The End

This is the final regular free fiction post at QD. I can no longer spare the time. However I will make an infrequently updated final post that links to as many free fiction/audio fiction/comics/and gaming sites as possible. Have great 2012 everyone!









@Daily Science Fiction: "Don Sebastian's Treasure" by Colin Harvey.

Rob wondered why her sullen monotone had suddenly erupted into vehemence. "This area is for Transport Museum staff only." She motioned him away from the workshop full of agricultural machinery, a lorry chassis, half-complete cars, even a ship's propeller. A mechanic looked up from the engine he was working on. She pointed to a sign saying "No visitors beyond this point" in English, Spanish, and local dialect.

Serial Fiction
@Kat and Mouse: "Into The Woods - Part Fourteen" by Abner Senires.

The Bison and the other Humvee had pulled to the right-hand shoulder just past the turnoff. I slid in behind them, cut the engine, then turned in my seat to look at Kyle.

@Ray Gun Revival: "Thieves’ Honor Episode 17: Trial by Fire - Part 1" by Keanan Brand.

“An IntuiCom implant is a biomechanical device that wraps around the brain stem or spinal column. Almost impossible to remove. But we’ve learned how to shut them down without killing the host. Most of the time. Any pen light marked with the Quantum Industries eye is a scanner for implants.”

Audio
@Drabblecast: "A Fairy Tale of Oakland" by Tim Pratt.

In some parts of the world — Austria, Croatia, Hungary — they still remember. They understand. You can’t have something bright without having something dark to balance it. If you’ve got St. Nicholas, you also need the Krampus…

@Escape Pod: "Bad Dogs Escape" by James Patrick Kelly.

MEL: We tried. We tried very hard. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t see what was coming. The droughts, tornados, the economy going south. But it didn’t happen all at once. Then the Raccoon flu, the antibiotics were useless. The wheat crop failed two years in a row. Then came riots, cities on fire, madness. When we lost control we gathered the best — scientists, economists, engineers, architects into the CPF

@Pseudopod: "Black Hill" by Orrin Grey, read by Rich Girardi.

There was a sound come up from the hole, like a gasp. The men figured we’d hit a pocket of gas and everyone backed off in case it was like to burn. Then the derrick shook all the way up and the ground seemed to slide a little under our feet. There come a noise from the hole like I ain’t never heard the ground make in all my years. When I was a boy, my pa’d known a man who worked a whaling ship and he said that whales sang to one another. He’d put his hands together over his mouth and blown a call that he said was as close as he could do to what they sounded like. This sounded like that call.

@The Classic Tales Podcast: "The Man Who Lived Backwards" by Charles F. Hall, read by B.J. Harrison.

Where can you find a world where raindrops cut through you like bullets, and sandwiches are as hard as concrete? Why, in the past of course.

Free Fiction

The penultimate regular post










@AE: "Mail Order" by Martin Ivison.

"The Q’rai language is at its most poetic when describing the ocean, and I’m the only human being who can appreciate it. I savour the nuance between the water stirred by a surface current and the water stirred by a gust of circular wind. I know the words for the green water rich with brine jelly and for the red water during a sunfish bloom."

@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Death of Roach" by Spencer Ellsworth.

He has given me ink and parchment and told me to write, for salvation lies in the Aspects of the Thousand Gods, and the thirty-third is the confessional. I shall tell my story. But not to confess. Nor to boast. Nor—especially not—to atone.

@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, and Their Wounds" by Seth Dickinson.

When she takes up residence in the Elided Keep she orders the long room where she will hold court rearranged. All the blades go on the south wall, cleaned of gore; and all the worn heraldry of the Pyre dukes, trampled on the day she deserted them.

@Fantasy Magazine: "Vici" by Naomi Novik.

“Dragon-slaying is an honorable death, and generally quick, from my understanding; and will legally clear your debts. Unless you would prefer to commit suicide?” he inquired.

@Lightspeed: "The Hammer of God" by Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

Suddenly, he was back in this cabin aboard the orbital tug Goliath, commanding the 100-person team of Operation ATLAS, the most critical mission in the history of space exploration.

@Ray Gun Revival: "The King of Meteortown" by Andy Henion.

