Midweek Free Fiction

Some cool classic SF, including part one of a serialized story by Mike Resnick, and a new story at Ray Gun Revival. All free. Likely, something more later

Today's illustration is from "Tillie" below. The art looks better than the story description sounds.






@Ray Gun Revival: "Mercurial Nights" by Gareth D Jones. Science Fiction.

"Lieutenant Robbins stood patiently on the barren surface of Mercury and concentrated on what he wanted to say. He had to be very literal for the non-corporeal Mercurials to grasp any concept that he vocalized."

Serial Fiction
@More Red Ink: "The 43 Antarean Dynasties, part 1 of 3" by Mike Resnick, from Asimov's Science Fiction, (Dec. 1997). [via SF Signal]

"A man, a woman, and a child emerge from the Temple of the Honored Sun. The woman holds a camera to her eye, capturing the same image from a dozen unimaginative angles. The child, his lip sparsely covered with hair that is supposed to imply maturity, never sees beyond the game he is playing on his pocket computer."

Classic SF
@Munseys and Gutenberg: "The Dark Goddess" by Richard S. Shaver, from Imagination (Feb. 1953). Science Fiction.

"Deep within her caverns the great mer-woman longed for death to end her loneliness. But then came a voyager from space—a man—also lonely...."

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "Success Story" by Robert Turner, from If (Jan. 1953). Science Fiction.

"What is to be will be. Our only refuge lies in that which might not have been."

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "Tillie" by Rog Phillips, from Amazing Stories (Dec. 1948). Science Fiction.

"She was just a blob of metal, but she had emotions like any woman. She, too, wanted ROMANCE, and wasn't coy about running after her 'guy'"

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "The Impossible Voyage Home" by F. L. Wallace, from Galaxy Science Fiction (Aug. 1954).

"The right question kept getting the wrong answer—but old Ethan and Amantha got the right answer by asking the wrong question!"

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "The Moralist" by Jack Taylor, Galaxy Science Fiction (June 1956). Science Fiction.

"Aye, 'tis a difficult thing to be a lady on a far world—but who needs them there?"

@Internet Archive: Complete issues of Amazing Stories. Volume 01 Number 07 (Oct. 1926), Volume 01 Number 08 (Nov. 1926), and Volume 01 Number 09 (Dec. 1926).

Classics by Verne, Wells, and other classic science fiction writers.

Reviewed Free SF
@BestScienceFictionStories: "Hindsight, In Neon" by Jamie Todd Rubin (2009)

"the story of a science fiction writer who is unhappy that he no longer has any readers."

@BestScienceFictionStories: "The Chameleon Man" by William P. McGivern (1943)

"science fiction short story. It is about a man with a peculiar condition that renders him nearly invisible."