☼ iSsuE 30 ☩ De☾ember | 2021

 

     Welcome to the thirtieth issue of the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This summer will mark the thirteenth year of our mutual odyssey together reading the fantastic fiction and poetry of a host of talented writers both young and old, established and new, award-winning and veritably unknown. 

     As the editor in chief of this virtual magazine, this online fanzine, this hyper marked up tesseract of riveting artwork and illuminating prose, this veritable labyrinth of hidden chambers with secret portals interconnecting and leading into deeper sub-terrains of what I've dubbed the Blogdom of Thorns, I welcome all who have stepped in before with fondness and gratitude, and I especially welcome any new souls who may have stumbled into this tricky domain of shifting fictions. 

   Creative writing remains the realm we happen to share between our crossed swords and overlapping hearts.   It's with tremendous sincerity and gratitude that I would like to say Thank You to the four contributors to this,  our 30th  "De☾ember | 2021" iSsuE:  two writers + two artists of inestimable creativity and blinding talent.  

   To A. A. Attanasio, I couldn't summon the words to thank you enough for your willingness to contribute to our freezine over the years.  You have paid delicate attention in the form of leaving gracious comments under many stories over the years, in addition to having allowed me to showcase your stunning fiction.   I consider you to be one of the most important science fiction authors that ever lived.  Your genuine spirit of camaraderie and heartfelt desire to play with us has fulfilled me and kept my own passion for writing and communicating with other beings ignited throughout the years, and I will always remain grateful for your cyber-friendship, which in my view transcends mere flesh and enters into the solid state of eternity.   Let's cut to the chase:  thanks for allowing me to plunder your own blog for these word tidbits and micro-fictions to share with the barest fraction of the world to skim over and read or absorb at their leisure.  If there are any Istari left in the world of writing today, I consider you to be tantamount with Gandalf the Grey.  You will always be my Stormcrow.  Thanks. 

   To John Shirley.  What can I say.  Somehow I transcended the veil between cyberspace and real life when I decided to trek to San Francisco all of those sixteen years ago to see you read in a fantasy and science fiction bookstore on my birthday.  You were gracious enough to invite me to dinner up the street with your wife and allowed my friend, Andrew Phillips {RIP}, to tag along.  Since then we've met at various writing conventions out west, partied together in Oakland with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and hung out together at my friend Adam Bolivar's house in Portland, Oregon to put on a puppet, poetry and rock'n'roll show of the Weird at the HP Lovecraft bar, to name a few highlights of our friendship.  Without you there would be no Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Your generosity in allowing me to publish Sky Pirates those thirteen years ago when we started this webzine will never be forgotten, not to mention your consistent contributions to our raglit zine over the years.  You and Vincent Daemon have contributed the most to our sub-literary pirate ship, and I can't thank you enough for your bright spirit and sharp, incisive stories brimming with realistic characters and the most vivid, cutting prose I've had the pleasure of discovering in my life. Thanks for letting me C&P select flash fictions from your blog this time around to present here in the freezine. 

   Someone referred to this blog as my passion project recently, and yes that's exactly what it is. In the past year the blogger forum removed email subscriptions, which at first seemed like a bad thing, as no one could continue receiving the stories and posts in their Inbox anymore, but then I realized this development is really more like cutting the umbilical cord and truly setting our zine Free.  Hence the disclaimer attentive readers will have noticed having recently gone up below the banner art:  

You have been invaded by the freezine of fantasy

and science fiction. You no longer need to sub-

scribe. We are already subscribed to you.  

I like the notion that the Freezine now only remains tied to readers if they should mirror the passion I myself have for creating it and keeping it going.  This digital periodical remains a sort of secret that only a select few among us may be led to, and if you happen to be one of those, welcome to the fold. 

   I have not and will not monetize this blog, nor involve money into it, preferring to focus on our passionate drive to merely present good stories with fantastic artwork for surfers of the world wide web to stumble upon and discover, and share if they see fit.  If no one bothers to do so, that's okay because like all of my poetry and writing, I do this for myself first and foremost, as what I like to consider being the ideal model of a reader. As for the self-promotional aspect of being able to easily share individual posts and stories on social utility networks such as Twitter and Facebook etc., well that goes without saying and as far as I'm concerned should be filed under the "intuitively obvious" category.  Any established or aspiring artist or writer who submits their short stories or poems and artwork to the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction will obviously be able to share it and promote their writing and art to their heart's content.  That's part and parcel of the whole point of this webzine's existence. 

   Reading and writing remain my foremost passion in life, aside from raising my son and loving my wife, and I'm having a wonderful time putting out this digest and seeing who among the writers out there might be drawn into its meta TOC, eventually.    

  Thanks to my friend Charles Carter for taking on the role as current resident artist at the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.   Your massive experience in using various open source computer programs such as VQGAN + CLIP and many more have resulted in what I consider to be the most remarkable digital art I've ever seen (and I mean that with sincerity).   That's why, for the past four issues (since the September, 2021 issue # 27) I've focused on having your art primarily dominate.  Not only does it dovetail perfectly as the backdrop for the developing "nanotheme" threading through the evolution of this zine, but it really dynamically accentuates everything I personally love about science fiction and its ancillary subgenres (such as cyberpunk, slipstream, etc).  

  Thanks to Jeff Jordan for allowing me to use a reproduction of your original painting that I bought last year for my own story.  I knew I'd be able to use it for some contribution here, but honestly I didn't anticipate that it would end up working for one of my own pieces.  I'm very proud of how it all came together and remain grateful for your permission to use it.  

     It's a brand new day in an original year that will continue catapulting us forward into undiscovered territories as well as our long accustomed routines.  May everyone who read this far remain blessed in this existence and be afforded the opportunity to seize the reins of our life together to make the best of what fate has in store for us.  

   Happy New Year to all, and to all a good day. 

   Please follow the hyperlinks below to their respective stories now archived in this De☾ember, 2021 issue (artwork for this issue graciously provided courtesy of Charles Carter and Jeff Jordan).

Machine Dynasties of the Orion Arm 

by A. A. Attanasio

A Crowd of One Not Alone

by Shaun Lawton

Voices

by John Shirley

The Nanochronicles: 4

Reports from the bloodHost

Click Below to begin iSsuE # 31 of 

the Freezine of

Fantasy and Science

FICTION