Mars, Astounding Stories, and Many More Freebies

A very good Sunday for free stuff today!


E-Fiction
Online at Project Gutenberg, "A Fine Fix" by R. C. Noll, illustrated by van Dongen. First published in Astounding Science Fiction March 1955.

"Generally speaking, human beings are fine uck-passers—but there's one circumstance under which they refuse to pass on responsibility. If the other fellow says "Your method won't solve the problem!"—then they get mad!"

Online HERE.



At Best SF Presents, "Bean There" by Jack Skillingstead, originally published in Asimov's April/May 2005.

"She snorted--but charmingly, not like a warthog or anything. "By my count you've already had a cappuccino and two Americanos. You ought to save some for the paying customers."

Online HERE.


The latest issue Apex Magazine is online with

SHORT FICTION: "On the Shadow Side of the Beast" by Ruth Nestvold.
"Perhaps I wouldn’t, but I try, and I Remember things. Almost everything since the Destruction. I’m not sure when I started Remembering, or when I realized that not everyone did. I wasn’t that old when the world died, but I know more than a lot of the older kids."

SHORT FICTION: "In Memory" by Eric James Stone.
"I’m soaring over the snow-tipped peaks, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my wings, when the call comes in from Andrew. It’s been three years, four months, seventeen days, five hours, forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds, simtime, since I last talked to him, so immediately I fork my consciousness and slow one of me down to realtime."

SHORT FICTION: "Starter House" by Jason Palmer.
Dale looked up through the ribbed Lucite dome of Asteroid Cintas II, his eyes lit from within by thoughts of a bright future. “I never imagined,” he said, “I’d own a purebred house.”

POPPED CULTURE: "This is Totally Going on the DVR" by Justin Stewart.
"When karaoke goes wrong."

CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK JUNKIE: "Book Burning" by Lavie Tidhar.

PERMUTED PRESS PRESENTS: "Edison’s Dead Men" by Ed Turner.
"Allow me the pleasure of beginning this story with its point: Thomas Edison is a being of pure and unimaginable evil. I loathe Thomas Alva Edison."


All online HERE [via SF Signal]



No Fear of the Future has part one of "Memory #30" by Jayme Lynn Blaschke.

“Did you feel that? I’ve never felt the palace suffer even the slightest instability before.” Djserka’s spines bristled nervously. “You don’t suppose this bears some relation to those creatures attempting to force their way into the palace?”

Online HERE. [via SF Signal]


And 365tomorrows has a flash SF story "Triton" by Patricia Stewart.

"A few hours after the Neptune Explorer achieved orbit around the solar system’s most distant planet, it detected very faint radio signals from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton."

Online HERE.


Audio
The latest LibriVox audio book, Thuvia Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Skippy, is available for download at The Internet Archive.

"This installment shifts focus from John Carter and Dejah Thoris, protagonists of the first three books in the series, to their son Carthoris, prince of Helium, and to Thuvia, princess of Ptarth, and follows Carthoris' efforts to win the heart of Thuvia, who will have nothing to do with him. When Thuvia is kidnapped Carthoris is presented with an opportunity -- throw in an airship battle, lost cities, savage creatures, and the fabulous phantom bowmen of Lothar, and you have thrills, chills, and high adventure of the best kind." - Manybooks.

In ogg and MP3 download HERE. (Fans of Mars fiction, I'm one, should be sure to check out Marooned: Science Fiction books on Mars)



The always cool Beam Me Up has "The Evangelist" by Colin Davies, read by Paul Cole. Also in this episode, the usual interesting mix of Science and SF news. Streaming and in MP3 download HERE.










And RevCast has another cool episode of "nerdliness and geek newsblasts" available for MP3 download HERE.




Video
At the Secret Cavern of Read Along Treasure, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Available for download in AVI format, this features the picture book images conveniently synced with audio from the cassette. For youngsters and nostalgic adults. Online HERE.

Other similarly treated read along books available there include Wonder Woman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, The Black Hole, Man Thing, Star Trek: Dinosaur Planet, The Last Starfighter, Karate Kid, Hulk, The Empire Strikes Back, Planet of the Apes, and a pair of Spiderman stories, all HERE.





Art
Crom! has a pair of cool and original Conan art pieces. Also there are links to the artists' Flikr pages. (Warning PG-13ish rated).


Online HERE.










And Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a small gallery/tribute of art by Golden Age artist Edd Cartier.


Online HERE.








Comics
The Horrors of it All concludes the quite good one-shot City of the Dead with a very odd and original story "Death Has Many Tongues" a two-page text story, and a second comic story "Curse of the Satania."




Online HERE.






Grantbridge Street & other misadventures has a very cool Tarot card reading from Alien Worlds #9.


Online HERE.





And Cool-Mo-Dee has a pair of Grimm's Ghost Stories, numbers 24 and 25. An interesting literary turn as #24 features a Melville inspired story and #25 has the ghost of Shakespeare.


#24 is HERE and #25 is HERE.