Fun Free Fiction

It's almost the weekend!  Until then here's some great free fiction to pass the time.  There's a new issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, tons of flash fiction and comics, and more. A couple of links via Regan Wolfrom at the always awesome SF Signal. More later. [Art from "Asteroid Witch" in comics]


Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "On the Weaponization of Flora and Fauna" by Alec Austin & Marissa Lingen. Fantasy.
     "As such, I was present in the imperial audience chamber when Plinio Gustavo Invicta presented the results of his expedition into the half-wild province of Corvesia; though not, alas, in any position to witness the first revelation of Plinio’s great discovery, as the Count of Nova Carthago was standing directly in front of me."

• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Goblin King’s Concubine" by Raphael Ordoñez. Fantasy.
      "It was a good thing that Maugreth’s men mutinied when they did. Otherwise he would have gone mad like the rest and fled shrieking into the moss-forest at the river’s edge to be devoured by spiders. Of course he didn’t know that at the time. He just sat in the ship’s hold where his men had locked him, shaking his grizzled gray-blonde locks, watching the sunless banks slip slowly past the embrasure."

• At Mythic Delirium Books: "Echoes in the Dark" by Ken Liu. Historical Fantasy.
      “The Chinese speak of him as a great fighter,” my cousin said, “skilled in the ancient arts of combat. They call him by the honorific Ta Tsia, which I’m told means ‘Great Hero.’ Many are the tales of his prowess in battle and generosity towards the poor and helpless.”

• At Weird Fiction Review: "The Divinity Student: Part One" by Michael Cisco. 
      "Short but powerful, this neo-gothic novel, which is illustrated by Harry O. Morris, uses the crisp immediacy of the present tense to lead the reader on a hallucinatory journey from humanity to inhuman transcendence. After a miraculous recovery from near death, a young man known only as the Divinity Student is beset by strange dreams whose lingering effects further alienate him from his fellows. Abruptly, he is sent away from the chill, damp confines of the seminary to work as a word-finder in the vibrant, chaotic desert city of San Veneficio, scanning old texts to record any unknown words he may find." - Amazon.

Flash Fiction
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Flip Side" by Chip Houser. Science Fiction.
• At Every Day Fiction: "Following the Cow's Path" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Surreal.
• At Nature: "The Scent of Things to Come" by J. R. Johnson. Science Fiction.
• At SFFaudio: "The House" by H.P. Lovecraft. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Runaway" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.
At Kazka Press: Fantasy.

• "The Last Pearl" by DeAnna Knippling
• "Warning Signs in Warning Signs" by Nicholas Stenner
• "Do Imaginary Dogs Bite?" by JC Sullivan

Audio Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Ill-Met at Midnight" by David Tallerman. read by John Meagher. Fantasy.
      "It was a good thing that Maugreth’s men mutinied when they did. Otherwise he would have gone mad like the rest and fled shrieking into the moss-forest at the river’s edge to be devoured by spiders. Of course he didn’t know that at the time. He just sat in the ship’s hold where his men had locked him, shaking his grizzled gray-blonde locks, watching the sunless banks slip slowly past the embrasure."

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "A Story of the Stars" Sci-Fi. 1972.
• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Flower of Death" Sci-fi. 1951.
• At The Comic Book Catacombs: "Space Bum" Sci-fi. Humor. 1958.
• At Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "One Man's Poison!" Sci-fi. 1972.
• At Four-Color Shadows: "The Unseen" Horror. 1953.
• At Four-Color Shadows: "Prisoner of the Ghost Ship" Horror. 1957.
• At The Horrors of It All: "Bride of Satan" Horror. 1974.
• At Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "Jet Powers and the Interplanetary War" Sci-fi. 1951.
• At Secret Sanctum of Captain Video: Captain Video in "Island of Conquerors" Sci-fi. 1951.
• At True Love Comics Tales: "Asteroid Witch" Sci-fi. 1950.

Other Genres
Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg:

• Female Warriors Vol 1 of 2 by Ellen C. Clayton. 1879. Mythology. History.
• Female Warriors Vol 2 of 2 by Ellen C. Clayton. 1879. Mythology. History.

