If Free Fiction be the Food of Love, Read On.

e-books, comic books, and a story too good to wait.  [Art from  "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland — For a Little While" linked below]






Fiction
• At Tor.com: "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland — For a Little While" by Catherynne M. Valente. Fantasy.   
     "In which a young girl named Mallow leaves the country for the city, meets a number of Winds, Cats, and handsome folk, sees something dreadful, and engages, much against her will, in Politicks of the most muddled kind."

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "1...2...3...Infinity!" Sci-fi. 1967.
• At The Comic Book Catacombs: Zegra in "The Black Pool" Adventure. 1949.
• At The Horrors of It All: "The Statue of Evil" Horror. 1952.
• At Western Comics Adventures: "Battle of Spaceman's Gulch" Sci-fi. 1953.

E-Books
• At Amazon: Soldier Of The Brell by David Scholes. Science Fiction.
At Amazon: [via Freebook Sifter]

• Renhala by Amy Joy Lutchen. Paranormal.
• Reclaiming Ter Chadain (Protector of Ter Chadain) by C.S. Yelle. Fantasy.
• The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) by Tara Janzen. Fantasy.
• Central Outbreak Response: Genesis by RJ Kennett. Post-Apocalyptic.
• I Am Forgotten by J. A. St. Thomas. Paranormal.
• Fate's Hand by Christopher Lynn. Fantasy.
• The Road to Grafenwöhr by Edward C. Patterson. Historical Fantasy.
• The Arbiter by M.M. Perry. Fantasy.
• Warrior Class. The Crooked Path by P. T. Mayes. Fantasy.
• The Prodigal Brother Saga (Sympathy-B 1.1) by M.R. Adams. Superhero.
• The Fairy Garden by Katherine Ann Wynne. Fairies.
• Soul's Harbour by T.M. Bledsoe. Paranormal.
• Einstein Must Die! (Fate of Nations) by Chris Kohout. Steampunk.

At Free eBooks Daily:

• Make Me Howl by Susan Shay. Paranormal Romance.
• Idol Urges by Ruby Bassett. Paranormal Romance.
• The Dream Dragon by John Clark. Children's Fantasy. 
• Fantasy Quest by Tina Gerow. Paranormal Romance.
• The Atlantis Crystal by M.L. Rigdon. Fantasy. 
• Rendezvous with Hymera by Melinda De Ross. Paranormal Romance.
• Heart of the Vampire by Gayla Twist. Paranormal Romance. 
• The Red Demon by Julia Barrett.  Space Opera.
• Dangerous Dreams by Aileen Harkwood. Romantic Paranormal Thriller.
• Memoirs of a Gothic Soul by Rebekah Armusik. Contemporary Gothic.
• Mariposa by Rebekah Armusik. Contemporary Gothic.
• Alone by Marissa Farrar. Urban Fantasy. 
• Ghost Swim by Sara Brooke. Horror.
• 30 Minute Plan by Gerald Rice. Horror. 
• Core Values by Louis Bertrand Shalako. Horror.
• Horseman by Christopher Golden. YA Dark Fantasy. 

More Free Ice

(OK, free SF isn't ice, but it's pretty cool!). More great free fiction including two fantastic free fiction 'zines, part one of an excerpt that is "designed to be somewhat self-contained," and more.  More to come ASAP.





 [It's kind of obvious where the art is from]



 

Fiction
• At Author's Site:  from "After The Fires Went Out: Coyote Part 1 of 4" by Regan Wolfrom
     "There was a moment right after The Fires went out when I thought Fiona and I were the only people left for a thousand miles around. It looked as though the whole world had burned, the air around us so hot that it felt like even the water of Lillabelle Lake was close to boiling. I had trouble imagining that anyone else could have survived."

• At Silver Blade: "An Honorable Aunt" by Therese Arkenberg.
       "Children grow up with stories of wizards and swordsman. Even my children did — although the glamour of those stories rather died when they saw the real creatures in action. War-wizardry turned cottages and fields to dust, and swords twisted in the guts of fathers and mothers far more often than they cleaved the necks of sinister villains."

