Now Posted: Subterranean Press Magazine Fall 2013.

Subterranean Press Magazine Fall 2013.
The latest issue of this always outstanding magazine is out with four stories for online reading, as well as epub and mobi downloads.   One of the better ezines.









Fiction

• "Doctor Helios" by Lewis Shiner.
      "Through the window of the Boeing 707 he watched the Nile as it flowed toward the distant Mediterranean. It glinted silver in the noonday sun, then turned greenish-brown as the airliner banked over the pyramids at Giza and descended toward the brand-new Cairo International Airport northeast of the city."

• "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang.
     "When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock of traditional literacy"

• "Hook Agonistes" by Jay Lake and Seanan McGuire.
      "Memory didn’t work the way that he remembered it. In the beginning there was Lowryland, and Lowryland would last forever, a monument to the eternal child within each and every one of—"

• "What Doctor Ivanovich Saw" by Ian Tregillis.
     "It was an early Wednesday morning, the day they first tested the psychic woman’s Faraday cage, when Aleksandr Ivanovich Grigoryev lost thirty rubles in a bet with a skeptical Cossack. Ivanovich always remembered it was a Wednesday because that same morning he was summoned to the general-colonel’s office, where the overseer of Arzamas-16 informed him that Dmitrii, his last surviving son, had died fighting valiantly on the Eastern Front. Dmitrii, who had been a cook’s assistant."

More Free Fiction Links

Many good ones today!  [art for Subterranean Magazine, linked below]











Fiction
• At the WiFiles: "Memory, Hunger" by Valerie Z Lewis. Speculative Fiction.
     "The worst part is memory. It hits her at the strangest times. She’ll be walking downtown, following the crowd, when she’ll catch a glimpse of a bit of garbage on the sidewalk. A candy wrapper. Memory. She knows she used to eat things like that, but she can’t remember what it tastes like. She doesn’t want it anymore, even though she’s hungry all the time."

Now Posted: Electric Spec Volume 8, Issue 1

"Empathy Rocks" by Mark Rigney
      "Pink fire shoots from Quencher's mouth as he thumps his blood-black bass, and the flames belch outward, singeing the hair off at least half the kids in the first three rows."
"Strange Notes from Underground" by Jennifer Crow
      "Tsar Peter, called 'the Great,' built his city in a marsh. Not the best plan, one might say, yet when the Tsar of All the Russias makes up his mind, then all that remains is for his people to do, and to die. And die they did, in their hundreds and thousands."
"The Count is the Kingdom" by Rebecca Schwarz
      "A long, dark line appeared on the horizon. I kicked the mare into a trot, my heart racing. Perhaps I'd at last arrived at the end of the world and would be able to turn back toward home. I had begun to fear that I would never see my North again."
"Heart of a Magpie" by Kathryn Yelinek
     "Marion leaned closer to the white picket fence around her new backyard at ul. Towarnickiego 27. Finally she'd found a magpie that would consider eating bread out of her hand. Just six feet away, the magpie cocked its head, its black eyes fixed on the treat in her outstretched hand."
"The Secret Life of Princes" by David Barber
      "Dichley was skyping Gelda from the 3rd International ChronoCapture Conference in London. It was raining. It had rained since he got there. There was a woman's laughter off-camera and a slim hand put a glass topped with fruit and an umbrella at the keyboard."

Now Posted: Interstellar Fiction #8.

"Robot Origins" by Bruce H. Markuson
     "It all started with the speech my son, Avid, made at the university. “We are not machines. We are sentient beings with souls. This is the gift of the ancient ones. The ancient ones have spoken, we have always said.”"
"Biggest Times Infinity" by Shane D. Rhinewald
     “I’m confident an interim government will form in time. Even anarchists beg for rule again when everything goes to shit,” Commander James Whitehall said. “Still, we’ll likely be up here beyond our original mission. That means no more devouring half a dozen dehydrated noodle bowls per day. And yes, I’m looking at you, Frank.”
"Unfinished Projects" by Darren Goossens
     "He heard a bang and, halfway through swallowing, jerked his head around. He managed to avoid spraying beer on the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Should he investigate? Of course he should. Would he?"
"Stupid Manuscripts" by Antha Ann Adkins
     "Hugh needed to ace this interview with the mysterious SM, Inc. He had looked for work for over a year, and soon he’d have to drop some of his journal subscriptions. That would be tragic.

Now Posted: SQ Mag - Edition 7.

