More Free Fantasy, SF, and Horror.

There's some very good free fiction today from some great sites, as well as flash fiction, and audio fiction.  All free, all great.  There's also  some good historical fiction, western fiction, and a suspense story.  After a long delay, QD Radio returns with the Dimension X adaptation of Heinlein's "Destination Moon."


  [Art for "The Memory Coder" linked below]
 
 


Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy.  

      "A loon called this morning, loud and clear in the cold hours before dawn, but it was not that which woke me from my sleep. As I opened my eyes, the bay and the beach were wrapped in heavy blackness, invisible clouds shutting out any hint of starlight above. For a moment, I lay in my lean-to, breathing heavily under the shaggy bison skin blanket."

• At Lightspeed:  "PauseTime" by Mary Soon Lee. Science Fiction. 

      Twenty minutes into the transatlantic flight, Connor started wailing. Pauline cradled him in her arms. Then she rocked him, she offered him her breast, she sang to him; Connor continued to cry. The man sitting on her right gave her a thin smile. “Did you forget the baby’s pauser code?”

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Blackbirds" by Norman Partridge
     "On an August morning in the summer of 1960, a man dressed in black shattered the kitchen window at the Peterson home."

• At Tor.com: "The Memory Coder" by Jessica Brody.
     "When a security breach is detected, the Memory Restoration Department is called upon to do what they do best: make you forget. But with every memory that’s taken out, a new one must be installed in its place. It’s a job that requires skill, artistry, discretion, and flawless proficiency in the language of memories. That’s why only the best programmers in the world are recruited to work for the department."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "I Heard You Got a Cat, I Heard You Named Him Charles" by M. Bennardo.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Coffee Pot" by Jez Patterson. 
• At Every Day Fiction: "Drawn to the Glow" by K.C. Ball. Fantasy.
• At Every Day Fiction: "The Old Man and the Safe" by Peter Wood. Science Fiction.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "An Honest Explanation" by Michael Pelosi. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Floribunda" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Monocle" by Alex Grover. . Science Fiction.
• At Yesteryear Fiction: "The Children of Passivity" by Ken Poyner. Fantasy.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #20" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "Bumberpuff and his crew are integrating into the Krakens, at least as best as they can. But can the Prawatt and the Sklorno get past years of confrontation to work together on the field?"

• At Lightspeed: "The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy. 
       Described Above

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Blackbirds" by Norman Partridge,
      Described above.

• At Protecting Project Pulp: “The Whistling Corpse” by G. G. Pendarves. Horror.
      First published in Weird Tales, July, 1937. "A gripping weird tale of the sea—of the thing that walked in the fog—and the terror that stalked on board an ocean liner."

• At SFFaudio: "The Inn" by Guy de Maupassant.
     "Then beneath them, in a tremendous hole, at the bottom of a terrific abyss, they perceived Loeche, where houses looked as grains of sand which had been thrown into that enormous crevice that is ended and closed by the Gemmi and which opens, down below, on the Rhone."

• At StarShipSofa: "The Mad Scientist’s Daughter" by Theodora Goss.
     "In London, we formed a club. It's very exclusive. There are only six members. Five of us live on the premises. Helen, who is married, lives in Bloomsbury, but she comes to have dinner with us twice a week. We need each other. None of us has sisters, except Mary and Diana in a way, so we take the place of sisters for each other. Who else could share or sympathize with our experiences?"

Other Genres

• Audio at LibriVox: "Wulf the Saxon" by G. A. Henty. Historical Fiction - Norman Conquest.
• Audio at Tales of Old: "The Emperor Defeats a Pidgeon" by Gary Girod. Historical Fiction - Ancient Rome.
• Fiction at The Western Online: "Bold as Brass" by J. R. Lindermuth. Western.
• Fiction at The Western Online: "Quick Tom" by Paul Miller. Western. 
• Flash Fiction at Spinetingler: "The Riverboat" by Stephen Ross. Suspense.