• Now Posted: The Lovecraft eZine #24

"Less a Dream Than This We Know" by Christopher M. Cevasco
     "He forced his eyes to open wider, and the woman’s face resolved itself from an obscuring haze. Not his mother. Of course it wasn’t. His mother was dead. She’d died in a room like this"
"The Horror Under the City" by Kevin Crisp
     "The congregation was principally composed of a scant array of ragged homeless, who attended daily mass to escape the chilled, wet air before the soup kitchen opened at six. For the first few weeks I held the group sessions in the basement, I felt personally responsible for the dispersal of the last remnants of this ancient house of worship’s last parishioners"
"How Rare are Light and Life" by J.T. Glover
     "In thirty minutes I’m going to climb into the hypersleep compartment and set it for proximity auto-wake. The escape pod’s only built to sustain a few weeks of activity, and my hysterics used up a lot of oxygen"
"The Basalt Obelisk by Michael Wen  Evolved" by Kenneth W. Cain
     "It was said that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. If that maxim works on a psychological level then that cannot happen soon enough for me."
"Evolved" by Kenneth W. Cain.
     "Spring’s hardened earth is cool against my flesh as I flee men I once considered equals. Now we find ourselves separated by differences I cannot explain. As their intent is to kill me, I am left with no other option. And so I make haste to escape them"

• Now Posted: Subterranean Press Magazine - Summer 2013.

"The Shoot-Out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World" by Catherynne M. Valente   
     "I don’t know much about the beginning, but in the end it was just the Wizard of Los Angeles and the Wizard of New York and the shoot out at the Burnt Corn Ranch. They walked off their paces; the moon seconded New York and the sun backed up Los Angeles and I saw how it all went "
"Don’t Ask" by Bruce McAllister and W. S. Adams   
     "They tell me where she is in the big portamorgue. Corporations need morgues too—big ones——when they’re doing the military’s work where the military can’t afford to be.  Mercs die as easily as mils."
"Illuminated" by .K. J. Parker   
     "The truth, the sad, banal truth, is that they’re nothing but a network of three-hundred-year-old Imperial relay stations, built in a hurry in the last decades of the Occupation to pass warning messages about pirate raids. Of course they built them on hilltops, so they’d be visible at a distance, and of course they had to be towers, for the same reason."
"Stage Blood" by Kat Howard
      "There was blood on the stage. It dripped from a box into which a woman had been locked. An elegant box, clear glass, so that you could see the woman inside of it. The glass was polished to a shine that almost matched that of the sword that had been thrust through it. She was the queen of the knives, was the woman in the box, and the magician was on stage to woo her."
The Sun And I by K. J. Parker
      "We’d pooled our money. It lay on the table in front of us; forty of those sad, ridiculous little copper coins we used back then, the wartime emergency issue—horrible things, punched out of flattened copper pipe and stamped with tiny stick-men purporting to be the Emperor and various legendary heroes; the worse the quality of the die-sinking became, the more grandiose the subject matter"

Audio Fiction
• At AntipodeanSF: "The AntiSF Radio Show 178" Speculative Fiction
       " AntiSF radio show 178, comprising an audio collection of all of the stories that appeared in issue 178 of AntipodeanSF magazine online."

• At LibriVox: "Jataka Tales" by Ellen C. Babbitt. Fairy Tales.
      "Jataka Tales form a part of the collective Indian Fairy tales with the only distinction that most of Jataka Tales have a moral."

Thor's Day Freebies

More great freeness! Illustration from "Hello, Moto" by Nnedi Okorafor.












@Tor.com: "Hello, Moto" by Nnedi Okorafor.

"This is a tale you will only hear once. Then it will be gone in a flash of green light. Maybe all will be well after that. Maybe the story has a happy ending. Maybe there is nothing but darkness when the story ends."