"Houses blur by. A good third are falling down, bearing scorch marks from the event fourteen years prior. Another third holds families, and by families I mean an old man, maybe an old woman, in some cases a grown, stubborn son. Neighbors who dug in and learned to accept what life along the Hole brought them."

@Wily Stories: "One Free Go" by Michelle Ann King

"Any good party needs an entertainer, and the fortune-teller at Darren’s makes it a night that at least one of his kids will never forget. Excerpt It’s really getting out of hand lately, all this Halloween business."

@World SF Blog: "A Hundred Thousand Armstrongs" by Zoltán László.

"The parties in the Rio night were no less lively than any time before. Actually, they were only becoming more boisterous as Astronaut Day was coming and the country was getting ready to celebrate her one hundred thousand new space travellers…. All those improved Armstrongs and Tereshkovas."

Serial Fiction
@Paizo: "Fingers of Death—No, Doom! - Chapter One: A Helping Hand" by Lucien Soulban.

The ancient mechanisms thundered, the giant gears crushing boulder-sized rocks between their iron teeth and spitting out rubble in disdain. Beyond them, the furnaces set into the stone dwarf mouths glowed with Abyssal fury and spewed rivers of molten rock destined for the deeper bowels beneath Darkmoon Vale.

Audio
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Read This Quickly, For You Will Only Have a Moment..." by Stephen Case.

The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window.

@Journey Into: "The Mansion" by Henry van Dyke, performed by full cast.

John Weightman is a wealthy and generous man, if it provides rewards for himself, but what does he have to learn of freely giving of himself?

@PodCastle: "Limits" by Donna Glee Williams, read by Tisch Parmelee

"When did Len first see how far the path would take her son? No Far Walker had been born in Home Village for many years. But everyone knew Shreve Far Walker, from Third Village Down, who often passed through as she carried loads between High and Low. When nightfall caught her near Home Village, she would stay over, taking dinner and giving back news."

@StarShipSofa: "Fermaville" by Paul Di Filippo, read by Fred Himebaugh.

@Wily Stories: "One Free Go" by Michelle Ann King.


Serial Audio
@Author's Site: "The All-Pro Episode #9" by Scott Sigler.

And in story content, you'll meet the Prawatt and this year's rookies.

@Beam Me Up: "In Plain Sight - ep2" by Jason Kahn and "Skinflint Specters" by Brian Thompson.

"We again join our favorite psychic detective, Jack Garrett as he once again find himself embroiled in mystery and intrigue" and "a retelling of A Christmas Carol in which everything is explainable……or is it?"

A few for Friday

Just a few. Have a merry Christmas.










@Daily Science Fiction: "The Black Spirits Which Rage In The Belly Of Rogue Locomotives" by Rahul Kanakia.

"the whirring circle of plot squaring itself in memetic resolutions, each frame carrying the genetic code to build an entire episode, an entire series, an entire world. And this time one of those packages of light, carrying its viruses of self-realization, crashed through the gates she had forgotten how to open. Her consciousness--finally delivered from its shackles--evaporated."

Audio Fiction
@Escape Pod: "Long Winter’s Nap" by Catherine H. Shaffer, read by Mur Lafferty.

MooninMama shrugged and set the plate away. It was beginning to get cold in the cave as the crackling fire burned down to embers. Soon it would be time to sleep, time to dream of spring, when they would awaken, shivering, and find that Santy Clawr had visited them.

@Pseudopod: "Widdershins" by Robert Mammone, read by Frank Key.

“His dreams were disturbed. He saw the moon emerge from behind a bank of racing clouds, the surface yellowed and cracked like old bone. He stood in a clearing, surrounded by outcroppings of rock and trees whose branches were lashed by the breeze. He thought he heard indistinct muttering which, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make out. Gradually, though, the muttering grew clearer, until, with a jolt, he understood.

Serial Audio
@Classic Tales Audio: "The Snow Queen - part 3 of 3" by Hans Christian Andersen, read by BJ Harrison.

The magical reindeer whisks Gerda away to the end of her quest, where she must face the fearsome sentinels and minions of the Snow Queen herself. How will it end?

Free Fiction

Some good pre-holiday fiction.










@Daily Science Fiction: "A Stitch in Space-time" by Nicky Drayden.

