After a much needed break in the fall of 2009, Macabre Cadaver is now open to submissions for the new year. We would like to extend a warm welcome to all prospective authors of horror, science fiction, and dark fantasy. We are particularly interested in fiction that is well-written and defies classification, breaks the rules, sets new standards, knows no boundaries, and doesn’t fit nicely into any particular nook or cranny. We are not averse to any topics or subject matter as long as it is well written, unique, and distinctive.

This year we hope to gather together the best stories by new and established authors and publish our first anthology. We will also begin publishing PDF issues of MC again on a quarterly basis, with the first issue available in the spring of 2010.

In addition to the old website being lost and some data loss, the categories and features links have been changed. If you have a link to Macabre Cadaver please update it. You can use our search form to find links to any content you may have published on MC.

We're back again. This is now the third host I've tried and we'll see if I can make it on this one longer than a day. This has been quite a learning experience. Hopefully, the third time will be a charm.

First Bikster.com just went down without a warning and left MC hanging in the balance. Then FatCow.com was just that: a fat cow that was bloated and slow. Then came Bluehost.com which turned out to be extremely conservative with strict policies in their Terms of Service that prohibited profanity. I had to take a double take when I read that line. Then I read some reviews and cases where they had pulled the plug on blogs for the use of certain "bad" words. It smacked a little too loudly of censorship and violations of the first amendment for my liking. I canceled that one as soon as I found all of this information (which I should have researched prior to signing up, I know).

I spent an entire day trying to find any servers that would tolerate profanity and R-rated material ... "freedom of speech and expression," if you will. I'm sorry to say that there are not a lot of affordable web hosting providers out there that will stand up for their clients' first amendment rights. If someone gets offended by some "vulgar" or "profane" content on a website and writes a harassing "letter to the editor" and makes enough noise, these web host providers will quickly pull the plug and send the offender packing. That's too bad.

Fortunately, I found one, www.webhostingpad.com, that answered all of my questions prior to my purchase, and didn't freak out when I told them that I publish a webzine that may have shocking content and some fiction with slang and perhaps some gruesome art. I don't intend to go all out with blood, guts, gore or porn ... but if I wanted to say a bad word or two because I felt it was necessary, or if I published a story that contained a few choice profanities, I don't want to worry about a menacing Big Brother monitoring my every move and threatening to shut off the site at the first sign of vulgarity. That's just wrong in so many ways.

One person's vulgarity and profanity is another's art, I guess. What I might find offensive and detestable (nothing is truly shocking anymore) may fill someone else with complete and utter joy. Who decides what is perverse, lewd, vulgar, hateful, and profane? I find it odd that those same people that cry so hard about profanity and obscenity on the Internet, and elsewhere, are probably the same ones that go straight to the 6:00 o'clock news (or the National Enquirer) to get their fix of violence, mayhem, crime, suffering, and death all packaged up nicely in 30 minutes. How can they get offended by a movie, story, book, or work of art that only mimics real life? It's not even real, people. Movies like "SAW" and "Halloween" are all smoke and mirrors, make-up and latex dummies. The blood is fake, unlike the stuff you see on the news.

Censorship, hellfire and damnation, and the Patriot Act are all working together to create a brave new world. Soon we might all be dosed up on Soma or Thorazine as we watch giant movie screens with nonstop government propaganda while eating Soylent Green wafers. I can imagine a future (like "Demolition Man") where we receive tickets and fines for using "bad" words.

Is freedom of speech still a reality? I hope so.

The long and the short of it is this: Macabre Cadaver is now back online and, barring anymore server problems, we will have the website back at full throttle soon.

Regards,

Emmanuel Paige
Editor/Publisher
Macabre Cadaver Online Magazine
www.macabrecadaver.com