Subterranean, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tor and More

There's some great free fiction today. Beneath Ceaseless Skies has two new fantasy stories, a new SF story at Tor.com and a new issue of Subterranean Press Magazine, with four more great stories.  All these sites are fantastic, so don't even think about skipping one (We have ways of knowing). 


There are continuations of two serials, flash fiction, and more today. An interesting item in the "other genres" is the first issue of the classic mystery and short story magazine, The Strand. And more later.

[Art for Subterranean Press Magazine Winter 2013]




Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies:

"The Storms in Arisbat" by Therese Arkenberg. Fantasy

       "Semira made her way to him, unsteady as if on a rocking deck. He took her outstretched hand, and the point of contact became an anchor, and axis; something steady to work around. The fear didn’t abate, but its quality changed: from dread to dizzy panic to the icy clutch of despair. Semira thought of rushing winds, coming and abating, and of sudden downpours of rain. Of storms."

"Casualties" by Alec Austin. Fantasy.

       "For a frozen moment, I glanced between the murder-sharp blade of my athame and Bastien's stricken expression, trying to reconcile the two. Part of me wasn't sure why I hadn't slit his throat for everything he'd done and all the people he'd betrayed. Because he didn't do any of that, the rational part of me insisted. Trouble was, I remembered him stabbing Annie in the arm on the Day of Glass, and what Gretchen had become after he got to her in Gabbleford."

• At Paizo: "Thieves Vinegar - Chapter Two: The Hall of Lies" by Kevin Andrew Murphy. Fantasy. Pathfinder.
     "Newby analyzed the contents of Norret's flask, pronouncing it ninety-nine point nine percent pure will-o'-wisp essence, with the impurities mostly consisting of honeysuckle and grape. Norret nodded, and the three old men fell to talking amongst themselves."

• At Tor.com: "Am I Free to Go?" by Kathryn Cramer.

       "The line between utopia and dystopia...is, often, who you are. Or who your neighbors think you are."

• Now Posted: Subterranean Press Magazine Winter 2013.

"Surfacing" by Walter Jon Williams. Science Fiction.
      "There was an alien on the surface of the planet. A Kyklops had teleported into Overlook Station, and then flown down on the shuttle. Since, unlike humans, it could teleport without apparatus, presumably it took the shuttle just for the ride. The Kyklops wore a human body, controlled through an n-dimensional interface, and took its pleasures in the human fashion."

"The Boolean Gate" by Walter Jon Williams. Science Fiction.
     "The dining room in Guildford had yellow wallpaper with little figures on it, and a heavy mahogany sideboard, and vases with flowers that Sam, in his carelessness, was allowing to die. The window was open as a relief against the heavy August heat, but the lace curtains barely stirred."

"Hard Rain" by Steven R. Boyett.
      "Twelve miles outside of Agville they came across a silver miner half dead from the beating and the tarring he’d been given before the town ran him out on his splithoof rackribbed mule. The tar had cooked him to the bone in places and plugs of skin had festered where he had worried at patches"

 "Raptors" by Conrad Williams.
       "You were allowed to wear shorts if the weather was good. The management never turned the air conditioning on because they wanted the punters to overheat and buy more drinks. Dervla wore shorts that were more like broad belts."

Flash Fliction

• At Every Day Fiction: "Deprescience" by Mickey Hunt. Fantasy.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Toon" by Alun Williams. Horror.
• At Nature: "An Unintended Future" by Tristan Scott. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Bath" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Episode 10 - The Return of Tarzan. Adventure
      "Tarzan has been tricked by Lt. Gernois into accompanying a scouting party led by the suspected traitor, who has been seen in secret conversations with a mysterious Arab. Commanded to maintain a solo post in a valley in the mountains"

• At The Internet Archive: BBC's "The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov. [via SF Signal and The Verge] Science Fiction.
      "The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept devised by Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell. Using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone for anything smaller than a planet or an empire"

Other Genres

• Audio at SFFaudio: Two versions of  "Was It A Dream?" by Guy de Maupassant.
• Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Strand Magazine, Volume I, January to June 1891 by Various.
• Flash Fiction at Flash Fiction Friday: "F3, Cycle 108 [...] The Stories"