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Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A Murder of Fables ☩

The FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Proudly Presents


RAVENS
by Sheikha A.
photo by S.A. Lawton

click pics to begin reading the entries



STORMCROWS
by Sheikha A.
photo by S.A. Lawton




AETERNUS AEVUM ANALOGIA
by Shaun A. Lawton
photo by Vincent Daemon




 NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW
by Sean Padlo
art by Bonita Barlow




 NAME2FACE.app
by Keith Graham
photo by S.A. Lawton



 ELIXIR OF THORNS
by Shaun A. Lawton
art by Callum Leckie




 PORRIS IN WUNPERLAND
by John Shirley
art by Jesse Stevens





 THE BELLOWS IN THE BB-HEADS
by Vincent Daemon
art by Jason Barnett




THE FREEZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION HAS FEATURED A NEW ISSUE EVERY OTHER MONTH, FOR A TOTAL OF SIX ISSUES A YEAR, DURING THE FIRST FEW YEARS OF ITS INCEPTION. PRODUCTION HAS SLOWED DOWN SINCE THEN. THE EDITORS ARE STRIVING TO MAINTAIN HIGHER QUALITY AND GIVE READERS TIME TO CATCH UP WITH ARCHIVED STORIES. BETWEEN NOW AND THE END OF 2020, OUR COMMUNITY-FOSTERED WORLD WIDE WEBZINE  ASPIRES TO RELEASE AT LEAST TWO MORE ISSUES, IF POSSIBLE. YOU ARE READING THE TWENTY-FIFTH ISSUE OF THIS ONLINE CREATIVE WRITING AND ARTS WORKSHOP, DUBBED A MURDER OF FABLES. IT SHOWCASES SEVEN WRITERS, TWO PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND FOUR ARTISTS. THE FREEZINE IS A NON-PROFIT ENDEAVOR WHOSE GOAL REMAINS TO PROVIDE A DIGITAL FORUM FOR WRITERS AND ARTISTS TO PRESENT THEIR POEMS, STORIES, NOVELETTES, NOVELLAS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND ART FOR READERS AND VIEWERS WORLDWIDE TO ENJOY FREE OF MONETARY CHARGES AND DEVOID OF THE SOUL-SUCKING DISPLAY OF COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS WHICH POLLUTE OUR AESTHETIC ENJOYMENT AND SICKEN US TO THE CORES OF OUR SOULS. THINK OF IT AS AN 'OPEN MIC' FOR SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND HORROR AUTHORS. ANYTHING GOES AT THE FREEZINE. WE ARE HERE TO INFORM AND ENTERTAIN.

STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE EDITIONS WHEN THE FREEZINE UNVEILS UNCOMPROMISING NEW STORIES FROM SURPRISE GUEST AUTHORS AND ARTISTS.

WE AT THE FREEZINE ARE DEDICATED TO PRESENTING THE LATEST IN CUTTING EDGE SPECULATIVE FICTION. IF YOU ARE A PUBLISHED OR NEW AND ASPIRING WRITER AND WISH TO CONTRIBUTE TO FUTURE EDITIONS OF THE FREEZINE, PLEASE CONTACT THE EDITORS AT

  FREEZINEFANTASYSCIENCEFICTION@GMAIL.COM.

RESPONSE TIME MAY VARY, BUT SHOULD TAKE PLACE WITHIN A FEW WEEKS, SOMETIMES MUCH SOONER. WE BELIEVE THAT BY JOINING OUR EFFORTS AND GIVING FREELY OF A STORY EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE WE CAN BOLSTER EACH OTHER'S PRODUCTIVITY AND EXPOSE OUR CRAFT TO THE FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG.




Thank you to all the subscribers who have dared to join us. Without you this endeavor would be an exercise bordering on futility. Please remember to spread the word about this free online publication. With your help, the editors and I myself will be better equipped to multiply the meme of cutting edge speculative fiction for a worn down world to stumble onto and enjoy while surfing the internet for something a little more rewarding than biased news.

 HELP US ALL OUT and tell all your friends and fellow writers, dreamers, pirates, artists and poets about this thing. Together we can generate enough wind-power to fill the sails of this CyberShip, and set it aloft upon the stormy waves of speculative fiction and poetry. 

 My undying and heartfelt gratitude goes out to Sheikha A., Sean Padlo, Keith Graham, John Shirley, Vincent Daemon, Bonita Barlow, Jesse Stevens, Jason Barnett, and SM Fletcher.  

 Without you we would never have been able to keep this craft afloat, much less exploring unprecedented realms of the imagination. The Nanofleet (i.e, the BloodHost) continues to assimilate our material "in order to stockpile their dreamscape"--whatever that means. If you're a long time follower of this blog and webzine, and assuming you've been paying attention to all the editorial comments accrued piecemeal on the final day of each month dedicated to streaming an issue, then you already have an inkling as to how this digital digest came into fruition, at least according to our legend.  It has to do with the synapses in my own brain having been intercepted by an emission of neutrinos with nanocomputers embedded within them beamed into my consciousness eleven years ago from a lost colony of astronauts stranded on Ceres sometime in the future. I've been receiving these messages ever since intermittently. Weeks pass by without any signal from them, sometimes I won't hear from them for months at a time. Whenever a new missive happens to arrive, it usually instructs me to put out the next issue of the Freezine. These benefactors of our 21st century electronic fanzine will elucidate their process every once in a while. For example several years ago they began revealing how it came to be they managed to travel back in time to the year 2009, when our freezine was incepted. Apparently a team of privately owned astronauts who may have been employed by Elon Musk (it's not exactly clear, that's just one of my deductions) who were stationed on Ceres mining fresh ice water for export to Earth became stranded there for reasons unknown. They somehow managed to jury rig their equipment and utilizing nanotechnology bonded a fleet of microcomputers into neutrinos that they fired into the heart of Sagittarius A*—resulting in a wildly synchronistic interception wherein this beam of nanobot laden neutrinos traveled backward in time  to the year 2009 and intersected with some radiology equipment in the hospital that I happened to be working in at the time, resulting in my having begun the process of assimilating the Ceres Team's missives. I find it a wry and oblique development that their message of such importance presumably would be for me to put out a science fictional fanzine on my blog. Over the years I've begun to better understand their underlying imperative. Apparently their message to us remains tantamount to wildly gesticulating in a desperate attempt to get at least some of us on the planet to disengage from our addiction to commercialization and big advertising which I presume to remain the latent foremost complication on Earth which threatens to radically compromise our ability to continue surviving here. 






Please stay tuned to this same Bat-channel and spread the word about the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction because for as long as I continue receiving sporadic transmissions from our future subsidizers on Ceres this blog will proceed to assemble monthly issues of daily serialized novellas and stand alone short stories featuring fantastical artwork and photography for the express purpose of entertaining followers worldwide and bringing additional exposure to the contributors who have dared to join in and participate.





Don't Be Afraid
Message the Freezine on Facebook

 Email queries to

 freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com

and I'll reply just as soon as I am able to
and remember that TIME remains
the ultimate currency
of our lives


here on 


~ your friendly editor in chief
Shaun A. Lawton ~
 ⚙
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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 JosΓ© Older's
GRAVEYARD WALTZ


Daniel JosΓ© Older's
THE COLLECTOR


Daniel JosΓ© 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.