Freebies Part 1

 Part one of today's free fiction.  Another big catch up day (and never a big mustard day! *insert drum roll, groans, and boos here*). Some great stuff this post. Back later with more freebies links and some gratuitous insults aimed at my evil, but hard working, arch-enemy.

[art from "Europa Spring" linked below]




Fiction
• At Cosmos: "Europa Spring" by Elinor Caiman Sands. Science Fiction.
     "The Margarita Sushi Bar is expensive. I hook my prosthetic fins over the mooring bar as I wait and order beer; the green stuff is delivered in a sachet."

• At Electric Velocipede: "The Irish Astronaut" by Val Nolan.
    "By his second week in the village with the unpronounceable name, Dale had taken up with the old men fishing out beyond the rocks. The place was called the Blue Pool and people died there, he was told, freak waves being known to carry them away. Fierce tragic, as his new friends had it."

• At Lightspeed: "Water Finds Its Level"  by M. Bennardo. Science Fiction:
     "When people asked where I met Roger, I always told the truth. “We met in the Collision,” I’d say. Then they’d give me that look that people used to give you when you told them you met somebody online. The look that said you must be reckless or naive or desperate, and that no good would come of it."

• At Lightspeed: "The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue" by Holly Black. Fantasy.
     "There is a werewolf girl in the city. She sits by the phone on a Saturday night, waiting for it to ring. She paints her nails purple."

Flash Fiction

• At Beware the Hairy Mango: "Electric Spoon" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.  Audio.
• At Beware the Hairy Mango: "110 Degrees in the Shade" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.  Audio.
• At Beware the Hairy Mango: "Butterfly Lass" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.  Audio.
• At Beware the Hairy Mango: "It’s All Just Hearsmell" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.  Audio.
• At The Colored Lens: "Grandma’s Shoes" by Jamie Lackey.  Fantasy. Slipstream.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Forgiving Dead" by Jeff Stehman.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Crystal Balls" by Marian Brooks. Horror,.
• AT 365 Tomorrows: "Junk Planet" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.
• AT 365 Tomorrows: "A ‘Simon-Pure’ Tale" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.
• AT 365 Tomorrows: "Trash Man" by Mark Tremble. Science Fiction.
• AT 365 Tomorrows: "Big Bang Theory" by Dawn Napier. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "After the Earthquake" by Caroline M. Yoachim.

Audio Fiction
• At Clarkesworld: "(R + D) /I = M" by E. Catherine Tobler. Science Fiction.
     "Grapes grew differently on Mars and no one minded. This trespass was for science, ask anyone."

• At Classics on the Go: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Chapter 2" by Lewis Carroll. Children's Fantasy.
     "Alice is trapped in a little room and can't figure out how to get into the garden. What will she do?"

• At Cthulhu: "The Shadow over Innsmouth, part 1" by H. P. Lovecraft. Horror.
      "During the winter of 1927-28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting - under suitable precautions - of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor. "

• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "The Land That Time Forgot - Episode 1" Adventure. Dinosaurs.
     "It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that it happened—the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible that all that I have passed through—all those weird and terrifying experiences—should have been encompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with my own eyes in this brief interval of time—things that no other mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past"

• At Lightspeed: "The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue" by Holly Black. Fantasy.
     Described Above

• At LibriVox: "Seven H. P. Lovecraft Stories" Horror.
     "Each story is unique and strange in it's own way but all of them come from the same mind that gave us the Cult of Cthulhu and other wonderful tales that generations now have enjoyed for their strangeness that resonates with our own inner fears. Some of these stories explore the depths of the human mind others the depths of human degradation and creepiness"

• At LibriVox: "The Ghost Pirates" by William Hope Hodgson. Horror.
     "The Ghost Pirates is a powerful account of a doomed and haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-devils (of quasi-human aspect, and perhaps the spirits of bygone buccaneers) that besiege it"

• At LibriVox: "Futuria Fantasia, Spring 1940" Ed. by Ray Bradbury. Science Fiction.
     "A collection of short science fiction stories, edited by Ray Bradbury. Authors include Lyle Monroe, J. E. Kelleam, Hank Kuttner, J. H. Haggard, Ron Reynolds, Damon Knight, and Hannes V. Bok."  

Other Genres

• Audio at Crime City Central: "Thorolf and the Peacock" by Ellen Kuhfeld.
• Audio at Every Photo Tells: "Obscurities – Part 01" by Mick Bordet.
• Audio at Selected Shorts: "Family Values"