Cat Rambo, Tobias Buckell, and Other Great Free Fiction.

Some great free fiction today, including a pair of eZines - Lovecraft eZine (great horror fiction in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft) and Schlock Magazine (a speculative fiction magazine linked for the first time here today). Also short stories from Tobias Buckell, Cat Rambo, and Eric J. Juneau. Some cool audio fiction and flash fiction round out today's links.

On a personal note, I am proud to announce that I have rejoined the award winning SF Signal as their free fiction linker, for want of a better term.

"Ha Ha! It must be remembered that Dave sent them links before and they won no awards. Then he takes a long term leave of absence and they start winning awards while he is away. Coincidence? I think not!!"









@Fantasy Magazine: "The Immortality Game" by Cat Rambo. [Also in audio form]

"Decades later the music was what really tipped Glen off. He heard a song on the radio, a brand new release, and remembered the day he’d first heard it, twenty years earlier."

@Subterranean Press: "Mirror, Mirror" by Tobias S. Buckell. YA.

"Can you see yourself in these glasses? They’re called mirrorshades. They’re antique; I found them via someone in Topeka at an estate sale. They’re not replicas, they’re actual mirrorshades. I think a cop wore them. Like thirty years ago."

@Lovecraft eZine: The June 2011 is now posted.

"The Case of the Galloway Eidolon" by Bruce Durham.

"Two had received severe chest wounds, their cotton shirts blood-soaked and torn from multiple swings of some bladed instrument. The third had suffered a more ghastly wound, a crushed cranium; the blow slicing bone and opening the forehead down to the mouth. His glazed eyes stared obscenely in opposite directions."

"The Call of the Dance" by William Meikle.

"Right from the get-go I knew there was something dodgy going on. When he showed me round the workshop he tried to explain the machinery to me. I ain’t got the schooling for stuff like that – there something about ether and emanations but it was all gobbledygook to me. I was just happy to get paid."

"Unearthly Awakening" by W.H. Pugmire.

"You have been excited by its legend – but it’s just a story for you, not something that dwells in haunted reality. I was mesmerized as you spoke of it, that day of yellow light, and so I could not resist going to look at it after we had our little meal."

"Dreams of Fire and Glass – part 2" by Neal Jansons.

"Almost submerged in the bathtub, lay a shape. It had a head, two arms and legs, but at that point the resemblance to humanity ended."

"Darius Roy’s Manic Grin" by Brian Barnett

"The walls were adequately padded. However the material appeared to be grimy from age and lack of care. Dr. Johansson made a mental note to bring up the issue with the health board. The facility was under poor management and he could stand by no longer to watch the patients suffer."

@Kasma SF: "Influx Capacitor" by Eric J. Juneau.

"A man with a receding hairline appeared at the foot of his bed, wearing a green-collared shirt and black pants. His arrival was accompanied by a loud whirring noise coming from a black box on his arm. The man had a bigger nose and a saggy face, but Martin knew he was looking at his future self."

The June issue of Schlock Magazine ["works of speculative fiction, exploring various subgenres through experimental fusions in style and format. Schlock’s contemporary themes take a playful and irreverent look at genre fiction, given individual flair by a regular rotation of writers and artists."] is now posted [via SF Signal] with:

• Fingertips by Colin Meldrum
• Tale from a Save Point by Nick Tramdack
• Juliette & Justine: Dance of the Mummies by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone
• #260: Dark Entomology by KC Wilder
• a summer haunting by David Massengill
• Jungle by Peter Farrugia and Teodor Reljic
• Pirate! by Rachel Agius
• Oneiros and I by Bettina Borg Cardona

@SFFaudio: "The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth, read by William Coon. [via SF Signal]

"The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. Its protagonist is John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia. He is revived in a dystopic future where the dysgenic breeding of humans has, in combination with intelligent people not having many children, overwhelmingly populated the world with morons."

@LibriVox: Metamorphosis or The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius.

"The story of the Metamorphosis, the tale of a man turned into a donkey that goes through many adventures to become a man again, inspired many other similar ones later on."

Serial Audio
@Beam Me Up: Episode #265 "Memory" part 2 by Michael Merriam.

"In the conclusion this week, Lucza Antreus finds out that what she want and what she has to do are not the same thing. We learn the real reason that her home planet and the rest of known space has spiraled into chaos and the sacrifices that will have to be made to arrest and reverse what has taken centuries to build up to."