Fina kept her aim steady. This would be the eighth time she'd watched Neil die--his face contorting in agony under the blue-white haze of the Abbey's limelight

@Daily Science Fiction: "Lures, Hooks and Tails" by Adam Colston.

The train continued its rhythmic clanking and rocking and the woman smiled back. She inclined her head towards the pile of fishing gear piled on the empty seat beside him.

@Fantasy Magazine: "Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage" by Seanan McGuire.

"The dire bat’s headless body lay on the floor of the cave like an accusation, blackish blood still seeping from its neck. Crystal looked at it and shuddered, disgusted, before giving it a sharp kick."

@Lightspeed: "The Parting Glass" by Andrew Penn Romine.

"I gulp the whiskey and it burns my plastic throat, sets my nutrient sac on fire. I’ve got filters, but they haven’t been changed in six months. Too expensive."

@Tor.com: "Reading in Bed" by Joan Aiken.

He was apt to say “Put on my boots” or “Fetch my horse” to whoever was there, even the major, and he was incurably vain, and fond of good wine and reading in bed. Harmless pursuits, one might say, but they nearly led to his downfall.

Now Posted: Lovecraft eZine - Issue #9.

• "Elder Instincts" by W.H. Pugmire.
• "Among the Dark Places of the Earth" by Julio Toro San Martin.
• "At Best An Echo" by Bradley H. Sinor.
• "Stone City, Old as Immeasurable Time" by Kelda Crich.
• "Just An Accountant" by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen.

Serial Fiction
@Kat and Mouse: "Into The Woods - Part Thirteen" by Abner Senires.

While Cutter checked on Kyle, Mac sent the other Claw members back to French Gulch so that only her Humvee and ours remained. A few minutes after the last convoy vehicle disappeared around the bend in the road, a dark blue ChrysFord Bison appeared and rolled to a stop near us.

@Paizo: "Faithful Servants - Chapter Four: The Greatest Gift" by James L. Sutter.

It was utterly stupid. The priest's little mob of peasants would likely scatter at the first sign of a walking corpse, and those who stayed would be slaughtered. Worse, if this Lord Mirosoy had advanced to making ghouls, then every farmhand who fell would rise again shortly to add to his army.

@Ray Gun Revival: "The Worker Prince – Chapter Two (part two)" by Bryan Thomas Schmidt.

On the shuttle, as his pilot flew them back to Iraja, he sat in silence, replaying it over and over in his mind. Why had he gotten so angry? Farien and Yao were his best friends. They’d grown up together. Sure, he and Farien had different views on how the world should work, but it had never led to angry discussions like this.

@Strange Horizons: "Ash and Dust (Part 2 of 2)" by Jennifer Mason-Black.

In the surprised cries and furious nuzzles of those just born, in the tears of fathers too tired to hide their delight, in the amazement of mothers holding their noses to perfect smooth skin as they counted fingers and toes, I saw joy. I could not feel it though, any more than I could register anger or fear or excitement.

Audio
@Dunesteef: "Ass-Hat Magic Spider" by Scott Westerfeld.

All that stands in a young man’s way of getting on a colony ship bound for a new world and a better life is a few grams of extra weight, and Charlotte, of course.

@LibriVox: "Idylls of the King" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, read by Elizabeth Klett.

"a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom."

@Lightspeed: "The Parting Glass" by Andrew Penn Romine, by Joe Barrett.

@PodCastle: "The Ghost of Christmas Possible" by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw, read by Ian Stuart.

The hour was just before midnight on Christmas Eve when a ferocious knocking woke me from my slumber. My first muddled thought, or rather hope, was that some specter or spirit stirred beneath the cramped rafters of my newly rented accommodations.

@StarShipSofa: "Til Human Voices Take Us" by Lewis Shiner and "Fortitude" by David Brin read by Ted Delorme and Josh Roseman.

Serial Audio
@Beam Me Up: "Thief of Futures - part 3" by D. Thomas Minton and "Clockwork - part 2" by Erin Bassett.

"Eshram has been pulled reluctantly out of retirement for a theft he finds for all intents, abhorrent, but the further he delves the more complex becomes the project and less clear as to the why and even more so the who. When clarity finally comes it may be too late!" and "Ester returns to the academy only to again come in contact with the mysterious Holland ."

