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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

The Oracular Waterline

a report from your friendly 
  editor in chief, Shaun Lawton  






    Welcome to the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A non-monetized, ad-free blog in Google's domain that exists as a placid oasis amidst a slick of rainbow colored oil spills that help define the cyberscape bending away from the eye in a dizzying array of hidden directories blossoming both above and below the waterline of the rising tide of information being processed on the world wide web today. 

     We'd like to consider ourselves a venue like a roadside club hosting a rock and roll show formed as a community bound online and disguised as a creative writing workshop, what started out over fourteen years ago as an effort to create a twenty-first century science fiction digital fanzine has taken electromagnetic root and flourished into its proper form as a metamorphosing serial digest of fantastic fiction for all to feel free to contribute to and enjoy...or not...as the case may be, but make no mistake about it:  there's no 'maybe' in our lives here, we move forward with the flow, leaping the wave crests one at a time, each in our own worlds that blend with intersection, so feel fine and free to email me or reach out and contact us at

     freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com 

     Even while currently across the nation major industries suffer from a lack of staffing while thousands of job offers remain unfulfilled, meanwhile very few if any applicants step forward to claim these positions, and we at the Freezine here don't know what to do about it, if anything really.  This may be likened to a sort of post-pandemic pulling back of the tide, I suppose, revealing thousands of scattered sea shells glimmering in the sunlight for the taking, but who am I to allude to the spawn of the technological singularity and its amassed mirror neurons of cellular automata crowding for our attention? 

     After a few moments suspended like the measure of a heartbeat, the tide accelerates back inward, sweeping all the sea shells up into the turbulence.  Such it is in the minds and measures of men, and such it has always been, or at least it seems to me when I take the time to reflect upon it. We move with the tides and the rhythms of the sea. Who among us really has the time these days to see it all through and understand? I wonder. 

     Regardless of where we may end up out here, alongside the shimmering coastline overlooking the undulating waves, or on a mountain range stranded high and dry among the nebulous condensation, the blood in our veins pumps in time to the developing cloudscape and parallel to the breakers rolling in from the wide open sea to the shore. Every heart appears to be an oasis sent from the deepest ocean, destined to become yet another remote observer stalking the desert of the mind, blossoming into consciousness in clusters amid the hanging gardens of the universe, a left over fruiting body for us to yet discover and marvel over. 

     Which brings us to this, our 44th issue of the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. As a core handful of followers and devotees already know, this blog masquerades as an online digital fanzine paying homage to the fantastical stories and artwork erupting in the wake of the golden age of science fiction and heralded by a host of new wave and post-slipstream poets and writers beholden to the uncanny spell we've been placed under by former magicians of the trade.  From Edgar Allan Poe through Lovecraft, William Blake and Yeats and the legion of writers of the weird spanning the letters of Algernon Blackwood to Thomas Ligotti and beyond, this cybernetic sub literary endeavor would never have come into its strange fruition if it weren't for those lone rogue souls out there who contributed to it, daring iconoclasts such as John Shirley, fearless dreamers like Keith Graham, Johnny Strike, David Agranoff, Blag Dahlia, Vincent Daemon, Gil Bavel, Sean Manseau, John Claude Smith, Icy Sedgwick, A. A. Attanasio, Bruce Boston, Misha Nogha, Lewis Shiner, Brian "Flesheater" Stoneking, Jeffrey Thomas, and many more with their short stories archived as well as even more contributors to come, I'm sure of it, as the long and winding road ahead rises to meet us. 

      With our patron saints Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick, the Freezine echoes the mantra "the writer must get paid," and in the spirit of stapled and mimeographed fanzines of old from the 60s and 70s, this webzine for the 21st century stands both monumental and solid as a pillar as well as active and fluid along the relentless course of time, just waiting while the rest of the world flows on by and every so often, we snag an attentive soul or two while we continue publishing serialized novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, drabbles, poetry and the best graphic artwork we can manage to conjure up from this well of souls that has been dubbed the Earth.  

      If you're reading this now and would like to contribute your drabble or flash fiction piece or longer work of fiction or poetry, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM on Messenger or whatnot,  by any means you have at your disposal to submit your writing or art.  Any method of reaching me remains welcome since I've become adept at "all the above" and I'm doing this for the love of the craft in order to get more aspiring writers as well as professionals to boost their signal however slightly it may be, in the hopes that by doing so, our respective trajectories into the unknown future of publishing may be enhanced to the point it helps us along toward achieving our mutual goal of becoming published and successful writers and artists.  I'm not Warner Bros.  I'm just Shaun...and my dream is to help pave the way toward realizing our fullest potential as human beings trapped as we are here in time along with the sprawling vista of stars twinkling their age old music of the spheres before our very eyes and ears. 

      If you listen with extreme enough care while outdoors past midnight in the forest on a mountainside and stare at the slowly passing constellations overhead as our singular planet spins along its orbit around our local star, you can actually hear the faintest echoes of the stellar song still playing in the wind, and you will notice that every star seen twinkling overhead appears with its own infinitesimally faint color.  While we're here trapped among eternity suspended in our endless freedom while yet alive, I invite you to participate in this unfolding legacy of writers and artists, because honestly, it's a fun sort of creative writing online workshop / cyberzine that is only picking up steam with every revolution we successfully complete around the Sun.    

      Without further ado, I will kick off this 44th iSsuE of our august zine with a ten paragraph flash-faction piece I call The Pathogen Nursery.  It's a summation of a longer work germinating on one of the back shelves of my mind, and to be honest I feel its time to at least give our dear readers a "sneak peek" into it, since the idea behind it appears to me, at least, important enough for more of us to begin considering.  After all, many of us were brought up to not only enjoy the satirical writings of Voltaire and Swift, but it seems to me the greater majority of us have been swept along since then upon darker tides of dystopian lore, thanks to some fantastic writers (not to mention some popular movies responsible for instilling certain memes into public consciousness) to the point I'm afraid it may have imprinted us with a negative viewpoint when considering not only the future, but our priceless present itself.  

     So please, stay tuned to this same Bat-channel while I put the finishing touches on my flash faction piece, which should be posted here within the next few hours or days.  And thanks once again for following, contributing, participating, and reading this blog, the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.   I'll be lurking by my inbox waiting for fresh submissions from people I know that have yet to step out onto this fragile and enduring stage.  After all, we're all here together now, at the exact center of our creation.  And you know what they say. There's no time like the present.  




    
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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.