Fiction at The Western Online:

• "The Weight of Memory" by Kenneth Mark Hoover. Western.
• "On the Path of Totality" by Nathaniel Lloyd. Western.
• "The Third Bull Run" by Elizabeth Esterholdt. Western.

Now Posted: Clarkesworls Issue 84, September 2013

It's Clarkesworld, huzzah!  A seriously great magazine whose stories have won countless awards.  Read it! You'll love it.














Fiction

• "Mar Pacifico" by Greg Mellor.
     "A pale dawn spread across the Pacific as my dead mother emerged from the waves."

• "The Promise of Space"  by Jim Kelly
     "I haven’t yet had the chance to review that capture. We were married in 2043. Presumably we met before that?"

• "One Flesh" by Mark Bourne and Elizabeth Bourne
      "Jupiter’s immense horizon appears flat as a flitter, stretching beyond the reach of vision. Cloud banks the size of continents drift in what might be sky. Organic molecules paint them in autumn colors: oranges and browns and peach and gold. Behind the clouds, the rising sun shines like a silver coin"

• "Out of Copyright" by Charles Sheffield. 1989. 
     "Troubleshooting. A splendid idea, and one that I agree with totally in principle. Bang! One bullet, and trouble bites the dust. But unfortunately, trouble doesn’t know the rules. Trouble won’t stay dead."

• "First Principle" by Nancy Kress. 2011.
     "He was even bigger than I expected. All three of them were. Barb and I watched on the link screen as they waited for the transport bay to pressurize, as they climbed out of the rover. Dr. Langley, in his rotation as council leader, made a welcome speech. The parents managed exhausted smiles, but the boy scowled."

Non-Fiction

• "Aliens, Robots, Spaceships and . . . Popsicles? SF on American Radio, Then and Now" by Mark Cole 
• "Organic Synthesis: A Conversation" with Ken Liu by Jeremy L. C. Jones 
• "Another Word: I am an Endangered Species" by Alethea Kontis 
• "Editor's Desk: Post-Apocalyptic Publishing" by Neil Clarke 
• ART - "Silent Oracle" by Matt Dixon

Free Fiction to Help Us Forget That Ben Affleck Is Now Batman.

More great free fiction, including a pair of stories from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, an SF story by Nancy Kress, a Ken Liu story in both audio and text format, the latest episode of the Antipodean podcast, audio by Eleanor Arnason at Clarkesworld, and a ton of e-books after the fold (including David Drake and John Ringo).  I'd say to check out Regan Wolfrom's SF Signal post for more free fiction e-book links, but since many of you have come here from there, I won't.  [Art from Ken Liu's story at Drabblecast]



Fiction
At Baen [via SF Signal]

• "Migration" by Nancy Kress. Science Fiction
     "Welcome to Freedom, a Libertarian society, the only planet in the Coalition where genetic engineering is not only allowed but common. But that hasn’t changed things for the pupcats, with their drive to migrate yearly back to the ice from which they came. Shipped off planet, captured, sold, many suffer and die each year from being kept away, so Lukas has come to put a stop to it."

• "The Hanging Judge" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction
    "No matter how remote, colonies need law and order like anywhere else. Someone has to hold people accountable and keep the criminals at bay, right? You’d think a judge who travels with an execution chamber and a prison ship would be feared throughout the Colonies, but Judge Morell quickly discovers that’s not true of everyone in this interesting tale"

• "Flipping the Switch" by Jamie Todd Rubin. Science Fiction.
   "No journey to the stars could begin without a starship, and so we continue our journey with a tale about one of those without whom colonization of the stars will never happen: a colonial ship pilot, called upon to take an adventure and sacrifice life at home, until he begins realizing the cost. Did he make the right decision? Would you choose the same?"

• "The Bricks of Eta Cassiopeiae" by Brad R. Torgersen. Science Fiction
     "Someone has to go and prepare planets for colonist’s arrival. In some cases, this will consist of advance teams of volunteers or government officials, in others, perhaps laborers will be recruited. In the case of our next story, those laborers are prisoners working off their hard time. The service in the brick fields is far better than other options, however. Unless, of course, one of your fellow inmates wants even more ."