@Author's Website: "The Starter" Episode #18 by Scott Sigler.

"Sunday Football on the UBS network brings you coverage of the Ionath Krakens' home opener against the Themala Dreadnaughts. It's Quentin on the field, while Chick McGee and Masarra the Observant bring you the action from the booth."

Fan Audio
@Misfits Audio Productions: "Green Lantern-Man Without Fear: It’s the Law."

"Sodam Yat says ‘Adieu’ to his loving parents on the planet Daxam while Sinestro gives Hal a few lessons in life on how to walk the straight and narrow path. Meanwhile, Lanterns gather on Oa as the Guardians hasten to make change!"

@Daily Science Fiction: "Sister" by Melissa Mead.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Balanced Breakfast" by Shawn El Naggar. Horror.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Cats and Dogs" by Henry Gribbin. Horror.
@365 tomorrows: "Last Supper" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "Countermeasures" by Jessica Thomas. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "First Flight" by Andrew Bale. Science Fiction.
@Weirdyear: "The Non-Story of Sarah Hough and I" by Jake Sweet.
@Weirdyear: "The New Landlord" by Andre Farant.
@Weirdyear: "Whatever the Price" by Alan Zhukovski.
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Mech-Maiden of Mesopotamia Part 5" by Nichole Beard. Fantasy.
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Mech-Maiden of Mesopotamia Part 4" by Nichole Beard. Fantasy.
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Mech-Maiden of Mesopotamia Part 3" by Nichole Beard. Fantasy.
@Eschatology: "Asher’s Ennui" by George Wilhite. Horror.
@The New Flesh: "The Whisperer" by Margie Hamilton. Horror.
@Quantum Muse: "The Tomato" DB Fuller.
@Brain Harvest: "Tincture of Regrets" by Kate Marshall. Speculative Fiction.

Four Free Magazines and Other Free Fantasy, SF, Horror, and RPG Items

Read 'till your eyes bleed, then listen to the cool free audio-fiction. There's another batch of cool freebies today. Two great SF magazines, including a story by the impressively prolific Cat Rambo, and many other good science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories. More good audio, including the 259th Beam Me Up and audio versions of Clarkesworld and Fantasy Magazine stories. Many flash fiction stories, two gaming 'zines, and more gaming items. Even more item than sentence fragments today.








Issue #56 of Clarkesworld is up with:

"Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know" by Cat Rambo.
"He hesitates, staring at me as though he were hungry, as though I were reminding him of someone. 'Any other odd... episodes?'"

"The Architect of Heaven" by Jason K. Chapman.
"She smiles and tells him of the new star in Terranova's sky. It's the rich blue color of a chipchip's egg—a bright dot pointing back toward Earth."

As well as non-fiction and audio fiction.


Issue #8 of Redstone Science Fiction is up with:
"Party, with Echoes" by Patty Jansen.
"He fins past the sub’s flank in languid strokes. Yeah, he has done this before. Some of the tension inside her dissipates."

"Zeno’s Arrow" by R.L. Ferguson.
"Groggy from the hibernation chamber, shivering as the infrared heaters bathed my skin, Andrea spoke to me about communications lasers, data decay, and crew suicides."

"Ask Not" by Bonnie McDaniel.
“Come on in.” I pointed to the couch. “I don’t have much use for salespeople, and you’ve interrupted my canning. You have five minutes.”

As well as upcoming non-fiction.

@Fantasy Magazine: "Solo Piano" by Genevieve Valentine, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.
"The windows go first, from enemy fire and bad frosts. Then the moss and ivy move in, and the birds, and the rain. At last, the brick begins to crumble. By the time the Circus comes, it will be a ruin."

@Kasma ScienceFiction: "To Be the Queen" by Shelly Li.
"She sprawls her wings across the milky white netting, her body stretched across two poles, brown and spindly and rooted into the asphalt ground. A thin curtain of wax covers her face."

@Philippine Genre Stories: "The Departure" by Marianne Villanueva. Horror.
"That morning, when they awoke, Julietta had a bad feeling. Nothing she could put a figure on, just a feeling."