Now Posted: Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Issue #81
"Hence the King from Kagehana, Pt. I" by Michael Anthony Ashley.

"He shrugged into the straps of his cricket box and tested the mask of noise over the shuffle of his footsteps. The jostle irritated a chorus of angry chirping from the little territorial males. They didn’t like being forced together. Saga for his part offered them the only advice he knew: “Time is the mother of chance.” It was the Twelfth Knot and the favorite saying of Kagehana’s escape master. Employ enough patience and even the strongest prisons will show you a way out."

"Read This Quickly, For You Will Only Have a Moment..." by Stephen Case.

"The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window. You must move quickly, for the first guard will be at the door."

Now Posted: Clarkesworld - Issue #62
"A Militant Peace" by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell.

"For Nong Mai Thuy, a Vietnamese Sergeant in the Marine Police, the invasion of North Korea starts with the parachute-snapping violence of a High Altitude, Low Opening jump deep in the middle of the inky black North Korean airspace at night. Here the air is the stillest, bleakest black. The bleakness of a world where electricity trickles only to the few in Pyongyang."

"The Smell of Orange Groves" by Lavie Tidhar.

"On the roof the solar panels were folded in on themselves, still asleep, yet uneasily stirring, as though they could sense the imminent coming of the sun. Boris stood on the edge of the roof. The roof was flat and the building's residents, his father's neighbors, had, over the years, planted and expanded an assortment of plants, in pots of clay and aluminum and wood, across the roof, turning it into a high-rise tropical garden."

"Silently and Very Fast (Part Two)" by Catherynne M. Valente.

"Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither. After all this time on the throne, humanity longed for a child. All day long humanity imagined how wonderful its child would be, how loving and kind, how like and unlike humanity itself, how brilliant and beautiful"

Serial Fiction
@Paizo: "Blood and Money - Chapter Two: The Masquerade" by Steven Savile.

"The fact that someone wanted him dead was a bitter pill for Isra to swallow, but not a particularly surprising one. Act like an idiot long enough, splashing the cash and taking it as gospel that every woman in the city had been put there for your pleasure, and you were going to incur a certain amount of jealousy. That was just part of the image he had cultivated to hide the Nightwalker from prying eyes."

Audio
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Judge's Right Hand" by J.S. Bangs.

"The brand Adultery will scar her pretty cheeks, and our son will wear the Bastard brand his whole life. But those aren't the brands I'm worried about."

@Clarkesworld: "A Militant Peace" by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell, read by Mike Allen.

@StarShipSofa: "To Seek Her Fortune" by Nicole Kornher-Stace, read by Amy H. Sturgis.

"a Lady Explorer on a flying sentient ship, obsessed with visiting psychics and mystics to find an answer to a critical question." - Amazon.com

Three Free eZines

All quite good.


Now Posted: Clarkesworld #61
"Staying Behind" by Ken Liu.

"The dead pity us and call us the left behind, as if we were unfortunate souls who couldn't get to a life raft in time. They cannot fathom the idea that we might choose to stay behind. And so, year after year, relentlessly, the dead try to steal our children."

"Pony" by Erik Amundsen.

"Skull Pony is eying me again. He drifts in the paddock, shifting every now and then, always facing me. I don't like him and I don't trust him and I've more than half a mind that thinks the feeling is mutual."

"Silently and Very Fast (Part One)" by Catherynne M. Valente.

"Inanna was called Queen of Heaven and Earth, Queen of Having a Body, Queen of Sex and Eating, Queen of Being Human, and she went into the underworld in order to represent the inevitability of organic death."

Now Posted: Redstone Science Fiction #17 October 2011
"iTime" by Ferrett Steinmetz.

"I’d say that my roommate Rochelle had to have the latest in technology, but that would be incorrect. Rochelle had to have the most expensive thing, and the trendiest thing, but it barely mattered what her accessories did so long as they didn’t clash with her cheerleader’s outfit."

"How We Fall" by Andrew Knighton.