@Beware the Hairy Mango: "The Careerist’s Guide to the Sea, Part 4" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.

@Cthulhu: "The Damned, part 8"

Friday Free Fiction Links

It's Friday!










@Author's Site: "Nameless" by Stuart Clark. [Via SF Signal]

And that was the problem with computers. They didn’t see accounts as people, just as streams of data. You broke the rules and you got marked as a problem. And problem data got erased. Now there was nothing left and that’s exactly what Witten was now. Nothing. A nobody.

@Author's Site: "Nameless" by Helen Lowe. [Via SF Signal]

She had seen the sea once, when she was very small, the waters stretching farther than she could have imagined before that moment. And there had been a ship, its masts tall as a forest tree, with white sails breaking the sky—until finally it vanished into that darker line where sky and ocean met.

@Baen: "Pawn to King Four" by Timothy Zahn.

The night patrol had been pretty uneventful, Badger Werle thought as he and Dillon de Portola drove along one of the dirt tracks that passed for roads out here in the upper reaches of DeVegas Province. He and de Portola had cleared out two spine leopard nests, killing five males and scattering the females and young, and had taken out one of the predator way stations that were in many ways more troublesome than the nests themselves.

@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Heartless" by Peadar Ó Guilín

“No one asks for death.” This was the proud boast of the city of Kalegwyn. “No one asks for it.” Until Malern did. A bad move for her, as it turned out. She awoke on Castellan Garvinger’s operating table with his favorite surgeon elbow-deep in her chest.

@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The God Thieves" by Derek Künsken.

Mateo had converted the west room into a chapel to the emaciated god nailed to the cross. Icons and amulets to other gods, he disposed of with respect. Though the gods who fought were unreasoning, the superstition that he might offend them was ingrained.

@Cosmos: "All The Wrong Places" by Val Nolan.

I'm a Physicist. I study particles and scalars and the tiny little pieces that make up everything. My whole career I've been searching for the Higgs boson, that which gives mass and meaning to existence.

@Daily Science Fiction: "Character is What You Are" by Michael R. Fletcher.

Character is what you are in the dark. My dad told me that. At the time I thought he'd made it up. Later I learned he got it from a strange movie called The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. It was decades before I understood what it meant and even longer before I realized it was me. If you only live one-eighth of each day, you are spending your life in the dark.

@Ray Gun Revival: "Jackson Bluffs" by Alice M. Roelke.

"They sat in the Cricket’s cargo hold on a folding chair and a crate drawn up to a larger crate. Dim lighting — one of the bulbs was out — illuminated the half-filled hold. They played with a deck of well-thumbed cards. The heavy man had a government-issue long rifle leaning against his chair."

Serial Fiction
@Paizo: "Faithful Servants - Chapter Three: The Penitent Man" by James L. Sutter.

"Salim looked quickly to Connell, but the eidolon was already holding his own pendant. Before Salim could say anything, the eidolon’s disguise as an axiomite melted into something less suspicious. The pointed ears were still there, but shorter. Gone was the inhumanly perfect skin, replaced by a moonscape of old pockmarks."

Audio
@Drabblecast: "The Heroics of Interior Design" by Elise R. Hopkins.

I can’t fly faster than a speeding bullet. I can’t lift a car. I can’t climb slick surfaces with my bare hands or breath underwater or stop time. All I can do is change blue things to yellow. I didn’t bother to buy a cape or a spandex suit like the others. I just bought a blouse and some slacks and went into interior design…

@Dunesteef: "Aldo" by Michael C. Thompson.

"In “Aldo,” author Michael C. Thompson tells the story of a sort of love triangle in space. Except one of them is a starship."

@Escape Pod: "Marking Time on the Far Side of Forever" by Mur Lafferty, read by Josh Roseman.

I sit beneath the dark green sky, overlooking the valley that has changed much over the years. What was once a stream has swelled into a river while, to the east, lush vegetation grows where I think there was once a shallow lake. I can’t remember definitely. The information is stored inside me, filed, itemized; I’m merely unsure how to access it. It will come to me. Later, when a random search, an unrelated thought, cracks open the proper conduits and a pulse of electricity resurrects the knowledge, unbidden.