@Mind Flights: "The Parachute" by Shelly Li. SF.
"Rain falls gently around me, shading a second layer of grey over the world. Perhaps in a place like this, it is better that not a ray of sunshine penetrates the tight blanket of smog. Better that God cannot see what is happening here, what I am doing. "

@Smashwords: "Ablaze" by Harsh Thakar. Dark. [via Dark Valentine].
"A story loosely based on the story of Rumplestiltskin. This book tells a story of a young woman Mia as she encounters a will-o-wisp who wishes to take her child. "

@Smashwords: "Cold Stairs" by Mark Petersen. Ghost. [via Dark Valentine].
"Winner of an Honorable Mention Virginia Tech Literary Award, this story takes place in Eastern Kentucky and is based on what might have been a true ghost story."

Two free e-books (links and details at SF Signal).

• Zendegi by Greg Egan
• Code of the Lifemaker by James P. Hogan

Classic SF
@Project Gutenberg: The Secret of the Ninth Planet by Donald A. Wolheim (1959).
"On the morning that the theft of the solar system's sunlight began, Burl Denning woke up in his sleeping bag in the Andes, feeling again the exhilaration of the keen, rarefied, mountain air. He glanced at the still sleeping forms of his father and the other members of the Denning expedition, and sat up, enjoying the first rays of the early morning."


Serial Fiction
@Ray Gun Revival: "The Princess – part one" by Robert Mance.
@Kat and Mouse: "Payback - Part Seven" by Abner Senires.







@Beam Me Up: Episode #259, with "Heretics Son" by T. Joseph Dunham and "With Stealth and Grace" by Mikal Trimm.
"Two new authors this week! Mikal Trimm and T. Joseph Dunham. Mr. Trimm’s story is a powerful short story of a hunter and its prey."

@Clarkesworld: "Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know" by Cat Rambo, read by Kate Baker.

@Fantasy Magazine: "Solo Piano" by Genevieve Valentine, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

@PodCastle: Miniature #62 "The Transfiguration of Maria Luisa Ortega" by E. Lily Yu, read by Julia Rios.
"The first time María Luisa Ortega cursed, after stabbing herself with a pair of steel tweezers, she turned into a sea urchin."

@Lovecraft eZine: Two more classic Lovecraft audios, "The Lurking Fear" and "The Haunter of the Dark."
"There was thunder in the air on the night I went to the deserted mansion atop Tempest Mountain to find the lurking fear."

@Misfits Audio: "Stranger Stories - This Guy Walks Into a Bar" by Mike Murphy, performed by a full cast.
"A confused man walks into a bar. How, he wonders, can what he sees be true?"

Serial Audio
@The author's site: "The Starter - Episode 12" by Scott Sigler.
"Today's episode finds Quentin suffering through practice with the offensive line, sacked over and over in his red "no touch" jersey."

@Decoder Ring Theater: The Red Panda - Episode 71 "All The King's Men"
"For years now, the country has been haunted by an enemy as elusive as any ghost. The head of a network working to weaken our war effort and prepared to devestate our defences at a stroke when the opportunity presents itself for their Nazi masters to strike."

@Triplanetary: Classic Superman action in "Atom Man in Metropolis" 1-4.
"Superman lies near death, struck down by the deadly radioactive blasts of the Atom Man"








@Daily Science Fiction: "Necessities" by Nathaniel Matthews Lee.
@Flashes in the Dark: "The Cold of the Open Sky" by Lori Titus.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Operators Standing By" By Kristina R. Mosley.
@365 tomorrows: "Birthday Suit" by Ryan Swiers.
@365 tomorrows: "Death Dance" by John Eric Vona.
@Weirdyear: "Without a Utility Belt" by Gayle Francis Moffet.
@Eschatology: "Summit" by Erika Wilson.
@Quantum Muse: "Alone Beside a Methane Sea" by Roi Czechvala.
@AntipodeanSF:

• "This Alien Landscape" by Chris Large.
• "7 Bullets" by Jules Carey.
• "Nanobrains" by Kevin J. Phyland.
• "Moving House" by Antoinette Rydyr.
• "Over Too Soon" by Nicholas J Carter.
• "Somewhere" by Shaun A Saunders.
• "How Technology Threatened My Manhood" by Tod McCoy.
• "Night Falls At The Dream Markets" by Elizabeth Carroll.
• "Old Tidings" by JC Mangold
• "The Genetic Time Traveller" by David Gray.