"The air was electric with her presence. Sergeant Grund’s exposed hands and face tingled with it and it sparked like tiny blue flares from the frayed remnants of his parachute harness."

Now Posted: Residential Aliens 5..7 – October 2011
"Rivalry on the Sky Course" by Bryan Thomas Schmidt.

"The alarm on the targeting computer of his VS28 starfighter filled Davi Rhii’s ears. He glanced down to see several blips had appeared."

"Brother Silence" by Karina Fabian.

"His eyes widened to see a dragon, but apparently, he’d heard my story, though I can’t imagine how. He stepped back, bowing."

"The Old Magician’s Club" by Louis N. Gruber

“Enough with the grand entrance, Zando,” said the Great Rappini, shorter, almost bald, a few gray hairs combed over his pate. “Nobody cares anymore.”

"The Fletcher’s Daughter" by Jeff Chapman.

“It can’t be helped,” said the Chamberlain. “And what a scandal would erupt if a princess from a neighboring kingdom snubbed Prince Arwek. Your father wants to flatter Arwek’s family, not insult them.”

"Freedom of Movement" by Steven Saus.

"Allaya straightens the cool pearls about her neck, then runs her dark hands down the stiff pink dress. A glance and sniff at the stove assures her that the ham is almost finished"

Audio Fiction
Clarkesworld: "Staying Behind" by Ken Liu, read by Kate Baker.

Thursday Goodies

Some very good free fiction today, including today's highlighted story "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland — For a Little While" by award winning author Catherynne M. Valente, as well as a new issue of one of my favorite magazines, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

And if anyone knows a computer programmer at Google or Microsoft who thinks automatic formatting adjustments are a good idea, please give them a one-finger salute for me :-P






@Tor.com: "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland — For a Little While" by Catherynne M. Valente. Fantasy.

"In which a young girl named Mallow leaves the country for the city, meets a
number of Winds, Cats, and handsome folk, sees something dreadful, and engages,
much against her will, in Politicks of the most muddled kind."

@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "In the Gardens of the Night" by Siobhan Carroll. Fantasy.
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Ink and Blood" by Marko Kloos. Fantasy.

@Free eBooks Daily: "Sapphire of the Fairies" by Richard S. Tuttle. Fantasy. DRM.
@Pixel of Ink: "Beautiful Sins" by Jennifer Hampton. Paranormal Romance. Vampire. Kindle.
@Pixel of Ink: "Legon Awakening" by Nicholas Taylor. Fantasy. Kindle.
@Pixel of Ink: "Freedom, Spiced and Drunk" by M.C.A. Hogarth. Fantasy. Kindle.
@Pixel of Ink: "Summons: A Goblin King Prequel" by Shona Husk. Paranormal Romance. Kindle.
@Smashwords: "False Impression" by James Bailey. Fantasy.
@Smashwords: "tug" by Mark Fitzgerald. Urban Fantasy.

Classic SF
@Project Gutenberg: "Progress Report" by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides, from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953.

"Progress is relative; Senator O'Noonan's idea of it was not particularly
scientific. Which would be too bad, if he had the last word!"

Audio Fiction
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin" by Adam Callaway.

"Layers of parchment enclosed the room. Walls yellowed and tearing.
Ceiling shedding like a lizard."

Fan Audio Fiction
@Pendant Productions: Issue 51 of "Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton"
@Pendant Productions: Issue 79 of "Superman: The Last Son of Krypton"

Non-Fiction Podcasts
@SF Signal" Podcast Episode #69 - An Interview with Gary K. Wolfe.
@Comics Podcast Network: CNI #346 – San Diego Comic-Con Recap!
@Comics Podcast Network: Randumb Idiocy - A SDCC recap conversation

Monday Freebies

Some good freebies for this hot* Monday (*at least here in the St. Louis area). There's both quality and quantity.

Today's illustration is from the highlighted story "The Wolves of Brooklyn" just below.