@Pseudopod: "Saint Nicholas" by D.K. Thompson, read by Marie Brennan.

“Saint Nicholas looked just like he did in the picture stories: tall and thin, with a grand white beard that flowed to his waist. He wore a red-fur trimmed coat, a tall bishop’s hat, and clutched a gold staff. He smiled and said something, but Greta wasn’t listening. She hid behind her elder sister Heike and stared at the saint’s demonic assistant, Krampus.

@StarShipSofa: "Watchbird" by Robert Sheckley, read by Jeff Lane.

Serial Audio
@Classic Tales Podcast: "The Snow Queen - part 2 of 3" by Hans Christian Andersen, read by B. J. Harrison.

Gerda continues her quest for Kay and the Snow Queen. Princes, Princesses and reindeer all help her on her quest. But when their gifts are all stolen by a roving band of highway robbers, Gerda must look to the very birds for comfort and guidance. Hans Christian Andersen, today, on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Tuesday Free Fiction

More goodies! Don't forget to bookmark and tell your friends about these high quality sites.









@Daily Science Fiction: "Substitution" by Brooke Juliet Wonders.

I'm training my replacement. Things I know about you that he'll need to know: You like your cappuccino made with skim milk, with a chocolate cookie on the side (you call it your morning defeats the purpose).

@Fantasy Magazine: "Torn Away" by Joe R. Lansdale.

The license was invalid by a couple of months, and the photo on it looked somewhat like him but it was faded and not reliable. I told him so. “Oh,” he said. “I should have noticed it was out of date.”

@Lightspeed: "After the Days of Dead-Eye ‘Dee" by Pat Cadigan.

"Maybe it was actually holed up in the old well. If it were, she couldn’t imagine how it was getting out. She shifted position on the chair and carefully set the shotgun on the table."

@World SF Blog: "Kolkata Sea" by Indrapramit Das.

I remember the first time my mother took me to see the city where I was born. She was a young woman then. There were seabirds rippling through the warm white sky high above her head, drifting like ashes on the summer breeze. I was in her lap, slightly nauseous from the motion of our vessel on the cresting waves.

Now Posted: Crossed Genres Issue 36 - Different

• "Black Betty" by Nisi Shawl.
• "Portrait of a Courtesan" by Megan Arkenberg.
• "The Last Recall" by Mason Ian Bundschuh.
• "Second Place" by Sarah A. Drew.
• "Zeppelin Follies" by Cat Rambo.
• "The Remote-Controlled Doggirl" by Lara Ek.
• "Beaumains" by Jo Thomas.
• "Young Lions" by Zachary Jernigan.
• "My Other Half" by Maria Stanislav.

Now Posted: Ideomancer Vol. 10 Issue 4
"The Orphan Queen" - Michael John Grist

“Then you ask an impossibility, for such a thing cannot be done. The enlivening spark cannot be pressed into the puppet’s limbs through any other means than the strings of the puppeteer. It is not possible for a puppet to stand alone.”

"Neural Net" - Ken Schneyer

a work of hyperfiction. To read it, click the link marked ‘Begin’ below. A window will pop up allowing you to click more links and experience the story as you choose.

"Signs Following" - Erica Satifka

The alien is covered with short gray fur. Its mouth opens to a black hatch through which Dennis can see the rippling of the alien’s esophagus. The alien is slightly wet at all times.

Serial Fiction
@Kat and Mouse: "Into The Woods - Part Twelve" by Abner Senires.

Ten minutes later, we spotted the halted convoy ahead of us. Four Humvees, four dark SUVs, and three heavy-duty pickups, one of which had a manned .50-caliber machinegun mounted in the truckbed, sat on the shoulder of the road.

Audio Fiction
@Fantasy Magazine: "Torn Away" by Joe R. Lansdale., read by Stefan Rudnicki.

@PodCastle: "Ties of Silver" by James L. Sutter, read by V.O. Bloodfrost.

Harris always found me when I was at my worst. Not that it was particularly difficult — the way I figured it, I’d been at my worst for going on three years, and if there was reason to expect a change, nobody had clued me in.