• "The Far Side of the Wilderness" by Alex Shvartsman . Science Fiction
       "Sometimes human colonists themselves can be away so long, they begin seeing the Earth as a romantic, hopeful place different from what their ancestors who founded the colony might remember. In a reverse of our other stories, a bit of a Moses-esque promised land mythology arises amongst a religious sect of isolated colonists in regards to the Earthly home they left behind, driving some of them to live for one goal: to return home. But what if home is not the place their legends recall?"

• "Legio Patria Nostra (The Legion is Our Country)" by William C. Dietz. Science Fiction
     "If the moon had a name, it was a Hudathan name, since the satellite was orbiting a world that the Hudathans laid claim to. But, like everything else in the sector of space sandwiched between the Hudathan Empire and the Confederacy of Sentient Beings, the moon was open to attack."

• At Drabblecast: "The Call of the Pancake Factory" by Ken Liu. Comedy. Horror,
      "The bar is plenty kitschy: goofy statues made from coconuts everywhere and strings of shell beads hanging from the ceiling. I smile when I see a coconut sporting a pair of mouse ears made from scallop shells." Also flash audio "Lovecraft" by Chris Munroe.


• At WMG Publishing: "Advisors at Naptime" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction. Humor.
     "She’s important because the grown-ups believe she’s an average five-year-old. Average five-year-olds have uses for bad guys who want to conquer the world. Only no one realizes that Carol isn’t average. Carol’s smart. And tired. And will do anything to get her nap"


Audio Fiction
• At Antipodean: The AntipodeanSF Radio Show #181.
     The 181st episode of this quality flash fiction podcast, featuring audio speculative fiction stories.

• At Clarkesworld: "The Lovers" by Eleanor Arnason.
     "There was a woman of the Ahara. She came of a good line within the lineage1 and grew up to be tall and broad with thick, glossy fur. Her eyes were pale gray, an unusual color in that part of the world. From childhood on, her nickname was Eyes-of-crystal. If she had a fault, it lay in her personality. She was a bit too fierce and solitary"

• At Drabblecast: "The Call of the Pancake Factory" by Ken Liu. Comedy. Horror,
      "The bar is plenty kitschy: goofy statues made from coconuts everywhere and strings of shell beads hanging from the ceiling. I smile when I see a coconut sporting a pair of mouse ears made from scallop shells." Also flash audio "Lovecraft" by Chris Munroe.
 
• At Internet Archive [LibriVox]: John Silence by Algernon Blackwood. Horror. Dark Fantasy.
       "There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strange that the world catches its breath—and looks the other way! And it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell into the wide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest." Text here and here.

• At Tales to Terrify: "The Red Empress" part one of The Black Fire Concerto by Mike Allen. Dark Fantasy.
     "She settled in her chair on the stage, balanced the soundbox of her harp between her knees, braced its neck against her shoulder and caressed the strings. All twenty-two were in tune, and their song brought a sliver of comfort, for as long as she was allowed to play, she would live another day."

Other Genres
• Audio at Selected Shorts: "Odd Couples"

 E-Books after fold

Go Ahead, Make My Free Speculative Fiction Day.

I really can't say enough good about this morning's free fiction.  There are new and classic stories by big name writers (Rusch, Kress, Liu, Sheckley), stories at great pro sites (Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, StarShipSofa), stories at some of the best flash fiction sites, an audio version of the BSFA shortlisted "Limited Edition" and a reading of a classic SF story by the supercool and talented Julie Julie Hoverson.  And there's more to come! [Art from "Breathless in the Deep"]


Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Killing Time" by  Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
       "JP pedals her ancient Schwinn with Paula on the handle-bars, laughing, her head thrown back. Paula keeps her bare feet outstretched, afraid that her toes will get caught in the spokes. The morning is bright, the sun a yellow demon that will create haze in the afternoon. It is seven a.m. It is summer. And they are off to play tennis before arrival of the blistering heat."

• At Lightspeed: "Breathless in the Deep" by Cory Skerry. Fantasy.
     "When Jantz spotted a black skeleton jutting up above the water, at first she thought it was just a tide-battered tree, but before long she could make out the shredded ropes and scraps of sail. The wooden bones were the charred yardarms of a sunken ship."