• "Unbound" by Dan Hankner (Sci-Fi)
• "Digital Reflections" by Kevin Rainak (Sci-Fi)
• "A Minor System" by W. B. Stickel (Horror)
• "Serial Fiction: Intangible (Part 2 of 6)" by A.A. Garrison(Fantasy)
• "Surface Stars" by Hansen Hovell Holladay(SciFi)
• "Eyes of the Child" by Robert Harkess (Paranormal Fantasy)
• "My Trip to the Circus" by Jason Lairamore(SciFi)

Now Posted: Subterranean Press Magazine - Spring 2013.

"The Seafarer" by Tobias S. Buckell.
     "The ten soldiers stopped their several days of running at the edge of the red stone cliff and looked out in awe over the gray ocean. A hundred feet below them the waves thudded against the rock and they inhaled the salt spray that slowly drifted up as a fine mist."
"Painted Birds and Shivered Bones" by Kat Howard.
      "The white bird flew through the clarion of the cathedral bells, winging its way through the rich music of their tolling to perch in the shelter of the church’s walls. The chiming continued, marking time into measured, holy hours."
"A Stranger Comes to Kalimpura" by Jay Lake.
     "The older I get, the less I understand about the world. When I was young, I was filled with energetic certainty. My faith in myself was unshaken and unshakeable. Or so I like to pretend, until I revisit the courts of memory. There I realize that I understood far less than I liked to believe."
"The Indelible Dark" by William Browning Spencer.
     "He watched the car come down the mountain. The autumn trees were full of muted color, and black clouds rolled in the sky, restive monsters bloated with rain. The road unraveled in a series of switchbacks, and the car, black, shiny as a beetle, appeared and disappeared amid the trees."
"The Prayer of Ninety Cats" by Caitlín R. Kiernan.
      "In this darkened theatre, the screen shines like the moon. More like the moon than this simile might imply, as the moon makes no light of her own, but instead adamantly casts off whatever the sun sends her way. The silver screen reflects the light pouring from the projector booth."
"The Syndrome" by Brian Francis Slattery.
     "The fundamental issue with my patients, as with all the undead, is that they’ve merged with the eternal. It happens somewhere in the transition from life to undeath—their first death, they call it—and they come out of it with no ordered memory as we understand it"

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "Nixon and the Aliens" by Peter Wood. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "A Positive Alien Encounter" by J.D. Rice. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Beam Me Up: Episode 355. Science - Science Fiction.
     Julie Wornan's melancholy post apocalyptic tale "Epilog" and  part 1 of "Know How Can Do" by Michael Blumlein.

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Beasts of Tarzan Episodes One and Two.
     "Tarzan’s arch-enemy, Nicholas Rokoff, has escaped from his prison cell in France! Almost immediately, Tarzan’s baby son is abducted."

Comic Books

• At Atomic Kommie Comics:  "Runaway Asteroid" Sci-Fi. 1969.
• At Digital Comics Museum: Planet Comics #4. Sci-Fi. 1940.
• At Paizo: Pathfinder Comics #1 is being serialized online Here (the first four pages are up)
• At War: Past, Present and Future: "Remember Makano" Sci-Fi. 1952.

Other Genres

• Audio at Tales of Old:  "Anezka" by Bruce Durham. Historical Fiction - Punic Wars. 
• Audio at Selected Shorts: Flash Forward - "Vanilla Bright Like Eminem" by Michel Faber and "North Country" by Roxane Gay".

Terrific Tuesday Treats

A ton of good free stuff today. Free fiction from several sources, audio fiction, gaming supplements, and comics. Oh yeah, Lt. Bob found a free movie, sigh. Would say more but once again the Solar Guard has called me in to work early, something about rescuing Space Marines on a bug hunt, I believe.




E-Fiction
At Lightspeed Magazine, "Saying the Names" by Maggie Clark.
"On the shuttle out to our connecting flight, the Bo assigned to my mission fixes the bulge of his eyes unwaveringly upon me. I was told to expect this, the species so alien to death it finds our every parting curious; its sense of privacy so absent, not one of its forty-three languages contains the word."

Online HERE. (And don't miss the great non-fiction here)



At The World SF Blog, "Encore"” by John Kenny.
"The hot sun beat upon the head of Fermino Salousse as he hobbled on his crutches up Avenida da Marginal from his shack on the outskirts of Maputo proper. There was little mercy in that sun, the palm trees stretching along the avenue that hugged the wide bay offering tiny, isolated islands of shade"

Online HERE.


Electric Spec has out its first issue of 2011, featuring "a variety of dark and light stories in the fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres." Included is fiction by Dawn Lloyd, A. L. Sirois, Frederick Obermeyer, Sara Kate Ellis, Jaelithe Ingold, and Lesley L. Smith as well as an interview with author Mario Acevedo.