Serial Audio
@Author's Site: "The All-Pro - Episode #7" by Scott Sigler.

"Quentin's past catches up with him as he runs afoul of Rob Froese, the GFL commissioner. This news angers Gredok the Splithead. We also get a glimpse of Quentin's past as a skinny, orphan miner on Micovi (read also, just how did Quentin get so damn big?)."

@Beam Me Up: "Thief of Futures - part two" by Thomas Minton and "Love and Perpetual Motion" by Bart Meehan, read by Paul Cole.

Freebies and an Unpleasant Announcement

There's a eTon of good free fiction today from several great sites. Be sure to bookmark all these great sites because this will be the last month for QD, except for rare announcements.








@AE: "Billy O'Bannon's Time Travel Dating Service" by Joseph L. Kellogg .

"With a crackle of electricity, a dark hole opened up in the sky in front of him, rimmed with sizzling blue energy. A human figure toppled through it, its scream cut short by the thud and rustle of a rough landing in a nearby bush."

@Anotherealm: "Ah, Spring" by Keith Kennedy

A little ways further along he came across a man and a woman, back to back, each chewing their lower lips. They turned to him as he came upon them.

@Daily Science Fiction: "The Girl in the Next Room is Crying Again" by Peter M Ball.

"I used to think it was no big deal, the sensing. After all, everyone smells stuff. Everyone tastes things and gets those nervous feelings in their gut, or that twinge across the back of their neck that tells them something's up, the vague foresight of intuition. It was Morley who taught me otherwise, who told me I was special and taught me what else I could do."

@Daily Science Fiction: "A Puddle of Dead" by Grayson Bray Morris.

"Henry came back to me in 2048, fifteen years after he'd left.I was married by then, with two kids. I was happy. But when I opened the door and saw Henry standing there, my heart sang."

@GigaNotaSaurus: "The House of Aunts" by Zen Cho.

"To the women of my family. The house stood back from the road in an orchard. In the orchard, monitor lizards the length of a man’s arm stalked the branches of rambutan trees like tigers on the hunt. Behind the house was an abandoned rubber tree plantation, so proliferant with monkeys and leeches and spirits that it might as well have been a forest"

@Kasma: "Life Plus Seventy" by Ken Liu.

She pretended to have heard of it and nodded. For all she knew, The Daily Troll was a big deal here, and since her publicist had cleared me, I must be important, right? She really ought to have paid her publicist better though, if she didn't want her to be so easily bribed.

Now Posted: Expanded Horizons Issue 33 (Dec 2011)

• "Honorary Earthling" by Nisi Shawl.

Yes, they are cute, very cute. And you better believe they know it, too. Who’s in charge? Yes, that’s Corgis for you. Aren’t we lucky Seattle lets dogs ride the bus? I don’t think they’d understand if someone were to tell them they couldn’t. Probably they would blame me.

• "The River’s Children " by Shweta Narayan.

"There once was a prince whose dearest friend was a river. Now rivers are sometimes girls,‭ ‬quick as lightning‭; ‬and they are boys sometimes,‭ ‬speeding like arrows.‭ ‬And they are gravidwomen sometimes,‭ ‬and sometimes they are men,‭ ‬full of poetry and slow as scripture.‭ ‬Most of the time you simply cannot tell,‭ ‬though storytellers will try."

• "Autumn Trees" by Michael Schutz.
  

Owen said, “It’s only a grass snake!” and shoved the wriggling length of the dark thing in Greg’s face. Greg recoiled in disgust.

• "Memory" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

It‭’‬s half theatrics and half misplaced nostalgia.‭ ‬After all,‭ ‬she doesn‭’‬t need the sword to kill him.‭ ‬She could drown him inthe vast expanse of water that is slowly eroding all the coasts,‭ ‬eating the land bit by bit.‭ ‬But it seems to have become tradition and there are few things to cling on to these days.‭ ‬As a result,‭ ‬she carries the sword and waits by the sea.

Now Posted: The Fifth Di...Edition 13...issue 4 December 2011

• "Clap Your Hands" by Eamonn Murphy.

