APRIL FOOL'S ISSUE

~ PROUDLY PRESENTS ~




ELDER CRUISER
by John Shirley

© 2012 by john shirley

+ Click Images Below To Begin Reading +

SATAN'S DOG

by Gil James Bavel

© 2012 by gil james bavel

MIZUKI

by Keith Graham

© 2012 by keith graham

NIGHT SONG

OF THE FUNGI

by Vincent Daemon

© 2012 by vincent daemon

Welcome to another edition of the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a Fanzine for the 21st Century. Back in the 20th century, fanzines proliferated across the underground scene like weird mushrooms in Vince Daemon's back yard.

It's the same idea now, only I like to call it a Webzine. This APRIL, 2012 edition is our lucky 13th Issue—welcome to it. Be sure to invite your friends, share the stories, and Follow the FREEZINE today. [To do so, either use the RSS-feed, follow by email (upper right corner), or to Follow on Blogger or Facebook—simply scroll down, down, down past all the bios and authors, until you see the Blogger Followers just below Icy Sedgwick, and the NetworkedBlogs for Facebook, below that. We are about to reach 100 Blogger and 100 Facebook Followers—and that doesn't include all the "hidden" Followers, "private" Followers, and various RSS-feed Followers, and so on. The Nano only knows how many Followers we actually have...]

For this APRIL, 2012 issue we have a real treat for starters—veteran author John Shirley returns for his fourth (count 'em) original story in our Webzine, ELDER CRUISER. As the FREEZINE loves nothing more than to serialize novellas or even the short novel here and there, we were all too pleased to have John submit his new science fiction novelette (approximately 12,000 words) for the FREEZINE to serialize in daily installments. Breaking up such narratives into daily installments can be quite a challenge, in particular while trying to simultaneously end each section on a "cliffhanger"—or, should there not be enough "hard" cliffhangers—on what I like to call a "narrative tension point". ELDER CRUISER was originally slated to be divided into seven daily installments, but I worked at trying to get the most out of each installment, so they wouldn't be too short...and found the right balance in five installments, giving the readers more to sink their teeth into, with each daily part. I think the narrative flows rather well across five parts, please let me know what you think of the story. Comments are provided for at the bottom of each story featured in the FREEZINE. I personally loved every minute of ELDER CRUISER, and was struck emotionally by this futuristic father/son story to the point of really having it affect me, it got a reaction out of me, I could feel the sense of closure. It delivers quite a wallop, and we at the FREEZINE remain grateful for Mr. Shirley's gracious contribution to our pages.

Speaking of John Shirley's contributions—how many of you have read his fabled cyberpunk trilogy A SONG CALLED YOUTH? It's available now from PRIME BOOKS in one hefty, affordable volume. I recommend you all read it now and find out what all the well-deserved hype is about. He also recently released the bestselling novelization of BIOSHOCK: RAPTURE, along with seven other Tie-Ins & Novelizations.

Next up, we welcome another Veteran Freezine author, Gil James Bavel and his charming short story, SATAN'S DOG, released on Friday the 13th, 2012. This one has a light-hearted and humorous tenor to it, which I felt really fit the flow of this APRIL issue, while yet retaining a modicum of mysteriousness, considering the infernal origins of our canine hero. Working with the author on editing this story was a sheer joy, and I thank Gil James Bavel profusely for having the heart to provide us with yet another entertaining story of his. If you haven't read anything else by Mr. Bavel—scroll down the right margin of bios/authors to see his contribution of stories in the FREEZINE.

Our third story featured in this month's issue, comes from another regular contributor, the science fiction author Keith Graham. His new story here MIZUKI, which debuted on April 20, ravages a mish-mash of counter cultural references into an entertaining and amusing parable. This is Keith's third story in the FREEZINE, and we're sure glad to have him onboard. Check out his bio and the rest of his stories down over in the right margin, there.

Speaking of down over, well down over in Philadelphia we have another FREEZINE veteran, Vincent Daemon. Our APRIL issue concludes with his urgent and haunting urban fable, NIGHT SONG OF THE FUNGI. It makes its first appearance worldwide on the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and shall remain archived along with the author's four other stories, all of which can be found easily by scrolling down, down, down and clicking on the corresponding image with the story's title, in the dropdown menu to the right. Thanks again Vince Daemon for another killer story.

Thanks to my wife Shasta and her really cool, original artwork contributions to this issue. Stay tuned THIS SUMMER for the FREEZINE's immanent return. It will continue to release a diverse array of creative fiction in any of its dizzying formats so long as enough writers and readers continue to participate in its ongoing creation. This is a waking, sleeping, breathing, living blog that needs your support to continue.

If you're a writer who wants to showcase a story of the realm fantastic and further promote yourself and your work, submit it to

freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com for consideration in a future issue.

If you're a reader, Follow this blog and get your friends to follow it too. This endeavor started out and continues to be a labor of love. You will find no other place on the world wide web that is so willing to help promote fellow creative writers free of charge. Thanks for your support and participation, thank you for putting up with the occasional unpredictable monthly lapses, and rest assured that the FREEZINE will continue so long as I am able to log on here and figure out the upgraded hyper text mark up interface. The Nanohorde must expect nothing less from me.