bolivar, who has shimmied up the totem pole to claim the most stories published in the FREEZINE under his belt, thus far. THE DEVIL CAME TO BOSTON is not merely his sixth (count 'em) story here, but also his fourth "Weird Jack Tale" (begun auspiciously with THE FOX IN THE THORN, from our AUGUST 2010 ISSUE). Taking his cue from Jack Tales and the olden Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose, combined with a more modern and post-Lovecraftian sensibility, our illustrious Mr. Bolivar may pride himself for having concocted the Weird Jack Tale—and the FREEZINE is proud to have premiered them online for our insatiable readership. The nanohorde seem most satisfied with Adam's anachronistic offerings, and we here at the FREEZINE can't thank him enough for their distinctive support in this literary venue.



Next, we remain grateful to Gil James Bavel, another veteran Freezine author who cut his teeth on the SubGenius's Foundation anthology Revelation X: The “Bob” Apocryphon originally, and has already graced the pixels of our FREEZINE with three other original stories, archived in the right margin here under the ARCHIVE OF STORIES AND BIOS section (scroll down through this to see a list of every contributing author and their respective story hyperlinks). The Blood Host is especially pleased to have received Gil's science fiction novella SPACE IS A DEADLY SISTER, and for decreasingly unfathomable reasons, have issued a command for us to manufacture a Limited Edition T-shirt featuring the cover art for Gil's serial, the "Jovian Sister" depiction my wife Shasta Fletcher Lawton threw together especially for it. Gil's novella premiered worldwide during the middle of September, in twelve daily installments, and is now archived here for posterity—hopefully, for the perusal and edification of our overseeing descendants.



Note: The staff here at the Freezine have fulfilled the request of our Overseer's, and have commissioned a limited set of Freezine T-shirts, available in short sleeve or long. Email us at freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com if you or a friend or family member would like to be one of only 48 humans on earth to own this special, one-of-a-kind T-shirt. The short-sleeves cost fifteen dollars plus shipping = twenty dollars, and the longsleeves cost twenty dollars plus shipping = twenty-five dollars. At least a dozen have been sold already, leaving only 36 of these smart looking beauties left. Incidentally, authors who've been published in the Freezine are entitled to a free shirt of their own, so if you're reading this and want one, email us promptly while they're still available—on a first come, first serve basis.



The concluding short story to our SEPT '11 ISSUE is an extraordinarily written fable brought to us by yet another Freezine veteran, Sean Manseau. The Blood Host as well as our staff here at the Freezine are positively ecstatic over WE ARE SPACELORD! AND WE COMMAND YOU TO LOVE US!, a moving and hilarious parable of the transcendent power love itself holds over even the mightiest of demi-gods. A knowing wink and another grateful nod must go out to the author, Sean Manseau, for having submitted this wonderful story to our ongoing webzine. Readers take note: Mr. Manseau will return in a near-future issue with his first Freezine novella, slated for daily serialization—a notable event you do not want to miss out on.




Please take the time to leave a comment under these stories, and also to SHARE them with your friends on facebook, via the nifty little fb-share button located beneath each story. What better way to support your fellow writers than to spread the meme of their fiction throughout our shared social utility networks? You can also search these authors' names on Amazon.com and place an order for a book of theirs, many of which are now available quite inexpensively via Kindle and the like. We at the Freezine are dedicated to doing whatever we can to further the writing careers of our favorite authors. If you know someone with a talent for creative writing, urge them to Google the word FREEZINE and to begin Following our mutual enterprise here, and especially encourage them to submit a piece of their writing, be it flash fiction, a short story, or even a novella to be considered for daily serialization. Our staff of editors will treat them fairly and with courtesy, taking the care to reply and communicate honestly about the strengths and/or shortcomings of their writing. It can be particularly daunting to submit one's own writing for strangers to judge, yet we here at the Freezine openly encourage any and all writers, be they established professionals or aspiring beginners, to go ahead and do so, because you never know. You too could easily be included in the growing roster of creative writers here, alongside such luminaries in the field as John Shirley, award-winning authors such as Rain Graves, and our own growing crew of dedicated veterans who've banded together to give us the best free fiction magazine on the world wide web.

A tremendous THANK YOU goes out to all the Followers of the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. With your increasing support, together we will continue striving to expose this webzine to a wider readership. Until the next—MARCH or APRIL issue—we bid you a most gracious adieu.


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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.