• At Lightspeed: "End Game" by Nancy Kress. Science Fiction.
     "Allen Dodson was sitting in seventh-grade math class, staring at the back of Peggy Corcoran’s head, when he had the insight that changed the world. First his own world and then, eventually, like dominos toppling in predestined rhythm, everybody else’s, until nothing could ever be the same again. Although we didn’t, of course, know that back then."

• At Strange Horizons: "A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed)" by Seth Dickinson.
     "He must in retrospect have been a god the entire time. He has not just now transcended whatever limen encompasses the mortal. Rather, Naveen has systematically eliminated all other hypotheses regarding Hayden's provenance, and only this remains."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Nova Verba, Mundus Novus" by Ken Liu. Magical Realism.
• At Every Day Fiction: "Giuseppe’s Boughs" by Brandon Nolta. Fantasy.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "And The Darkness Fell" by Dawn Napier. Horror.
• At Strange Horizons: "Abduction" by Laura Madeline Wiseman. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Intentional Paradox" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "Breathless in the Deep" by Cory Skerry. Fantasy.
     "When Jantz spotted a black skeleton jutting up above the water, at first she thought it was just a tide-battered tree, but before long she could make out the shredded ropes and scraps of sail. The wooden bones were the charred yardarms of a sunken ship."

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Ask a Foolish Question" by Robert Sheckley. Science Fiction.
      "It's well established now that the way you put a question often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the type of answer possible. So ... a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations."

• At PodCastle: "Far as You Can Go" by Greg van Eekhout. Fantasy.
     "I didn’t go to school because I was allergic to the neuroboosters, but that didn’t mean I was stupid. It just meant I had a lot of time on my hands. Mostly, I hung out with Beeman, scrap-combing all over Ex-Town and trading metal and electronic bits and whatever for food and goods and services. We were good businessmen."

• At StarShipSofa: "Limited Edition" by Tim Maughan.
     "Eugene Sureshot, one mile tall, strides through the wasteland. Where his limited edition trainers hit the ground deserts bloom, city blocks rise and mountains rip themselves from the ground. Vistas erupt from each footfall, spreading like bacteria, mingling, creating landscapes. New places from the dead ground. Civilisations rise, intricate detail evolves around the soles of giant feet."

• At Strange Horizons: "A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed)" by Seth Dickinson.
     "He must in retrospect have been a god the entire time. He has not just now transcended whatever limen encompasses the mortal. Rather, Naveen has systematically eliminated all other hypotheses regarding Hayden's provenance, and only this remains."

God Save the Free Fiction - We Mean It Man - We Love Our Free Fiction.

Break out your reading glasses and hearing aids because there are many great free stories this morning. Wow! E-books and more to come.  A couple of links were swiped from Regan Wolfrom at SF Signal.

[Art from "A Meeting With The Elder"]




Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Skin Deep" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "When Cullaene learns the colonists want to question him about a murder, he fears for his life. But he must also think about the daughter of the people who took him in. She appears sick, and Cullaene soon realizes only he can help her. But helping her might mean sacrificing his own life.'"

• At The Colored Lens: "Garden of Little Angels" by Kevin Kekic. Speculative Fiction.
     "'Katelyn, d-do you think they are p-poison?' Arabella asked me. Her voice sounded hoarse, the cold air sending small puffs of mist from her lips. Next to her, little Gregory bounced on his feet, the possibility of food giving the boy a sudden burst of energy. It was our third day alone in the Whispering Forest, our third day without food. The waterskin I had stolen from Father was almost empty, and dusk was fast approaching."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Sparg" by Brian Trent. Science Fiction. Aliens.
     "From his cage, he had watched them conduct this peculiar ritual enough times to understand it was how they prepared their food. More elaborate than the brown fish-pellets they gave him. When his food dish was empty, they usually noticed as they shuffled in from the bedroom each morning. If they didn't, Sparg would gently thump his tentacles against the bars until they came over to see what was the bother. Then strange sounds would issue from their red mouths:"

• At Fantasy Faction: "Selleuk’s Bridge" by Nathan Hawke. Fantasy.
      "Thanni Ironfoot poked a stick in the fire and tried not to hear what the two Lhosir beside him were saying about the nioingr who’d sided with the Marroc up in Varyxhun castle. Taking the damned place was going to be bloody enough without having to think about whether he was on the right side of the fight."

