Freelance Traveller

August 2014	Department	Article Title	Author
	From the Editor		Jeff Zeitlin
	Theme Issue: Psionics
	Up Close and Personal	Shtiz Bralzastebr	Timothy Collinson
	Critics’ Corner	Mongoose Traveller Book 4: Psion	Jeff Zeitlin
		The Cascadia Adventures	Timothy Collinson
	Active Measures	Planet of Storms	Michael Brown
		Getting Off the Ground: Two Patron Encounters: Shtiz Bralzastebr	Timothy Collinson
	Raconteurs’ Rest	Funny Fish: Playing With Matches [Part 1]	Andrea Vallance
		The Mortician General	Andrea Vallance
	Doing It My Way	Psionic Abilities	Timothy Collinson
		Character Generation Rules: The Tavrchedl’: A Zhodani Career for Classic Traveller	Jeff Zeitlin
		The Psiren: A New Psionic Talent for Traveller	Jeff Zeitlin
		Technology Rules: Psionically-Active Drugs and Equipment	Ken Pick and Dave Bryant

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The articles listed and linked above are also linked in their appropriate sections of our website.

From the Editor

This issue represents a first—though a long-desired one—for Freelance Traveller: It’s a “Theme Issue”, where most of the articles included all have a connection with the stated theme—for this issue, Psionics.

So, what’s the difference between an ordinary issue and a Theme Issue? The fact that a majority of the articles touch on a subject is one difference, but it’s really not enough, in Your Humble Editor’s opinion. The key to making a Theme Issue lies in some way connecting the themed articles, or at least a significant portion of them—in this issue, for example, Timothy Collinson has connected his Up Close and Personal on Shtiz Bralzastebr with two adventures, and Jeff Zeitlin—same person, different persona from Your Humble Editor—has created a Tavrchedl’ career with an adventure seed that ties back to Timothy’s articles. That kind of thing is what, to me, makes a Theme Issue, and I hope to be able to repeat that kind of linkage in each Theme Issue.

It would be great if every issue could be a Theme Issue; it would make Freelance Traveller stand out among fanzines of all stripes. I think, however, that it would constrain authors too much, which would lead to a falloff in material produced and therefore printed. Instead, I’ll simply occasionally note planned Themes, or discuss a particular Theme and my concept of it, and encourage people to write for those Themes. When there’s enough material for a theme, perhaps with a small number of reprints of old articles that fit the theme, I’ll put out the Theme Issue. Hopefully, I’ll get one or two per year that way. I’ll give an overview of the current list in my half-page next issue.

If you have ideas for themes, by all means send me email suggesting them. Don’t worry about whether it’s on the list already; more mail means more interest, and if one theme appears to be of more interest than another, I’ll start ‘pushing’ for people to write for that theme.