Yolen, Rambo, Tidhar, and Other Great Free Fiction

 There's plenty of great free fiction this afternoon, with stories by prominent genre writers (Jane Yolen, Lavie Tidhar, Cat Rambo, etc.).  There are two free e-zines (Mirror Dance and Crime Factory), great audio fiction, and flash fiction!  More to come this weekend.



[Art from Mirror Dance, linked below]



 
Fiction
• At Anotherealm:  "Restorist" by William Huggins.
     "I was tending my forest when he leapt from his ship. I saw it falling and on fire. His leap was the bravest thing I have ever witnessed—he leapt from one certain death to another. Even with trees to break his fall he never should have survived."

• At Aurora Wolf: "The Amulet" by Heidi Wainer. Fantasy.
     "Jayla opened the latch and stepped into the dark cottage. She had lived in the witch’s house her entire life but this was the first time it felt eerie. The thought made her chuckle; being inside the witch’s house only felt scary after the death of the witch."

• At Buzzy Mag: "Threads of Pearl, Writhing" by Gwendolyn Clare.
     "They tell you it won’t hurt—that part is the lie. It does. But afterward, you won’t feel any pain at all. Ever again. They believe the lie because they can’t remember what “hurt” means."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Crabapple" by Lavie Tidhar.
       "Youssou dreamed that he was flying. There was no gravity in that place. Dimensions stretched and shifted. A ring in space, kilometers long, spinning. Only the center remained free of gravity."

• At Giganotosaurus: "Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift" by Cat Rambo and Ben Burgis.
       "They said the Marielitas were escoria – scum. The abuelitas muttered it to each other, and the young girls coming home from school clustered together like butterflies, looking thrilled and worried whenever the wind whistled at them. The newspapers said Miami was under siege, that Castro had loosed the worst from the Cuban prisons and madhouses."

• At Tor.com: "The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown" by Jane Yolen. Fantasy.
      "Why, they are quite barbaric,” the queen said to her prime minister, making small talk since she wasn’t actually certain where Zululand was. Somewhere in deepest, darkest Africa. That much at least she was certain. She would have to get out the atlas. Again. She had several of Albert’s old atlases, and the latest American one, a Swinton."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Annie" by Jehanne Jean-Charles.
      "We’d been married a year when Jacques took me to see the house he’d inherited. It wasn’t far from Paris, but no sooner had we left the highway than we found ourselves strangers in a strange land. Jacques couldn’t quite recall the way. He’d come only once, by train, and we passed through tiny villages whose denizens gave odd answers to our questions."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Remembrance is Something Like a House" by Will Ludwigsen.
     "Every day for three decades, the abandoned house strains against its galling anchors, hoping to pull free. It has waited thirty years for its pipes and pilings to finally decay so it can leave for Florida to find the Macek family."

• Now Posted: The Spring 2013 Issue of Mirror Dance. Fantasy.
        Fiction by Sarah L. Byrne, Chloe Ackerman, Sandi Leibowitz, C. E. Hyun, Brooke Wonders, and Cordelia Harrison. - Poetry by Helen Ogden, Anna Sykora, S. Brackett Robertson, and Shelly Bryant

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction:  "It All Started With a Kiss" by Robert J. Santa. Fantasy.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Starvation" by Turlough Delaney . Horror.
• At KasmaSF: "Three Roads to Jerusalem" by Anatoly Belilovsky
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Unwelcome" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Escape Pod: "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick. Science Fiction.
     "Martha kept her eyes forward, concentrated on walking. Jupiter to one shoulder, Daedalus’s plume to the other. Nothing to it. Just trudge, drag, trudge, drag. Piece of cake."

• At LibriVox: The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (2nd version). Science Fantasy.
     "In this third installment of the adventures of John Carter on Mars, our hero labors under sentence of death (for having returned from the land of the dead)"

• At Pseudopod: "The Trinket" by P.G. Bell. Horror.
     "They burned Gederus in the yard outside the barracks. Dawn had brought the first break in rain for ten days and the men, still cold and filthy from the construction work, cast anxious glances at the black weight of cloud that threatened to stamp out and drown the struggling flames. Those closest to the pyre stole a guilty pleasure from its warmth."

• At Tales to Terrify: Episode #60. Horror.
     "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class" by Nicole Cushing.
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      "The Kindness of Strangers" by Ray Banks.
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Other Genres

• Audio at American Radio Theater: "The Pawn Shop" by Kay Lutz. Humor.
• Audio at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Man Who Knew Too Much. (part 4 of 8) by G.K. Chesterton.
• Audio at Decoder Ring Theater: "Red Panda Adventures (91) - The Lab Rats" Noir. Superhero. Humor.
• Audio at Journey Into: "Lieutenant Hornblower: Court of Inquiry" by C.S. Forester" Adventure. OTR.
• Now Posted: Crime Factory Issue 12.