• At HiLobrow: "Herland - Part Five" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Science Fiction. 1915.
      "It is no use for me to try to piece out this account with adventures. If the people who read it are not interested in these amazing women and their history, they will not be interested at all."

• At Lightspeed: "The Litigation Master and the Monkey King" by Ken Liu. Fantasy.
      "The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou."

• At Lightspeed: "At Budokan"  by Alastair Reynolds Science Fiction.
     "I’m somewhere over the Sea of Okhotsk when the nightmare hits again. It’s five years ago, and I’m on the run after the machines went berserk. Only this time they’re not just enacting wanton, random mayhem, following the scrambled choreography of a corrupted performance program. This time they’re coming after me, all four of them, stomping their way down an ever-narrowing back alley as I try to get away, the machines too big to fit in that alley, but in the malleable logic of dreams somehow not too big, swinging axes and sticks rather than demolition balls, massive, indestructible guitars and drumsticks."

• At SciFi Ideas: "A Meeting With The Elder" by Cory Trego-Erdner. Science Fiction.
      "His contact among the kahoons met him the moment he stepped off the dropcraft. The sensory proboscis above its single, gaping intake nostril lifted in greeting, and the tendrils at its tip quivered as it tasted his scent. It then uttered a spoken greeting to him, the words emerging from its nostril. A kahoon’s four jaws were a formidable masticatory apparatus"

• At Strange Horizons: "Din Ba Din" by Kate MacLeod. Speculative Fiction.
   "I look down at my hands, past the dirt. Sun-darkened, wrinkled, but not loose skin on bone. I'm forty, maybe nearly fifty. This isn't the rocket launch I dread, not yet."

Flash Fiction

• At Strange Horizons: "All That Her Mother Left Her" by John W. Sexton. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Art of War" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.

Audio Fction
• At Author's Site: "Beam Up on Aisle Five, Part 2" by Scott Sigler.
     "In the first episode, the Rabbi and Big Ugly were supposed to find the President and bring his money back to Chad LaTilton, only before our heroes could complete this task, the President wound up dead. Now Rabbi and Big Ugly are on the hook for that cash — they have to find a lady named "Carnie" who might have a clue as to the money's wherabouts. Listen in for more lubesters, violence, a few shots of Sea Breeze and some Pomeranian poop"

• At Lightspeed: "The Litigation Master and the Monkey King" by Ken Liu. Fantasy.
      "The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou."

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Compensation" by C.V. Tench. Science Fiction.
      "Professor Wroxton Had Disappeared—But in the Bottom of the Mysterious Crystal Cage Lay the Diamond from His Ring!"

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Shadow on the Doorstep" by James Blaylock. Lovecraftian Horror.
     "It was several months after I had dismantled my aquaria that I heard a rustling in the darkness, a scraping of what sounded like footsteps on the front porch of my house."

• At Strange Horizons: "Din Ba Din" by Kate MacLeod. Speculative Fiction.
   "I look down at my hands, past the dirt. Sun-darkened, wrinkled, but not loose skin on bone. I'm forty, maybe nearly fifty. This isn't the rocket launch I dread, not yet."

Other Genres

• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Negative Amortization" by Camille Griep.
• Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Master of Game by Thomas Edwards and Second Duke of York. 1413. Hunting.

Well, When This Free Fiction Train Ends I'll Try Again

Some Tuesdays are great! With Lightspeed, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, and so much more, this is certainly one of them. 

The Lightspeed story "The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars" is supposed to have an audio version, but it isn't working at this time. Hopefully it just me or else it's fixed by the time you read this.

Much more to come, including at least one link swiped from the extremely effecient Regan Wolfrom of SF Signal.

[Art from "Blood Trail" linked in Fiction directly below]




Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Blood Trail" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction. Time Travel. 2001.
     "Detective Zack Wheldon solves cases. The tough cases no one else figures out. So, when the FBI comes seeking his help, he must decide which to choose: the serial killer he desperately wants to catch or the as-yet-unknown cases that will grow cold in his absence"

• At The Colored Lens: "The Land of Dreams" by Kate O'Connor.
     "Cass set the last feed bucket down and leaned against the paddock fence, idly tugging a soft clump of gray-green dream pig fur out of the wire. The sun was breaking free of the distant mountains just in time to be swallowed up by blossoming amber clouds. She frowned, twisting the wool around her fingers. Just another normal day on the farm."