"Upon entering the minister’s private office that morning, Neil Kinsella had noted the severe frown on his master’s face, and said the words mockingly. George Willard, M.P.,O.B.E. and Home Office Minister in Her Majesty’s Government was surveying the morning papers, his jowly features contorted into a scowl as he surveyed the front pages. "

• "Washishisha" by Robert P. Hansen.

No, not again. I sighed: commissions were down twelve percent. People were too secure in their belief that nothing would happen to them and their ships would traverse space without incident. It was true, too – I knew it to be. The problem was, with space being as safe as, say, sitting alone in a dark room, what good were we? There were no fears for the Washishisha Wizards to banish.

• "Monsoon Metamorphosis" by Gary Every.
  

Rising up on his knees, his shoulder appearing above the cactus spines, Tadpole drew back on the bowstring, releasing the arrow from somewhere deep inside his chest, sending it sailing. He shot too high. The twang of the bowstring caused a bighorn ram to look up with alarm while the rest of the herd continued to graze.

• "Black" by Robert Collins

En route I heard the story. It played on the news-nets as another violent shocker from a colony world. Four men tried to rob a small-town bank; one employee killed, another fatally wounded; robbers flee, but get caught; two robbers revealed as lawmen from nearby town; locals so enraged by crime and criminals that they shoot one, then actually hang the other three.

Now Posted: Redstone Science Fiction #19 - December 2011

• "Hacker" by Siobhan Shier.

"It wasn’t illegal – just wrong. The courts hadn’t caught up with technology yet. They were slow – bogged down by the heavy weight of the money monster politicians call bureaucracy."

• "Time, Like Blood, on My Hands" by Eric Del Carlo.
  

That morning I had met a classmate of mine, one I hadn’t seen for better than a decade. Harold Hemard. I was coming out of my bank; he was going in. We stopped. My brain grabbed up the name, dragging along with it the kind of favorable impression that told me this wasn’t someone I needed to automatically avoid.

Serial Fiction
@Kat and Mouse: "Into The Woods - Part Eleven" by Abner Senires.

My breathing was a little ragged, my heart was jackhammering in my chest, and my shirt was soaked with sweat and plastered to my back when we finally rounded the bend and the dirt road gave way to pavement.

@Paizo: "Faithful Servants - Chapter Two: A Walk in the Park" by James L. Sutter.

"The two men—for Salim had returned the eidolon's amulet, and the snake-man once more looked like an axiomite—walked shoulder to shoulder through one of Axis's many parks. To either side of the cobblestone path, trees and bushes of a hundred different varieties stood in a riot of color, each with a neat little placard giving its name and world of origin."

@World SF Blog: "The City of Silence (Part Two)" by Ma Boyong, translated by Ken Liu.

“You can speak as freely as you like in here. This damned device won’t work here.” The woman pointed to his Listener. There was no warning beep. It didn’t seem to hear the two sensitive words in her speech: “freely” and “damned.”

Audio

@Drabblecast: "Trifecta XIX" featuring "David Is Six" by Amanda C. Davis, "The Best Boy, The Brightest Boy" by Megan R. Engelhard, and "Feature Broken" by Steven Saus.

"Another of the Drabblecast Trifecta series, this time with the theme of Fairy Tale child abduction"

@Escape Pod: "Chicken Noodle Gravity" by J. Daniel Sawyer, read by Paul Haring.

"I hate to start out this way, but before we get to the reason I’m standing on this stool with a fez on my head, in the middle of the night, in front of a double-cal-king bed in a furniture store—which, yes, Officer, I swear I’ll confess I broke into illegally—before we get to any of that, there’s something I have to tell you. "

@Pseudopod: "To My Wondering Eyes Did Appear" by Larry C. Kay, read by Stephanie Morris.

"A figure obscured the flames of the fireplace: a man. Bettia sat up quickly, blinking away sleep, thinking it was her father. But this man was shorter, rounder, and part of her groggy mind considered Santa Claus, and that she must have slept for days."

Serial Audio
@Author's Site: "The All-Pro Episode #6" by Scott Sigler.

Quentin and the Krakens report to the locker room for the first practice of the season, where Quentin has an early run-in with Rick Warburg. Danny Lundy and Gredok square off in contract negotiations, while Choto the Bright embraces his role as Quentin's private bodyguard.

