It's been a strange summer for many of us in the zine publishing biz. Discussions on various message boards, such as Speculations' Rumor Mill, make it clear that a number of amateur and semi-pro zine publishers have struggled with technical issues like computer crashes, hard drive failures, e-mail hassles and the neverending scourge of spam.

This summer of turmoil has affected us here at Abyss & Apex just as it seems to have affected several other zines and publishers. Regular readers already know about our hard drive failure in July, and we are continuing to suffer from crippling spam attacks on our main editorial eimail accounts.

Besides all this, our editor-in-chief moved — across the country, no less — and started a new job. And, just last weekend, yours truly suffered a serious fall and broke my shoulder. To trot out one of the hoariest of cliches: When it rains, it pours...

However, A&A soldiers on. Issue #11 features an eclectic, outstanding mix of stories and poetry. There's a subtle and fairly wry theme connecting these pieces, which I will leave you to discern for yourself ... or not; you may prefer to enjoy each work as it stands, and each one is certainly enjoyable.

Stylistically, the stories this issue vary wildly; Michael Seidel's Marketing War is a harder and more action-packed sci-fi story than some of our usual fare. The three poems could not be more different from one another; there's something for everyone in this issue's poetry corner.

The July/August issue of A&A appeared a bit late, so we dubbed it July/August/September, and this one is being called October 2004. We'll leave it up for a bit longer than a month to give the authors plenty of exposure. Thus, we expect the November/December issue to come out a bit late as well. By January/February 2005 we should be back on schedule or very close to it.

In part because of the hard-drive crash, we are still overloaded with submissions except for flash. Please visit our guidelines page regularly for updates on what kind of work we are reading and how to submit.

Enjoy this issue and please send us your feedback. And as always, thank you for reading.

—Aleta Daknis, Associate Editor
October 9, 2004