• At Escape Pod: "Mono No Aware" by Ken Liu. Science Fiction.
    "The world is shaped like the kanji for _umbrella_, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion."

 
• At Lightspeed: "Catamounts"  by Marc Laidlaw. Fantasy.
     "'I have my limits,' said Gorlen Vizenfirthe, hooking a full mug of cheap brew toward him with one of the petrified fingers of his stony right hand. A coarse black strand of beard-hair poked up from the foamy head like a sick fern’s frond. 'And you, sir, are quickly approaching several of them at the same time.'"

• At Lightspeed: "The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars" by Yoon Ha Lee. Science Fiction.
     "The tower is a black spire upon a world whose only sun is a million starships wrecked into a mass grave. Light the color of fossils burns from the ships, and at certain hours, the sun casts shadows that mutter the names of vanquished cities and vanished civilizations. It is said that when the tower’s sun finally darkens, the universe’s clocks will stop."

• At Short-Story.Me: "A Helping Hand" by Rachel Anne Sloan. Horror.
     "Hands, not eyes, are the windows to the soul. The study of hands has long been a fascination for people the world over. Palmistry began several hundred years before the birth of Christ. Leonardo Da Vinci is famous for his artistic study of human hands. I am no different in my quest for the knowledge hidden in hands"

• At Strange Horizons: "Complicated and Stupid" by Charlie Jane Anders 
      "The doctor was a gray-haired woman with a tongue piercing and a faded bluebird tattoo on one exposed forearm. She wore a white coat over a lacy halter top and hotpants. She kept looking down Benjamin's throat with a penknife as if his malaise could be pharyngeal."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long" by Erica L. Satifka. Science Fiction. 
• At Every Day Fiction: "A Song Not Fully Sung" by Beth Cato. Science Fiction.
• At Strange Horizons: "my father as a sonnet on the human meaning of inhuman stars" by Andrew Brenza. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Djedi’s Device" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Escape Pod: "Mono No Aware" by Ken Liu. Science Fiction.
    "The world is shaped like the kanji for _umbrella_, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "Rose Face" by Harold A. Lamb. Adventure.
     "Where is the man who knows what is hidden in the heart of a woman?"

• At Strange Horizons: "Complicated and Stupid" by Charlie Jane Anders 
      "The doctor was a gray-haired woman with a tongue piercing and a faded bluebird tattoo on one exposed forearm. She wore a white coat over a lacy halter top and hotpants. She kept looking down Benjamin's throat with a penknife as if his malaise could be pharyngeal."


Other Genres

• Fiction at Short-Story.Me: "Rules of Everday Life" by Marilyn J. Holt. Mystery. 
• Fiction at the Western Online: "Incident at Canyon Diablo" by Lowell "Zeke" Ziemann.

Get Ready to Reeeeeaaaaaaadddd . . . Free Speculative Fiction

There's already a lot of good free fiction with a new story by Ken Liu, a new issue of Quantum Muse, new episodes of  PodCastle and Red Panda Adventures, and much more. And yes, there's more to come.


[Art from "The Two Sisters" linked below]





Fiction
• At Aurora Wolf: "The Children’s Crusade" by Tom Howard.
     "The big house on top of the mountain looked as busy as an anthill someone had stirred with a stick.  Family and friends arrived day or night, asking about Jimmy’s mama.  She was in the hospital.  They gave Jimmy and his little sister sorrowful looks, followed by a pat or hug as they moved on to console their dad."

• At Enchanted Conversations: "The Two Sisters" by Loni Klara. Fairy Tale.
     "Not a single soul could be seen treading the paths of the small lonely village in which our ghastly tale will ensue. It was a dreary day with no radiant sun to light the path and no sweet music coming from the households. Quite easy to presume then, that the occupants were obviously not in the mood for lively instruments on this specific day. Alas, the wind blew strongly over the houses, drowning any sound that may entail from within, and carrying its force to the sea nearby, which was quite a rising tempest."