@DriveThruRPG: Pathways #3, from Rite Publishing.
featuring "a collection of Pathfinder haunts and templates, Ogres, Wolves, and more combining monstrosities, feats and domains, all of it bundled together with a interview with Brandon Hodge"






@DriveThruRPG: Game Geek Issue # 17, from Avalon Game Company.
Free 55 page PDF featuring "all sorts of gaming goodness."








@A Field Guide to Doomsday: [Monster] "Xottle ('Swamp Gobbler')" - Mutant Future.
@ Zalchis: [Monster] "Zaldrim"
@Big Ball of No Fun: [Monsters] "Yamabiko" and "Ziz"
@Sea of Stars: [Magic Item] "Zelus’ Ring"
@The Savage After World: [New Character Race] "Geologian" - Mutant Future.
@A Character For Every Game: [New Class] "Elven Warder Class"
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Deity] Enuli.
@Trollish Delver: [New Monster] "Hexwood Crawler" - Tunnels and Trolls.
@The Land of NOD: [Superhero] "May Day" - Mystery Men.
@Kobold Quarterly: [New Monster] "Slaying Dolls"
@Kobold Quarterly: Valkyrie Names
@DriveThruRPG: "Kingdoms of Legend: Treasure Fleet of Zheng He"
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Items] "Harness of Enlarging" and "Helm of the Dwarf Kings"

Free Anne McCaffrey Fiction, Audio Fiction, Suspense, Comics, and More.

Some very cool fiction today, including a new SF short story by SF/Fantasy legend Anne McCaffrey, A new Cat Rambo story as well as other great fiction and audio fiction. Also some cool comics, and the irregular Suspense/Noir section has some good stuff.

Congratulations to The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine for reaching its 100th episode!

Today's illustration comes from "The Skin-Rippers" in the comics section. I've loved giant ants ever since I first watched the classic Sci-Fi film Them!.







@Lightspeed Magazine: "Velvet Fields" by Anne McCaffrey.
"Of course we moved into the cities of the planet we now know we must call Zobranoirundisi when Worlds Federated finally permitted a colony there." Online and in MP3 download.

@Daily Science Fiction: "Pippa's Smiles" by Cat Rambo.
"Marcus hadn't thought marriage would be like this after three months. He had expected to love Pippa, but he hadn't thought she would love him so much, that she would follow him from counter to till in his tiny shop where he sold souvenirs and curiosities: stuffed mermaids, filagree jars, and great shark jaws set with more teeth than a carved comb."

@The author's site: "Say Hello to My Little Friend" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
"A handsome man walks into a bar…and can’t pick up women. Sounds like a joke. Or a bar bet. Or maybe, just maybe, a bit of magic follows him everywhere. A short, somewhat malicious bit of magic, with a fondness for Piña Coladas . . . A fantasy short story." Online until next Monday.

@Wizards of the Coast: "Poetry and the Sound of Falling Rain" by Ken Scholes.
"The cemetery on the outskirts of Carthys was layered in mist burned silver by the risen moon. Near the eastern gate, a lantern bobbed, and mumbled curses drifted across row upon row of gravestones."

Classic YA Horror
@Project Gutenberg: Uncanny Tales by Mary Louisa Molesworth (1896).
A collection of not especially scary ghost stories for younger readers.

Flash Fiction
@Flashes in the Dark: "Top of the Food Chain" by Peter McMillan.
@365 tomorrows: "Command Decisions" by Patricia Stewart.







@The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine: "The Battle Of Leila The Dog" by Rick Kennett.
"Cy De Gerch is being pestered by the sound of a whining dog…only dogs aren’t allowed on the bridge of a fighting space vessel in a war zone. What is going on?"


@PodCastle: Episode #154 "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Under the Still Waters" by N.K. Jemisin, read by Laurice White.
"Tookie sat on the porch of his shotgun house, watching the rain fall sideways. A lizard strolled by on the worn dirt-strip that passed for a sidewalk, easy as you please, as if there wasn’t an inch of water already collected around its paws. It noticed him and stopped."


@Lovecraft eZine: Two more classic Lovecraft audios.
"The Music of Erich Zann" "But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann…" and "The Rats in the Walls" "The place had not been inhabited since the reign of James the First, when a tragedy of intensely hideous, though largely unexplained, nature had struck down the master, five of his children, and several servants…"


Serial Audio
@The Drama Pod: Journey to the Center of the Earth Part Ten by The Drama Pod.