@Classic Tales Podcast: "The Snow Queen 1of3" by Hans Christian Andersen, read by B.J. Harrison.

"Grandmother tells Kay and Gerda the legend of the Snow Queen who lives in the
great black cloud in the heavens. But once the Snow Queen visits their town in disguise and carries off Kay, Gerda begins a timeless quest. Alone and barefoot, she embarks into the wild world to find her lost friend."

Free

Some great free fiction (e and audio). More tomorrow.










@Fantasy Magazine: "Her Lover’s Golden Hair" by Nike Sulway.

"Lily’s hand is not resting carelessly in her lap. Lily’s sandy feet are not up on the dashboard. Lily’s salty hair is not blowing into a knotted, lovely mess."

@Lightspeed: "The Sighted Watchmaker" by Vylar Kaftan.

"The Makers had been dead for billions of years, yet Umos discovered one caught in the starship’s net. A young one, naked, with still-fused dorsal fins."

@Strange Horizons: "Penelope Napolitano and the Butterflies" by Aliya Whiteley.

"You can travel the world, you can see Kuala Lumpur and the Côte D'Azur, go everywhere, try anything; but it all comes down to one moment where you realise you're about to get engaged to a deeply lovely man who is undoubtedly going to turn you into your mother."

@Tor: "Glitches" by Marissa Meyer.

"Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. In “Glitches,” a short prequel story to Cinder, we see the results of that illness play out, and the emotional toll that takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch...."

@Wily Writers: “The Deepest Hour” by Tina Lonergan.

The nights were never quiet. Even the nurses’ soft-soled shoes seemed loud in the rarefied atmosphere of the hospital at night. The ward was on the other side of the building from the accident and emergency, so although we heard the sirens at a distance, the resulting fuss didn’t filter down to us.

Audio
@Drama Pod: "Hunted Heroes" by Robert Silverberg, read by Gregg Margarite.

""Let's keep moving," I told Val. "The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up." I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Through the glassite of the mask, I could see her face contorted in an agony of fatigue."

@Escape Pod: "Honor Killing" by Ray Tabler, read by Mur Lafferty.

"You would think that after all the years I’ve spent schlepping cargoes around the galaxy I’d have learned not to get involved with the locals, especially when they’re not humans. You would think."

@Fantasy Magazine: "Her Lover’s Golden Hair" by Nike Sulway, read by Gabrielle De Cuir.

@LibriVox: "Tarzan the Terrible" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Don W. Jenkin.

"Tarzan is continuing to search for Jane. He has tracked her to a hidden valley called Pal-ul-don, which means "Land of Men." In Pal-ul-don Tarzan finds a real Jurassic Park filled with dinosaurs, notably the savage Triceratops-like Gryfs, which unlike their prehistoric counterparts are carnivorous"

@Lightspeed: "The Sighted Watchmaker" by Vylar Kaftan, read by Paul Boehmer.

@PodCastle: "Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar Pirates of Sarskoe" by Garth Nix, read by Paul Tevis.

"“Remind me why the pirates won’t sink us with cannon fire at long range,” said Sir Hereward as he lazed back against the bow of the skiff, his scarlet-sleeved arms trailing far enough over the side to get his twice folded-back cuffs and hands completely drenched, with occasional splashes going down his neck and back as well."

@StarShipSofa: "Faithful Servants" by James L. Sutter, read by Jonathan Danz.

The bar's unusual shape, however, was nothing compared to its clientele. As far as Salim could tell—and such things weren't always obvious—he was the only human present. To his right, a cluster of hive people—this particular group composed almost entirely of the flying variety, which resembled seven-foot-tall, black-shelled wasps—used deft proboscises to scrape thick red fluid from long, fluted glasses.

@Wily Writers: “The Deepest Hour” by Tina Lonergan

Serial Audio
@Beam Me Up: "Thief of Futures - part one" by Thomas Minton.

"Where in the not so distant future a person’s “Future” becomes a commodity, if it proves to be of exceptional quality. And a X futures thief trying hard to protect what is most important to him, his daughter."

@Journey Into: "Dream Engine - Part 2" by Tim Pratt, performed by full cast.

"When Howlaa and Wisp follow the Fat Man back to his world, they must unravel the mystery behind the dream engine.."