It Doesn't Take Six Senses to Appreciate These Great Free Stories

Plenty of good free fiction this morning, including two ongoing Edgar Rice Burroughs serials, the latest from Escape Pod and Pseudopod, a limited time streaming audio fiction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, the welcome return of weird year, and more.  And there's an even bigger post coming later today, so read or listen to all these as quickly as you can!





[Bizarre art from The Moon Men in fiction below]




Fiction
• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Black Bough" by Conor Powers-Smith. Science Fiction.
      "The room was dimly lit, and dominated by the bulky white tube of the scanner. It looked hungry, the proverbial gaping maw. That would make the narrow gurney projecting out into the room its tongue; projecting now, but soon to be sucked back into the monster's mouth."

• At Escape Pod: "Nutshell" by Jeffrey Wikstrom. Science Fiction.
       "Carpet ocean, stretching over miles; hills and valleys and ravines, all upholstered.  The green indoor-outdoor gives way to blue, as land gives way to sea, but the texture never changes.  When it rains, as it sometimes does, the drops pass through the carpet without making contact, as though they or it aren’t really there."

• At HiLobrow: "The Man with Six Senses - part 7" by Muriel Jaeger. Science Fiction. 1927.
     "I thought about him and his peculiarity and his affairs as little as I possibly could. I do not like oddities. And I could no longer conceal from myself that he was definitely an oddity. I even feared secretly that, as Hilda thought, he might be a momentous sort of oddity, though this I would never admit even to myself."

• At HiLobrow: "The Moon Men - Part 9" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Science Fiction. Adventure. 1925.
      "We passed days of mental anguish — hearing nothing, knowing nothing — and then one evening a single Kash Guard rode up to father’s house. Juana and I were there with mother. The fellow dismounted and knocked at the door — a most unusual courtesy from one of these."

Flash Fiction

• At 365 Tomorrows: "Testimony" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At Weirdyear: "A Missed Opportunity" by Alex Munkacsy. Weird Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Escape Pod: "Nutshell" by Jeffrey Wikstrom. Science Fiction.
       "Carpet ocean, stretching over miles; hills and valleys and ravines, all upholstered.  The green indoor-outdoor gives way to blue, as land gives way to sea, but the texture never changes.  When it rains, as it sometimes does, the drops pass through the carpet without making contact, as though they or it aren’t really there."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 4 - Out Of Time's Abyss"
     "Bradley has been captured by the eerie flying creatures. He discovers that the creatures can speak and reason and are named Wieroos. He is taken to a large island in the center of Caspak’s inland sea. His captor, Fosh-bal-soj, tells him he is to be taken before 'He Who Speaks for Luata.'"

• At Pseudopod: "The Easily Forgotten" by Philip M. Roberts. Horror.
       "You know how much money he’s invested in this whole state? Besides, I’ve seen him boot two people, one for stealing, and one for hitting someone else. Both went on their way with a black eye, probably a few other bruises. More embarrassing than painful I’d imagine."

• At WMG Publishing: "Geeks Bearing Gifts" by Kristine Grayson (AKA Kristine Kathryn Rusch). Paranormal Romance. Streaming only.
       "Bethanne Dupree runs a computer dating service and pretends she doesn’t need it too. She manages to separate her personal life from her business life until Ray Greco comes to the office of the dating service to make a video"

Other Genres

• Audio at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Call of the Wild - part 2 of 5" by Jack London. Adventure.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "David's Test" by Jesse Knifley. Mystery / Suspense.