@The Horrors of It All: "The Skeleton / The Skin-Rippers" even gorier than usual horror.
@Digital Comics Museum: Unseen #6 (Sept. 1952) horror.
@Ditko Comics: "Inside The Crystal Globe" from Tales of the Mysterious Traveller #11 (1959).
@Four-Color Shadows: A humor comic featuring "The Space Bums"
@Savage Tales: Dagar the Invisible #17 - Sword and Sorcery.
@Secret Sanctum of Captain Video: Captain Video in "Dark Side of the Moon" two parts, Part One and Part Two and an adaptation of "The Time Machine" unknown # of parts Part One and Part Two. Sci-Fi.


Suspense / Noir
Pulp Noir @Online Pulps! "Coffin Customer" by H. Q. Masur from Ten Detective Aces (Nov. 1940)
"Detective Ed Travis had to cash in on bargain booty to keep his client from becoming a . . . . Coffin Customer" This and other Ten Detective Aces Stories Here.




Classic Audio @the Internet Archive: Running from 1942 through 1962, Suspense was one of radio's most successful anthologies. During the early years, this program featured traditional suspense stories almost exclusively, but by the last few years, there were as many horror, dark fantasy, and even science fiction episodes as anything else. Truly there is something for nearly everyone in the aproximately 900 available episodes. So many episodes that it takes ten pages to list them at the Internet Archive.

Page One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten.


Fiction @Spinetingler: "Blessing the Bounty" by D.A. Davenport.
"For Leona, five years of daily fear had driven the youth from her heart. By the time she was twenty she felt as worn down as the Tennessee mountains that had bred her"

Audio Fiction @Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Episode #20 "Famous Last Words," by Doug Allyn, read by Steve Steinbock.
from the November 2009 EQMM

Audio Fiction @CrimeWAV: Mark Coggins' The Immortal Game is now up to Episode Ten. previous episodes here.


Other Coolness
@Golden Age Comic Book Stories: [Art] Reed Crandall illustrations for Tarzan and John Carter of Mars Here and Here.

@My Star Trek Scrapbook: Scanned articles on Star Trek models from The Monster Times #2.

Fiction Magazines, H. G. Wells, Comics, and More

A ton of free reading today. Three magazines have their latest issues online, Beneath Ceaseless Skies (a long time favorite) and two I haven't linked to before. Schrodinger's Mouse "Tomorrow's best science fiction today" and LingerFiction, which publishes "stories within the confines of fantasy, science-fiction and horror." Both new magazines were found via Kristine Ong Muslim's website. Also chapter one of a new Erik Mona story, classic genre fiction, flash fiction, and a boatload of comics. Today's illustration is for "Batmen of Luna" in the comics Section below.







Beneath Ceaseless Skies has its 67th issue online with:
"Memories of Her" by Greg Linklater.
"My hand is seamed with quartz and gravel. It used to have folds of skin a witch could trace. No fingernails now, only the squares I scratched with a rusty blade for some reason I’ve long since forgotten."


"Dancing the Warrior" Part 3 by Marie Brennan.
"Kerestel decided quickly enough that he wouldn’t tell anybody—but he didn’t have to. Silverfires were trained to notice things, after all. Marwen spotted it the next morning, and before breakfast was over the uproar had begun."

And audio fiction "Love, Resurrected" by Cat Rambo from Issue #65.
"Three years after her death, she still labored in his service."


Schrodinger's Mouse has its Spring 2011 issue online with fiction and poetry.
"In Service of a Greater Cause" by Alex Shvartsman.
"Her head held high and her hand squeezing a small silver cross pendant, Susan Pennell walked into the den of evil."

"SnapBack" by John F. D. Taff.
"Personnel Report: Two agents present situations where input is necessary. Possible termination of grid access and extraction of agents may be necessary. Highlights below. Detailed report will be filed per Protocol 7 indices."

