Free Fiction In a Landslide! Pundits Baffled, but Pleased.

Today's a great day for free fiction. There are a couple new stories at Lightspeed, a short story by Bram Stoker and Nebula award winning author Nina Kiriki Hoffman at Strange Horizons, a new issue of Sorcerous Signals, and more great free written and flash fiction.  Don't miss the free audio fiction, including a Manly Wade Wellman story that was originally published in Weird Tales, and a new PodCastle miniature. There's a classic dramitization of a Ray Bradbury story and a couple interesting "other genres" items. There  a new free fiction listing at SF Signal  (please send poor Regan some coffee, caffeine deprivation is a serious mental health issue) And finally, some great free audio fiction news, Strange Horizons will begin  free fiction podcasts in 2013 (Huzzah!).

[Art for "As the Wheel Turns" at Lightspeed]

Fiction
At AE: "The Pack" by Matt Moore. Science Fiction. 
      "There is another complication. Each man was injected with a unique nanite model. Each man now hosts an identical hybrid model which appears to be the result of cross-contamination and replication."

At Daily Science Fiction: "Just Today" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
       "My best friend, Ben, is dead. We still hang. Not too many other people can see or hear him--just little kids and animals, and an occasional weirdo, so Ben is kind of stuck with me, which works for me"

At Lightspeed: "Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald. Science Fiction.
       "A slip, slide, falling through icy coldness, white noise like TV static. A breeze of hot buttery popcorn. Giddy laughter, sweaty bodies, fanfare music over the intercom, and what’s this? A ten-foot-wide movie poster of young, pale, undernourished Carrie Fisher, posed seductively in a gold metal bikini with a collar and chain around her neck."

At Lightspeed:  "As the Wheel Turns" by Aliette de Bodard. Fantasy.
       "In the Tenth Court of Hell stands the Wheel of Rebirth. Its spokes are of red lacquered wood; it creaks as demons pull it, dragging its load of souls back into the world. And before the Wheel stands the Lady."

At Strange Horizons: "Four Kinds of Cargo" by Leonard Richardson. Speculative Fiction.
       "The Captain had spent her childhood watching bad native-language dubs of those same epics, except the implication that all this stuff was fiction had been lost in translation. When she came of age, the Captain (probably not her birth name) had bought Sour Candy with Mommy's money, hired a crew, and declared herself a smuggler."

At Weird Fiction Review: "Xebico" by Stephen Graham Jones.
      "I had my Library Science degree in one hand, a beer constantly in the other. Officially, I was taking a post-graduation break before entering the rat race. Just catching my breath before putting my soul on the auction block, all that. Unofficially, two of the three professors I’d asked for recs were putting me off."

At Weird Fiction Review: "The Night Wire" by H.F. Arnold. 1926.
      "There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore – they’re your next-door neighbors after the street lights go dim and the world has gone to sleep."

Now Posted: the Nov '12 - Jan '13 Issue of Sorcerous Signals.

"Cycle of Justice" by Charles Kyffhausen.
"The unquiet spirit didn't know her effort to save her kinswoman would avenge her own death."
"Dead Girl's Sphinx" by Bernise Marie D. Carolino. Flash Fiction
"Dusting Pixie" by Margaret L Carter.
"Beware of accepting favors from magical creatures, even cute ones."
"To the Empty Castle of My Queen I Came" by W. Luke Hamel. Poetry.
"The Genetic Menagerie" by Mary E Lowd.
"Two cops chase down a rogue scientist, leading them to the fantastical world he's built with genetic engineering."
"Inner Mind's Pyramid" by M. K. A. Marble.
"When Gregor and his hired hands join Dr. Bloigh on an expedition to Giza to excavate an undiscovered pyramid, they find themselves confronted by an ancient Egyptian demon and a cursed sorceress."
"Spare Me" by Jerome Brooke.
"Osirus rules his world as Satrap of the Empire. He recoils in horror as his minions are loosed on the rebels who dare defy the power of the Imperium."
"They Called Me Red Hood" by Kelda Crich. Poetry.
"When Wizards Clashed" by Richard H Fay. Poetry.

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Hunter" by Ed Kratz. Fantasy.
• At Stange Horizons: "The Murder of Dionysos" by Florence Major. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "And Yet, It Moves" by Susan Nance Carhart. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
At Lightspeed: "Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald. Science Fiction.

At PodCastle: Miniature 73 "Sugar Skulls" by Samantha Henderson. Fantasy.
     "Yesterday was the first of November, the Día de los Angelitos, and Abuela and Ramon and the neighborhood kids made the altar for the children." 

At Protecting Project Pulp:  "The Golgotha Dancers” by Manly Wade Wellman. Weird.
     "Hung over my own fireplace, it looked as large and living as a scene glimpsed through a window or, perhaps, on a stage in a theater. The capering pink bodies caught new lights from my lamp, lights that glossed and intensified their shape and color but did not reveal any new details. I pored once more over the cryptic legend: I sold my soul that I might paint a living picture."

At Toasted Cake: "Biding Time" by Beth Cato. Speculative Fiction.
     "What is closure? How do you close a door if the house has burned to ashes?"

Old Time Radio
At Relic Radio: NBC Short Story "The Rocket" by Ray Bradbury. Science Fiction.

Other Genres

• Fiction at Author's Site:  "Updates" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Mystery. 2000.
• Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg: Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E.M. Berens. 1880.

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.