Mars, E-Zines, and More

A good variety of free fiction and formats.


E-Fiction
At Tor.com: "The City Quiet as Death" Steven Utley and Michael Bishop.

"Not even thoughts of his own mortality, including premonitions of the incapacitating tremors that afflicted almost every male Gorrión in his años de oro, discomfited Don Horacio."


Online HERE.





At Planet Magazine: "Three Gold Pieces" by Brock L. Noel.

"Sir Lochlan Mayes’s breaths were coming hard as he bent over in the stifling heat scorching the city streets of Goldenshore."

Online HERE.



At Book View Cafe: "Thank God for the Road" by Nancy Jane Moore.

“Thousands of people? That’s crazy. There’s not that many cars anywhere.”

Online HERE.





The latest issue of Crossed Genres has new stories that contain elements of both the current genre, Urban, and Science Fiction and/or Fantasy.

"Neat Alyssum" by Phoebe Matthews.
Five or six times a year I do a horoscope reading for my friend, little Nicky. She phones me, frantic, and always says the same thing: “I’ve met this perfect man, honestly, Claire, and you’ve got to check our horoscopes and tell me how to keep him.”

"Deacon Carter’s Last Dime" by Nathan Crowder.
"Deacon Carter smiled like not a day had gone by and asked if he could use my yard to build his rocket ship"

"Our Lady of the Mantilla" by Jessica Reisman.
"A figure evanesced up from the magazine pages and slowly solidified into a woman. She wore an intricate lace mantilla, layers of skirt, vest, and long shawl. The skin of her face, hands, and feet was like indigo sheened with quicksilver."

"Mars-side" by C.B. Calsing.
"Dark. Everything was always dark. Red dust on the outside of the dome, a local decade’s worth of cigarette smoke from the inside. But now, well, no more cigarettes, sure enough. Some real nicotine fiends had even licked the tar stains off the dome walls on the edge of the city; nothing else in the dome had ever created smoke"

"Strictly Business" by Hereward Proops.
"Inspector Edmund Forrester sat before the expansive desk of the Chief Inspector. On the other side of the vast mahogany surface sat Chief Inspector Pardoe himself, an austere gentleman in his late fifties whose stern gaze rested firmly on the documents before him. Several minutes passed in silence before Forrester spoke, his patience beginning to run thin."

All, and an interview, online HERE.




EMG-Zine has its spider-themed June issue out featuring short fiction and poetry;

"Rapucinni's Weavers" by Sarah Cuypers.
"Diablo! May he choke on his own bobbins!" This and many other curses, some rather colourful, freely flowed from Guiliani's lips as he stormed into the bar."

"Brotherhood of the Spider" by Michael A. Kechula.
"Doctor, something terrible is happening. I think I'm turning into a bug."

And "Spiders" by Vonnie Winslow Crist.
"As I kneel beside the coreopsis, / my eyes snagged / by webs woven of light,"

And art, articles, an ongoing comic and more HERE.



Audio Fiction
At Well Told Tales: Episode 53 featuring "Eee" by Jonathan C. Gillespie, read by Eleiece Krawiec.

"The Earth's most specialized soldiers battle an alien enemy that has corrupted her oceans."

Streaming and in MP3 download HERE.




Art
At Golden Age Comic Book Stories: A cool gallery of art that illustrated stories by Otis Adelbert Kline, a writer who often wrote in the same vein as Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Some very cool art HERE.

For those interested in Kline's stories, Manybooks has The Outlaws of Mars in free e-book downloads HERE and PulpGen has "Man From the Moon" from Amazing Stories HERE (opens a PDF file).




Comics
At The Horrors of It All: Another cool double shot of horror with "Stay Away!" from Suspense #18 (May 1952) and "Roll Call" from Astonishing #19 (Nov. 1952).


Online HERE.






At Golden Age Comics: Jumbo Comics #151 featuring Sheena and The Hawk.



For download HERE.







Other Coolness
(Flash) At Flash Fiction Online: "Branwen’s Revenge" by Sarah Adams.
(Flash) At Flash Fiction Online: "Visions of Gingerbread" by Bruce Holland Rogers.
(Flash) At Flash Fiction Online: "At Both Ends" by K. C. Ball.
(Flash) At Flash Fiction Online: "Atypical Research" by Shelly Rae Rich.
(Flash) At Fifty-Two Stitches: "Murky Depths" by Brenton Tomlinson.
(OTR) At Boxcars711: Nightfall - "Blood Countess" (Show 1 of 2) 11-14-80
(Pulp) At A Twist of Noir: "Sidetracked" by David Price.
(Pulp) At A Twist of Noir: "Sweet Dreams" by Jake Hinkson.
(Pulp Flash) At Powder Burn Flash: "Wakizashi" by Laura Roberts.
(RPG - Chart) At Monsters and Manuals: "Hireling Backgrounds"
(Science) At Technology Review: "First Extra-Galactic Planet Spotted in Andromeda" [via Variety SF]
(Science) At NASA: "Baby Stars Finally Found in Jumbled Galactic Center"