"Jane's Head" by Vincent Scarsella.
"Dearest Jane, I have your head. It's frozen, of course, preserved the past three years in a stainless steel box filled with liquid nitrogen"

"Almost Nighttime" by Kristine Ong Muslim.
"Like the loneliest kettle in the world, / it totters on creaky joints and pours"

"Inner Circles" by Pat Tompkins.
"a moon to planet / as Io to Jupiter"


The April issue of LingerFiction is online with:


"The Hiders" by Heather Fowler.
"We hid because it lowered our chances for selection. All knew of the agreement accepted with the Kharal years ago, and, at each interval, on the appointed day, until the act had been completed so that we might recommence our regular activities"

"The Tare in the Garden" by George W. Latimer, Jr.
"Evan scanned the surroundings. No other weeds had sprung up. It was not a stray from the wild flowers in the naturalized sections of the garden. It was unlike anything he had ever seen."

"Snow in July" by Rick McQuiston.
"There were far stranger things that took precedence in his weary mind. Like the fact that even though the power was not out, the air conditioning still would not work, as well as his ceiling fan, desk fan, and even his refrigerator. "

"Othertongues" by Elizabeth Barrette.
"In the breathless dark between stars, / there is no air to carry sound."

"A Universe Inside You" by Marina Lee Sable.
"You awake one morning / to find your sight turned inward,"


Serial Fiction:
@Paizo.com: "Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver" Chapter One by Erik Mona.
"According to the navigator, the Queen's Lament had been less than a week from Quantium when the winds died, and the long voyage from distant Vudra had left them but a few days of provisions when the sails went slack and the ship fell still."

Classic SF/Fantasy:
@Hairy Green Eyeball 3: "Armageddon - 2419 A.D." by Philip Francis Nowlan, from Amazing Stories (Aug. 1928). - The first Buck Rogers story in JPG Scans.
"They had all they needed for their magnificently luxurious and degraded scheme of civilization within the walls of the fifteen cities of sparkling glass they had flung skyward on the sites of ancient American centers, into the bowels oh the earth underneath them, and with relatively small surrounding areas of agriculture."

@Project Gutenberg: The Sea Lady by H. G. Wells (1902). Mermaid fantasy/social satire.
"Such previous landings of mermaids as have left a record, have all a flavour of doubt. Even the very circumstantial account of that Bruges Sea Lady, who was so clever at fancy work, gives occasion to the sceptic. I must confess that I was absolutely incredulous of such things until a year ago." [via Triplanetary]







@365 tomorrows: "Remember O’ahu" by Roi R. Czechvala.
@Weird Year: "Golde’s Mine" by Troy Manning.
@Weird Year: "Dr. Pants" by Colleen Chen.
@Eschatology: "The Created" by Timothy Remp.
@Eschatology: "Nova" by Joe Jablonski.
@Eschatology: "Searching, Hiding, Leaving" by James Bloomer.
@The New Flesh: "What's Knocking At My Door" by Michael Pelc.
@The New Flesh: "Cookie" by James Steele.
@Daily Science Fiction: "Selfless" by Kenneth S Kao.







@The Horrors of It All: "Sinister Return of the Priestess of Baal" from Baffling Mysteries #11 (Horror - Nov. 1952)






@The Warrior's Comic Book Den: "The Jungle" illustrated by Al Williamson, from Eerie (Horror - Nov. 1966).

@Parishi's Vision: Flash Gordon in "The Floating City" IJC #102 (Sci-Fi).

@Pappys Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "Ghost pirates of Skull Valley" from Ranger Comics #54 (Horror).

@The Comic Book Catacombs: Voodah in "Drums of the Tyrant Priestess"from Crown Comics #6 (Adventure - Summer 1946).

@Diversions of the Groovy Kind: Starlord in "Less Than Human" (Sci-Fi).

@Digital Comics Museum: Target Comics V2 #4 and V2 #12 (Both with Spacehawk and other adventure comics) (1941/1942).

@Ditko Comics: "The Thing From Below" from Out of This World #5 [Monster 1957].

@Atomic Kommie Comics: "BatMen of Luna" from Spacebusters #2 (Sci-Fi).

Other Coolness
@Golden Age Comic Book Stories: [Art] Edgar Rice Burroughs galleries of cover and interior art. The Venus Series, Pellucidar Series, and The Mars Series.

Free Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Audio Fiction, and More

Another decent day of free entertainment.






Fiction
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Issue #66 featuring:
"Dancing the Warrior, Pt. I" by Marie Brennan.
"By sheer force of will, Sen forced herself upright. She hadn't won; that much was clear. If that had been the Grandmaster's test, then she'd failed, and this had all been a waste of everybody's time. She couldn't look at Kerestel, at Criel, at anything other than the Grandmaster's feet."

