Friday Freebies Part One

Some good freebies this morning as two of the regular great genre fiction sites (Buzzy Mag and Daily Science Fiction) are joined by a speculative fiction story from The New Yorker!  And there's great audio fiction at Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Tales to Terrify. If you're not familiar with all three of these, you have many great hours of catching up ahead of you.

More later today, including comics, e-books, and a very cool site.

Today's QD Radio is Nightfall's SF/Horror story "Hands Off" by John Graham. A dangerous chemical that triggers extreme aggression is accidental spilled.

[Art from "Shirley Temple Three" linked below]

Fiction
• At Buzzy Mag: "The Call Of The Golden Gate" by Daniel Powell. Horror.
      "There was a man–a scholar–who claimed to have identified the monstrous creature. His credentials to make such a claim were, by his own admission, questionable. Still . . . a significant part of me believes him. What are my alternatives? I saw the thing."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Death Before Dishonor" by Shannon Leight.
      "The siege lasted months, and those months were hard enough. Then the city fell and the conqueror marched in to claim the ashes, and Kere and I and every other living body were sold to Dogstown."

• At The New Yorker: "Shirley Temple Three" by Thomas Pierce. Speculative Fiction..
      "Tommy is driving in from Atlanta, where he works as the host of a popular show called “Back from Extinction.” On each episode they actually bring back long-dead, forgotten creatures—sabre-toothed tigers, dodo birds, and all the rest."

Flash Fiction

• At 365 Tomorrows: "Game Changer" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.
• At Weirdyear: "Will Hug For Food" by Crowerd Robinson. Weird.
  

Audio Fiction
• At Escape Pod: "Shutdown" by Corry L. Lee. Science Fiction.
      "The alarm blared over the forest’s metallic rustling, and my HUD’s red warning light glazed the view through my faceplate. Ten seconds until the defense scan hit my position. Ten seconds until any motion, any electrical signature would whip vines down from the iron-cored trees, wrapping me as surely as steel cables, pinning me while cutter-bugs took me apart."

• At Pseudopod: "What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night" by Michael Marshall Smith. Horror.
     “The first thing I was unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very very much. It is not the worst thing in the world but it is also not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very smaller I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up, because it was so dark. I would go to bed with my light on, the one light that turns round and round, on the drawers by the side of my bed."

• At Tales to Terrify: "The Heart Is a Determined Hunter" by Thomas Smith. Horror.
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Other Genres

• Audio at The Classic Tales Podcast: "The Thieves Who Couldn't Help Sneezing" by Thomas Hardy.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Air Above My Head" by Rachael Dunlop.