@Fantasy Magazine: "The Wolves of Brooklyn" by Catherynne M. Valente.

"It was snowing when the wolves first came, loping down Flatbush Ave., lithe and fast, panting clouds, their paws landing with a soft, heavy sound like bombs falling somewhere far away."

@AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review: "The Infinite Onion" by David Steffen.
@Philippine Genre Stories: "Malvar" by Paolo Chikiamco. Speculative Fiction.
@L5R: "Love & Madness" by Nancy Sauer. Fantasy.
@L5R: "The Hinge of Destiny" by Rusty Priske & Shawn Carman. Fantasy.
@Short Story Me: "Goldar the Unwieldy" by Samuel Mae, Fantasy.
@Pixel of Ink: Astra: Synchronicity by Sharon Rosen. Science Fiction, Technothriller. [non-kindle formats at Smashwords]

Now Posted: Absent Willow Review (July 2011).

• "A Tree Grows In Hell" by Michael Owens. Fantasy.
• "The Birdman" by Ally Malinenko. Horror.
• "The Left Eye of God" by David Misialowski. Fantasy.
• "Beautiful Things" by Gianna Cappuccia. Fantasy.
• "The Bark Is Worse Than The Bite" by Foinah Jameson. Horror.
• "Real Vampires Don’t Get Shit-faced" by Joshua Young. Horror.
• "In the Library" by Dawn Napier. Horror.
• "Tidal Shift" by Derek Ivan Webster. Horror.
• "The Killing Breath" by Chris Castle. Horror.
• "Me and My Magic 8 Ball" by Selah Aran. Sci-Fi.

Now Posted: The Edge of Propinquity (July 2011). Dark Speculative Fiction.

• "Stranger Dreams" by Kaolin Fire.
• "Deals with the Devil" by Peter M. Ball.
• "Abductions and Reflections" by Ivan Ewert.
• "Falling Leaves and Failing Hopes" by Alina Pete.
• "Jim Towne Hollow and the Skinwitch" by Jennifer Adam.

Serial
@Author's Site: "The Journals of Doctor Mormeck’s Avatar–Entry #8" by Jeff VanderMeer. Science Fiction.
@More Red Ink: "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song (Part 3 of 3)" by Ernest Hogan.


Audio Fiction
@19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Ghost of a Chance" by Julie Hoverson.
@Fantasy Magazine: "The Wolves of Brooklyn" by Catherynne M. Valente, read by Gabrielle de Cuir.

Serial Audio
@Author's Site: "The Starter Episode #23" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction.
@Author's Site: "Chapter Fourteen (The End of the Beginning)" by Shaun Duke.
@Beam Me Up: "#14 of Dark Inspectre" by Jason Kahn and "Paid pt 2" by Deanna Knippling, read by Paul Cole. Science Fiction.
@Cthulhu: "The Black Stone (part 2 of 2)" by Robert E. Howard. Horror. Weird.









@Daily Science Fiction: "Persistence" by Kurt Newton.
@Eschatology: "In a Distant Jungle" by George Wilhite. Horror.
@Flash Pulp: "Lair, Part 1 of 1" by J.R.D. Skinner (also audio version read by Opopanax)
@Flashes in the Dark: "Piecework" by JR Hume. Horror.
@Quantum Muse: "The Metamorphosed" by Roi Czechvala. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "To Andromeda and Beyond?" by Patricia Stewart. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "TX-24" by Adam Sprague. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "War of the Grand Alliance" by Michael F. da Silva. Science Fiction.







@Comic Book Catacombs: "Nyoka "The Sinister Jungle Myth" Adventure. 1955.
@Femmes Fantastique: "Barbarella 2.1" Sci-Fi.
@The Horros of It All: "Lure of the Sea Hag" Horror. 1952.
@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: Classic Bill Everett Comics. Horror / Sci-Fi.
@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "Ibis Goes Batty" Fantasy.
@Secret Sanctum of Captain Video: Space Ghost "Zorak's Revenge" Sci-Fi.