"The Fairy Gaol" by Heather Fawcett.
"I do not want his scrutiny now, with the cool blade of the dagger pressing against my thigh. On the nearest dance path, a woman laughs as a fat prince covers her ears and throat with wet kisses. I feign interest as he spins her across the path, through the starlight that pours into the atrium. Unbidden, I picture our last dance together, on a night so similar and so different."

And don't miss the latest BCS audio story "Mr Morrow Becomes Acquainted with the Delicate Art of Squid Keeping" by Geoffrey Maloney.
"They couldn't be serious, Morrow thought, could not possibly be...but then the Major allowed the squid to slip from his fingers and into his mouth."


Issue #38 (2nd Quarter 2011) of Abyss & Apex: Magazine of Speculative Fiction is out with:
Fermi’s Plague by C. W. Johnson.
"'But Ana,' he told her, 'how do you know the American CIA won’t slip something into your supplies? A bit of shrimp–you wouldn’t even taste it–and my throat would close up forever.' And he throttled himself theatrically."

Demonfire Ash by Helen E. Davis.
"Eyes still closed, Geoff Bowman shifted his head. Pain like an iron spike speared him from temple to temple. Sunlight burned through his still-closed lids; sounds hammered his ears. It was one hell of a hangover, but why would he have been drinking? Strong wine was not allowed to Journeyman Wizards, and he, despite his years, was the newest of Journeyman."

Something Wild by Manfred Gabriel.
"I am a creature of habit. I run the same course every evening. Down the hill into town, away from our modern subdivision and past the clapboard homes built a century before, when the railway rolled through filled with corn and wheat and soybeans, and barges laden with timber cleared from northern woods eased downriver. When the town was an entity onto itself, instead of the bedroom community it has become."

Bots D’Amor by Cat Rambo.
"The bots were going to run Linus out of room soon, if they didn’t scavenge away some piece vital to the ship’s functioning and leave him choking on vacuum first. He didn’t think anyone else had these problems with their ship bots. Galina would say it was his own fault for encouraging them."

Concrete by Nathaniel Lee.
"Trent sighed. Another late night of unpaid overtime, filling out forms in triplicate to update managers who didn’t care about a project that was doomed to failure. He would have minded more if he wasn’t already nervous about going home."

Hail to the Victors by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.
"The five of them sat in the sun, their photo-activated chlorophyll enhanced skins providing their lunch. They were beat and the sun was warm; they didn’t talk. Humans didn’t like being green‑-this was a necessary technology which could be turned on and off as needed in the face of the collapse of society and supply chains."

Trans by Paul Rogalus.
"Parker walks up the dimly lit sidewalk and stops at a nightclub called Altered States, looking out of place in his leather jacket. He hesitates at the door and adjusts the packbox on his back, puts on his mirror shades, then enters. At the bar he orders a Potion 9 and a set of green beans."


Serial Fiction:
@Paizo.com: "A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross (Chapter Two: The Observation Post).
"I lowered my spyglass and compared what I had seen through the mist with Amadi's sketch of the dinosaurs. His illustrations were astonishing for both their simplicity and their accuracy. At first glance, the dinosaurs we observed from our treetop post appeared identical to the brachiosaurus."

Classic SF:
"Category Phoenix" by Boyd Ellanby, from Galaxy Science Fiction (May 1952).
"Man, it would appear, can adapt to any form of society ... but not one in which the knowledge of extending life becomes a passport to death!"
@Munseys and Project Gutenberg.


Audio Fiction





@StarShipSofa: Episode#183 featuring the short story "Atom Drive" by Charles Fontenay and main fiction "Linkworlds" by Will McIntosh with narrators Jim Philips and Dan Rabarts. And much more.



@The Drabblecast: Episode #200 "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov, read/performed by a full cast. Very well done! Very good, though predictable, story.

"It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all..."

@Decoder Ring Theatre: The Red Panda Adventures #69 "Stop the Presses" (superhero/humor) - Campy fun.
"In the tradition of the great mystery men of radio, pulp fiction and the golden age of comics comes The Red Panda, famed protector of 1930s Toronto! Hiding his true identity as on of the city's wealthiest men behind a bright red domino mask, The Red Panda dispenses two-fisted pulp justice with strength, courage and eerie hypnotic powers. Joined in his quest by that Famed Fighting Female The Flying Squirrel, this terrific Twosome holds high the lamp of justice in a dark time!"