• At GigaNotoSaurus: "The Litigatrix" by Ken Liu.
      "The old man, Hae-wook Lee, had been bedridden for months. He lay on the sleeping mat, wrapped in a blanket. The drugs helped him sleep, and forget about the harsh words of his son."

• At Kasma SF: "HCV 541-35-1998" by Bernard J. Hughes.
      "You walk down the garage ramp of 1600 SW Second Avenue. As you walk past the cars parked there, you remember the old Porsche dealership that had stood there where you were a child. You get near the elevators. You are dressed in a nice, professional, off-the-rack black suit, a plaid scarf in the colors of Autumn, a specially modified pair of gloves, and a stocking cap. You dip your gloved-hand in the pocket of your coat."

Now Posted: Quantum Muse - August 2013 Edition

• "The Void" by Harris Tobias. Science Fiction.
     "A time traveler rescues his infant self from his own troubled past."
• "Lyranova" by Alex Mair. Science Fiction
     "At the speed of light, the slightest trouble can wreck an interstellar mission"
• "The Bridal Party" by Christopher Lepock. Alternative.
     "A father must defend his daughter against a paranormal horror."
• "Love Through A Glass Darkly" by Alex Mair. Science Fiction.
      "Five lovers Search for companions in a theocratic world. Can their love survive the attempts to destroy it?"

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Squeak" by Emma Osborne. Fantasy.
• At Horrors in the Dark: "Hi There, Sweetie" by Michael Johnston. Horror.
• At Nature: "The Best of Us" by Lee Hallison. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Decoder Ring Theater:  "Red Panda Adventures (96) - The End of the Beginning" Superhero. Noir.
         "The waiting is almost over at last. The preperations have been made, the plans laid, and the allied nations stand ready to strike a blow for freedom on a scale never before seen in human history. One piece remains on the chessboard that can doom it all, and only one man has the power to stand against it. But will it take everything he has and more to stop Hitler's God of War"

• At PodCastle: "Nightfall in the Scent Garden" by Claire Humphrey. Fantasy.
     "If you read this, you’ll tell me what grew over the arbor was ivy, not wisteria. If you are in a forgiving mood, you’ll open the envelope, and you’ll remind me how your father’s van broke down and we were late back. How we sat drinking iced tea while the radiator steamed."

Old Time Radio
• At Journey Into: "The Martian Crown Jewels" by Poul Anderson (from Seeing Ear Theater) 
      "There is only one Martian who can help Inspector Gregg solve the mystery of the missing Martian crown jewels: Syaloch, a seven foot bird-like being who has taken on the methods of Sherlock Holmes."

Other Genres

• Audio at American Radio Theater: "Pat Novak for Hire - The Search for Lola Madden" Noir.
• Audio at Decoder Ring Theater: "Crogan Adventures 05 - Incomplete Sentences"
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Wheat" by A. Cochrane

TGIFFF (Thank God It's Friday Free Fiction)

Another great day for free fiction with free fiction, flash fiction, and audio fiction from all the big three genres (Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror).  And be sure to check out "SF Signal," "Free SF Reader," "Free Speculative Fiction Online," "BestScienceFictionStories.com," "Variety SF," and "SFFaudio" for more free fiction links.

 [Art from "The Plague" by Ken Liu in flash fiction.]


Fiction
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Memories of Mirrored Worlds" by Barbara A. Barnett. Fantasy.
      "The voice had no source that Alison Marie could find, for the people around her did not talk of magical realms; they did not speak with the cadence of a butterfly's flight. They filled the funeral parlor with floral-scented death and spoke of memories and such an unfortunate accident for one so young."

• At HiLobrow: "The Man with Six Senses - Part 1" by Muriel Jaeger. Science Fiction. (1927).
     "When Hilda, a beautiful young member of England’s cynical postwar generation, meets Michael, a hapless mutant capable of perceiving the molecular composition of objects and the ever-shifting patterns of electromagnetic fields, she becomes his apostle."

