Sunday, September 15, 2013

Celebrating the Births . . . Norman Spinrad, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Howard Waldrop, and Jane Lindskold.

Jane Lindskold (born Sept. 15, 1962)
     A Nebula Award Preliminary Nominee, Lindskold has written several noteworthy fantasy and science fiction stories, a few of which are freely available. Among her novels art those in The Firekeeper Saga. Her website is here.










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Fiction
At Baen: [via Free Speculative Fiction Online]
• "Queen's Gambit"
     "Coming out of a perfect double spiral flip high over the blue sands of the Indigo Salt Flats, Roger glanced over to see what Angelique thought of his performance. Gracefully poised on her own grav ski, dark hair whipping behind her in the wind, his wife and queen raised her hand in salute before executing the maneuver herself."

• "Promised Land"
     "Judith had been very young when the raiders took the ship, young, but not too young to remember. There had been explosions, the shrill scream of tearing metal, the insidious tugging of air leaking from a ruptured compartment before someone slapped on a patch."

• "Ruthless"
     "Judith herself was one of the few who treasured privacy and hadn’t chosen to reside in a larger apartment with two or more adults and any associated children. But then Judith was different from her fellow Sisters of Barbara in many ways, including her birthplace, level of education, and complete lack of the faith that—although modified—continued to be a dominant influence in the spiritual lives of her associates."

• "Two Types of Teeth"
     "But nice or not, the kzinti were a reality. Due to them, Jenni Anixter, who had studied medicine because there simply weren’t scholarships and grants for those who wanted to specialize in hypothetical alien biology, found herself in much demand."



Howard Waldrop (born September 15, 1946)
     A Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner, as well as a Hugo Award nominee, Waldrop is known for stories that "stories combine elements such as alternate history, American popular culture, the American South, old movies (and character actors), classical mythology, and rock 'n' roll music."  Just a couple oh hist stories are freely available.










Fiction
• At Strange Horizons: "Mary Margaret Road-Grader"
      "The usual crowd gathered before we could circle up our remuda. I saw Bob One-Eye and Nathan Big Gimp, the mechanics, come across from their circles. Already the cook fires were burning and women were skinning out the cattle that had been slaughtered early in the morning."

• At SciFiction: "The Ugly Chickens" Nebula and World Fantasy Award Winner. [via Wikipedia]
      "I spent last summer crawling through The Big Thicket with cameras and tape recorder, photographing and taping two of the last ivory-billed woodpeckers on the earth. You can see the films at your local Audubon Society showroom"



Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (born September 15, 1942) 
      A Bram Stoker Award winner for lifetime acievement, Yabro is a quite prolific, and quite ggo, author who has written fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Unfortunately, only one of her stories is freely available,  her website is here.








Fiction
• At Baen "Of War and Codes and Honor" with Gordon R. Dickson.
     "Four Katana-class Skimmers came slicing down out of the clouds in diamond formation at over twice the speed of sound, their very profiles lethal; bright sunlight glinted on their vanes and the red horse-head symbol of the Petit Harriers—not that any of them had ever seen a horse."




Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940)
        An important, and occasionaly controversial, "new wave" science fiction writer, Spinrad has been nominated for 3 Hugos, and 6 Nebulas. His web page is here.










Fiction
• At Baen: "Outward Bound" from Analog Science Fact & Fiction March 1964.
     "Captain Reed looked about the reception room. It was the one area of calculated ostentation on the ship. It was paneled in real knotty pine. A genuine wool carpet lined it from wall to wall. The captain sat behind a huge mahogany desk, on a genuine red leather covered chair. Three other such chairs were scattered about the room. A viewer was built into one wall."



• At Project Gutenberg: "Subjectivity" from Analog Science Fact & Fiction January 1964.
     "Boredom on a long, interstellar trip can be quite a problem ... but the entertainment technique the government dreamed up for this one was a leeetle too good...!"

Flash Fiction

2 comments:

David Scholes said...

Hi Dave
My "Soldier of the Brell" sci-fi novella will be available as a free download from Amazon for 5 days from 12.01am 17 September:
http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-of-the-Brell-ebook/dp/B00A1TR85

Dave Tackett said...

Thanks! Will link it!