@LibriVox: The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, read by Roger Melin.
"It is 30,000 years following dramatically changed climate conditions on earth [...] Much of the human and animal population would not survive the climate change, and indeed those few humans who did survive knew nothing of all which their predecessors had learned and built."


Flash Fiction



@Daily Science Fiction: "The Modern Prometheus" by Ed Wyrd.
@Every Day Fiction: "The Hurt Club" by James Van Pelt.
@Flashes in the Dark: "A Proper Burial" by Jim Bronyaur.
@365 tomorrows: "Red Tank" by John Xero.

Comics
@The Digital Comics Museum: The Lost World Archive Parts One and Two. Collecting the serialized Lost World stories from Planet Comics in CBR format.








@Four-Color Shadows: "The Man From Another World" from Journey into Unknown Worlds #19 (1953). Pure skiffy fun.






@Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "Destiny: Oblivion" by Kraft, Kirchner, and Nebres, from Haunt of Horror #5. Classic 1970's B&W horror .






@The Comic Book Catacombs: Auro, Lord of Jupiter vs. "The Tyrant of Jupiter" from Planet Comics #27 (1943). Hmm, a Tarzan-like character fighting a flying dinosaur on Jupiter, how did the Voyager and Galileo probes get it so wrong?



@The Warriors Comic Book Den: "The Thing from the Sea!" (Wally Wood art) from Eerie #2 (Aug. 1951) - The whole comic is available as a CBR download there.




@The Horrors of It All: "Bowser" by Richard Corben, a classic 1970's horror comic. "a creepy crawly classic"





Video
@The Internet Archive: Adventure Island (1947).
"Based on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Ebb Tide," this adventure pits a group of shipwrecked sailors against the mad ruler of a jungle island." A low-key adventure film in free Avi and Mpeg downloads.

Free Fiction and Comics on This Chilly Thursday

Just a few freebies today, but all are quite good. Back tomorrow with more fiction, audio, and gaming (I hope).





Fiction
Issue #65 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is out with
"Love, Resurrected" by Cat Rambo.
General Aife Crofadottir was acknowledged the greatest military mind of her generation—perhaps even her century. No wonder then that the sorcerer Balthus recruited her early in her career, setting her to rally armies of Beasts and magically-equipped soldiers"

And "Playing for Amarante" by A.B. Treadwell.
"I first caught sight of Amarante in the sea of pale silk that glimmered in the low light of the concert hall like pearls underwater. She wore carmine."

And don't miss Beneath Ceaseless Skies' free audio fiction, including the most recent "Breathing Sunshine" by Garth Upshaw. All are HERE.


@Subterranean Press: "The Crane Method" by Ian R MacLeod.
"Despite the elegiac tone of his many portrayals in the popular and academic press, few people who knew Professor Crane actually liked him."

@Daily Science Fiction: "Self and Self" by Jacob A. Boyd.
"If I twitch," Jane said, "wake me. Don't let me dream like them."

@Dark Valentine Magazine: "Dead Letter" by Katherine Tomlinson.
"The first inkling Beatrice had that something was wrong was the sound of her dog’s agonized yelping."

Flash Fiction
@Flashes in the Dark: "A Question of Killing" by Jim Bronyaur.
@365 tomorrows: "The Mutation Parlor" by Jeremy Koch.

Comics
At Diversions of the Groovy Kind: a creepy sci-fi story "Relic" by Bob Toomey and Walt Simonson.

Online HERE.






@The Horrors of it All: "The Hands of Murder" from Adventures into Terror #4 (June 1951).
"A real spooker from Mike Sekowsky and Christopher Rule"

Online HERE.




@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "The Detective of Tomorrow!" from Gang Busters #51, 1956. Interesting prognosticating.

Online HERE.



@Grantbridge Street & Other Misadventures: "The Monster on Mars" by Basil Wolverton, originally from Weird Tales of the Future # 3. Surreal sci-fi.

Online HERE [G/PG story but an R rated site]


@Digital Comics Museum: Rangers Comics #24. While Rangers Comics is best known for its Firehair character, the strange Werewolf Hunter story is much more interesting.

In CBR download HERE. [free membership required]