All online HERE.



At Daily Science Fiction, "'Hello,' Said the Gun" by Jay Lake.
"'Hello,' said the Gun. The Girl stopped, frozen in the act of bending to gather a handful of acorns. They were a bit old, a late windfall, but a good nut was not to be wasted. Clad in a wrap of gingham and faded blue flower print sewn together from truly ancient dresses she'd found last summer in a mud-filled basement, she knew she stood out amid the dried, dying oaks and their desiccated understory."

Online HERE.



At Ray Gun Revival, "Landless" by Sean T.M. Stiennon.
"The narrow streets of the Twilight capitol were filled with the orange twilight of burning buildings, and the air was thick with smoke and the nauseating aroma of melting moldsteel as Kogaru moved through the crowd. He had disguised himself as a Twiwalker—seven feet high, hooked beak protruding from the folds of a black mantle. He had shaped his robe as ragged, burnt, and blood-stained."

Online HERE.



Audio Fiction
At Podcastle, episode 146, Giant Episode: "The Surgeon’s Tale" by Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer, read by Graeme Dunlop.
"Down by the docks, you can smell the tide going out–surging from rotted fish, filth, and the briny sargassum that turns the pilings a mixture of purple and green. I don’t mind the smell; it reminds me of my youth."

Streaming and in MP3 downloads HERE.



At the Internet Archive, Mindwebs "Not really audio drama in the strict sense of the definition, this 1970's series out of WHA Radio in Wisconsin featured weekly readings of science fiction stories by some of the genre's best writers. Nevertheless, since many of the readings were enhanced by music, periodic sound cues, and the occasional character voice" The OTR Plot Spot.

In individual MP3 downloads or one 852 MB zip HERE.



At LibriVox, a dramatic, full cast, reading of L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz, the third title in the Oz series. For the young and young at heart.
"Dorothy is shipwrecked and lands on the shores of a fairy country that adjoins Oz, the land of Ev. There she meets Tiktok, a wind-up mechanical man; a talking chicken, Billina; and Ozma, the girl ruler of Oz who is leading a quest to rescue the royal family of Ev from their captivity by the Nome King."

In MP3 and ogg downloads HERE.




Video
Lt. Bob presents. Comedy/Horror classic Bucket of Blood (1959) by movie genius guy Roger Corman. No understand why you humans like Spielberg, Kurosawa, and others so much. Corman true masterpiece maker. Though did like title Throne of Blood but was based on Shakessword guy play - sleepy time.





At the Internet Archive, A Bucket of Blood (1959) "Walter Paisley, nerdy busboy at a Bohemian café, is jealous of the talent (and popularity) of its various artistic regulars."



Steaming and in various video downloads HERE.






Gaming
At DriveThru RPG, "At the Heart of Evil" from Headless Hydra Games, a free 16 page Pathfinder compatible adventure.

"For years, the Order of the Sanguine Star ruled Kelennor, until one day, the paladins stopped patrolling the borders. It was whispered that a great evil had entered the old keep, and when Sir Gareth Strongfist, a blackguard, entered the town of Kelen, he was accompanied by skeleton warriors."


In PDF download HERE. (Free membership required).



At Dragonsfoot, the "Abbernoth campaign setting" For C&C 4th edition, easily adaptable to most D&D based games. "The driving concept in the creation of The Abbernoth Campaign Setting has been ... the idea that magick isn’t overt or common and that heroes and villains are believable characters who are exceptional not necessarily for their preternatural strength or abilities, but rather for their actions and their deeds."

In PDF download HERE.



At DriveThruRPG, "The Players Guide to Lesserton" for early edition D&D and retro-clones. "This 16-page supplement gives you everything you need to get started in the dirty town of Lesserton, the "Adventurer's Paradise!" From the new Orkin PC race, to stores and inns and bars, to unique gambling games, to rules for contacts and enemies"

In PDF download HERE. (Free membership required).


At RPG Creatures, another beautifully illustrated monster, the elijinn, easily adapted to virtually any fantasy game. "The incredible power these creatures hold over density, and use basically at will, leave them few natural enemies."



Online HERE.





And Daddy Grognard continues the adventure for every monster series with Baluchitherium.


Online HERE.





Comics
At Ditko Comics, "Enchanted Planet" from Space Adventures #31 (1959).
Classic Steve Ditko illustrated sci-fi.


Online HERE.




At The Horrors of It All, "Slaves of the Undead Brain" from The Beyond #27. Cool title and it has robots!


Online HERE.




And at Four-Color Shadows, "The Flame Goddess" from 1949. A story vaguely reminiscent of H. R. Haggard's She.


Online Here.