Great 'zines and Other Great Free Fictionj

Some more great free fiction from several great sites.  Be sure to check them all out.  And don't miss the SQ Mag links at SF Signal, posted by the legendary  John DeNardo.

[Art from the latest awesome issue of Clarkesworld]









Fiction
• At Anotherealm: "Bindlestiffs" by Donna M. Recktenwalt.
      "At the unexpected epithet I started and turned to stare at the man who had uttered it - not in his usual bantering way, but as an epithet of power. It wasn't like Karl to swear at all. He was, usually, one of the most serene, mellow of men."

• At GigaNotoSaurus: "Martyr’s Gem"  C.S.E. Cooney.
      “What they’ve lost in teeth, they’ve gained in wisdom,” she announced with some pomposity. “Besides, that’s what they have me for.” Her smile went wry at one corner, but was no less proud for that. “I chew their food, I change their cloths, and they tell me about the old days. Some of them had parents who were alive back then.”

• At Tor.com: "Jack of Coins" by Christopher Rowe.
     " a strange, amnesiac man who is befriended by a rebellious group of teenagers living in a repressive city."

• Now Posted: Clarkesworld #80

"Soulcatcher" by James Patrick Kelly.
      "After years of planning and scheming, of deals honest and not, of sleepless nights of rage and cool days of calculation, Klary’s moment arrives when xeni-Harvel Asher, the ambassador from the Four Worlds, enters her gallery."
"Tachy Psyche" by Andy Dudak.
     "The woman who means to kill Wang Zhe is, like the rest of the universe, apparently frozen, though actually in glacial motion."
"(R + D) /I = M"  by E. Catherine Tobler.
     "Grapes grew differently on Mars and no one minded. This trespass was for science, ask anyone."
"The Banquet of the Lords of Night" by Liz Williams.
      "He’s already late, and the Isle de Saint Luce is forbidden territory. Yet even in the midst of his terror, de Rais still thinks it’s a pity that he can’t pause and marvel, for the Isle is, by old decree of the Lords of Night, the only place in all Paris where light is permitted at this hour."
"From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled . . ."  by Michael Swanwick.
     "Imagine a cross between Byzantium and a termite mound. Imagine a jeweled mountain, slender as an icicle, rising out of the steam jungles and disappearing into the dazzling pearl-grey skies of Gehenna. Imagine that Gaudi—he of the Segrada Familia and other biomorphic architectural whimsies—had been commissioned by a nightmare race of giant black millipedes to recreate Barcelona at the height of its glory"

• Now Posted:  Interstellar Fiction #10. Science Fiction.

"The Tale of the White Tiger" by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt.
     "Blind Li Xiao surveyed the marketplace. The sensor net embedded in his storyteller’s robes fed signals directly to his brain. The citizenship transponders exactly matched the number of heat signatures. A world firmly loyal to the Empire, then. Or one too afraid to act otherwise."
"The Cadet" by S.P. Parish.
      "It smelled like body odor and paperwork in here. There was a window open, but all that did was blow in the humid ocean breeze. I avoided this place at all costs, but as a final year cadet, I had to come in. Every cadet had to meet with the General in their last year at the Combat Academy."
"Cuddly Furballs of Contentment" by Erik Peterson.
     "Merek’s family had been on the planet for six months when his daughter Kemmy heard something bleating under a cover bush as they were hiking back to camp from a surveying expedition."

Audio Fiction
• At Clarkesworld: "Soulcatcher" by James Patrick Kelly.  Science Fiction.
     Described Above

• At LibriVox: "King Arthur" by Joseph Comyns Carr. Fantasy.
     "A retelling of the classic legend of King Arthur, Guinevere & Sir Lancelot"

• At LibriVox: "Patchwork Girl of Oz version 2" by L. Frank Baum. Children's Fantasy.
     "The Patchwork Girl, a free spirit if ever there was one, is brought to life in this story and then sets out into the wonderful world of OZ to help her friend Ojo find the ingredients for a magic potion to save his Uncle."

• At LibriVox: "The Water Ghost and Others" by John Kendrick Bangs. Ghost Stories.
     "Eight ghost stories by a master story teller"

• At StarShipSofa: "Tethered" by David Mercurio Rivera.
      No Description

Other Genres

• Fiction at the Western Online: "The Valdez Event" by Johnny Gunn..
• Fiction at the Western Online: "Voices" by Ken Staley.