TGIF and Free Fiction

As always, some good free genre items, fiction and audio fiction today. I'm amazed out how much is out there. Perhaps years from now, people will look back on the early 21st century as the golden ages of free fiction and podcasting.

More coolness later (either tonight or this weekend) with likely comics, gaming, QD presents, Lt. Bob's movie, and more.







Now Posted: Redstone Magazine #14 (July 2011)

"The Memory Gatherer" by Morgan Dempsey. Science Fiction.

"It’s much easier these days as the war dwindles, once-empty beaches now dumping grounds for the remains of destroyed AI, scattered circuits of green laced with gold, charred and battered and stinking of ruin."

"0wnz0red" by Cory Doctorow.

"Ten years in the Valley, and all Murray Swain had to show for it was a spare tire, a bald patch, and a life that was friendless and empty and maggoty-rotten."

@Ray Gun Revival: "Midgard" by M G Kizzia. Science Fiction.

"'Hell.' Jacobson switched off the scan system and that voice before it burned out completely. Sparks flew everywhere in the cockpit. 'I got old radar of the surface.' Jacobson talked to himself as pilots sometimes do. 'Life-scan shows benign plants, but no animals.'"

@Daily Science Fiction: "The Artwork of the Knid" by John Parke Davis.

"By the time I was twenty-five, I had grown used to the knid, seeing them standing alone at a bus stop, a small cleared out circle around them; watching them sitting by themselves in the park contemplating ants or trees or the paint peeling on a bench. The stooped, fragile little creatures had grown more prevalent in those days, but were still fairly rare, even in the larger cities."

@GigaNotoSaurus: "The Migratory Pattern of Dancers" by Katherine Sparrow.

"And now my eyes have changed. The cornea and pupil widen so that the white is barely visible. A mercy that the genetic modifications left me normal eyes for summer and winter, but when it changes, it is unsettling for everyone. My vision increases three-fold. It is the last sign that it is time. "

@Aurora Wolf: "The Melting of 92A" by Anne Patterson Friedman. Science Fiction.

"Throughout her stay on the icy world, she had seen no other life—no bugs, no shoots greening the bleak expanse. She knew of these in shadowed ways only, from frayed memories, from bedtime tales not wholly forgotten. And now, eyeing the spine of a curved white ridge, she wondered if Outpost 92A were not itself alive, a planet-sized armadillo curled into its sleeping self."

Now Posted: Crossed Genres #31 Heroes and Heroines
Life Line by Sandra M. Odell

“I talked to Deputy Delmore yesterday.” Ryan fussed with her hair, her hospital gown, seeking the reassurance of touch. “He said the guy has lawyered up even though he popped twice the legal limit on the Breathalyzer.”

Trapped Inside of Good by Adam King

"I got it from a shelter. Its name was Ajax, a female runt with sad eyes that Boom fell in love with and I had to feed. When I got back with the mutt, I tied it to a door and took Boom out, and we stopped a man from kidnapping a little girl from a mini mall just as he slid her drugged body into his van."

Kinetica by Rachel Bender

"My mistake was moving to a small town. It would’ve been easier to lose myself, become anonymous and faceless, in someplace like Chicago or St. Louis, but it seemed like there’d just be too many temptations in the city. All I’d have to do is walk past one mugging in a dark alley and I wouldn’t be able to help myself. The hero sickness would rear its ugly head again."

Yerushalom by S. Ali

"Amal narrowed her eyes, twisting the scopes on the battered binoculars to zoom in on the camp below. A young man was tearing the flat brown loaves into equal sections, passing them around the small circle of ragged refugees. Any remaining doubt vanished. The hardened protein cakes her people ate were more likely to break your teeth than tear in your hand, and they certainly never elicited smiles like the ones on the faces of the children eating below."

The Foolish Samurai by M. Shaw

"The samurai is asleep in a sewer drain, a very large and spacious sewer drain south of the industrial district. Tomorrow he is going to break into the evil wizard’s corporate HQ. Things have gotten desperate, almost as desperate as they were last time he broke into HQ. But that’s tomorrow."

Serial Fiction
@White Wolf: "Silent Knife" part 11 by David Nurenberg. Horror. Urban Fantasy.

"Andrei followed tentatively, but without protest, as Ariadne led him through the dimly lit hallways of the First National Bank of Boston, where even the soft press of their footsteps on the carpet sounded incriminating."

@L5R: "The Destroyer War part 17" by Shawn Carman. Fantasy.

"The village of Zokujin Mura was protected by the most unusual of defenses that Kakita Yosuga had ever seen: a massive wall of stone and earth that had been created by a supernaturally powerful earthquake high in the mountains."

@Escape Pod: Episode #299 "Plus or Minus" by James Patrick Kelly, read by Christiana Ellis. Science Fiction.

"Everything changed once Beep found out that Mariska’s mother was the famous Natalya Volochkova. Mariska’s life aboard the Shining Legend went immediately from bad to awful. Even before he singled her out, she had decided that there was no way she’d be spending the rest of her teen years crewing on an asteroid bucket. "

@Pseudopod: "Dearest Daughter" by Kate Marshall, read by Grammar Girl. Horror.

"When you call me to your room, we both know you’re going to die. Your bones are so frail I think they’ll crack under the weight of the thin cotton sheet; I think your skin will burn under the harsh lights of the hospital room. You push a shoebox toward me with a hand so withered the bones shine through."

Serial Audio
@Classic Tales Podcast: "The Mark of Zorro Part 1 of 9" by Johnston McCulley, Read by B. J. Harrison. Adventure.

"The incredibly pompous Sergeant Pedro Gonzales boasts up and down of what he will do if he ever meets with the masked highwayman known as Zorro. But when the tavern door opens and reveals a black masked stranger, Sergeant Gonzales must put his puffed up boasts to the test."

Fan Audio
@BrokenSea Audio: "Doctor Who – Season 4 – Episode 1 – Viracocha" Science Fiction.

@Pendant Audio: Issue 50 of "Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton" Superhero.

"Metallo is trapped inside his mind while Kara and Kal fight for their lives"

@Pendant Audio: Issue 78 of "Superman: The Last Son of Krypton" Superhero.

"Lois catches up with friends while Lobo makes a deal with Superman!"