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.

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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 ~
 ⚙