• At Tor.com: "Wave of Infection" by Jason Hough.
      "The aircraft rested in a windswept field a few hundred meters up from the beach. Her crew, a pilot and co-pilot, sat nearby. Gulls wheeled overhead, their occasional calls as lazy as the Mediterranean whitecaps stretching north as far as Skyler could see."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "For The Empire" by Alexander Burns. Fantasy.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Ocean" by Gabriel E. Zentner. Science Fiction.
• At Tor.com: "The Plague" by Ken Liu. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• The Classic Tales Podcast: "Through the Looking Glass, Part 5 of 5" by Lewis Carroll. Children's Fantasy.
      "At long last, Alice becomes a queen. But it’s bittersweet, really. For her new cronies, the Red and White Queens drive her crazy. It’s Lewis Carroll– Today on The Classic Tales Podcast." Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.

• At Escape Pod: "Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love" by Merrie Haskell. Science Fiction.
     "Today, Robot!Hamlet is afire with Edwin Booth’s mad vigor, and runs his improv algorithms at full throttle; he kisses me dreamily, and rips my bodice in a way that would never have been allowed in Victorian America. The FACfans don’t look hyperpleased about this; it tarnishes their precious authenticity"

• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 05 - The People That Time Forgot"
      "Tom Billings has been captured by a tribe of Band-Lu. He has been taken through caverns and caves deep into the cliffs, where he is tied and left to await the next day – and the “dance of death”.  In the darkness, he hears the sound of padded feet approaching him"

• At PodCastle: "The Phoenix on the Sword, featuring Conan the Barbarian" by Robert E. Howard. Fantasy.
     "The room was large and ornate, with rich tapestries on the polished-panelled walls, deep rugs on the ivory floor, and with the lofty ceiling adorned with intricate carvings and silver scrollwork. Behind an ivory, gold-inlaid writing-table sat a man whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out of place among those luxuriant surroundings. He seemed more a part of the sun and winds and high places of the outlands."

• At Tales to Terrify: Episode #79. Horror.

“The Scratch of an Old Record” by Cate Gardner
“Breathe My Name” by Christopher Golden
      "A group of miners are trapped underground; as the time passes and they start to lose their strength, one of them recalls an old bedtime story his father used to tell him." - Horror World.

Some Free Fiction This Way Comes

So much good stuff today!  There's a two great new stories at Tor.com, and a great new story at Baen. Two serials reach there conclusions - "The Comet" by (A co-founder of the NAACP) and  "A Matter of Knives" by Ed Greenwood (The creator of Forgotten Realms).  Nightmare Magazine and StarShipSofa have their latest stories up - both sites always awesome. A new issue of Planetary is posted and there are great e-books, flash fiction, and comics!

A hearty hat tip to two cool Canadian bloggers, Jesse Willis of SFFaudio from which I found a cool audio fiction site The Moon Lens to link to now and in the future, and Regan Wolfrom of SF Signal which I swiped an e-book link from today.

Today's art is for Star Soldiers a classic by SF/Fantasy legend Andre Norton! Get it while it is still free.


Fiction
• At Baen: "Haunts of Guilty Minds" by John Lambshead. Science Fiction.
      "He held the gun in two hands at a low chest height using the fast “double tap” pistol technique developed by the SOE, Churchill’s Special Operations Executive. Urban encounters with the SS proved speed and firepower more useful than target-shooting accuracy. Holographic targets flicked in and out around him as he moved through the battle range, an exercise area rigged out like an office suite. The targets weren’t exactly human but he didn’t really look at them. This was a free-fire exercise where everything that moved was hostile."

• At HiLobrow: "The Comet - part 5" by W.E.B. Du Bois. Science Fiction. (1920)
      "He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music."

• At HiLobrow: "The Clockwork Man - part 14" by E.V. Odle. Science Fiction. (1923)
     “I’m afraid I put you to great inconvenience,” murmured the visitor, still yawning and rolling about on the couch. “The fact is, I ought to be able to produce things — but that part of me seems to have gone wrong again. I did make a start — but it was only a flash in the pan. So sorry if I’m a nuisance.”

• At Nightmare Magazine: "The God of the Razor"  by Joe R. Landsdale. Horror.
     "Richards arrived at the house about eight. The moon was full and it was a very bright night, in spite of occasional cloud cover; bright enough that he could get a good look at the place. It was just as the owner had described it. Run down. Old. And very ugly. The style was sort of Gothic, sort of plantation, sort of cracker box. Like maybe the architect had been unable to decide on a game plan, or had been drunkenly in love with impossible angles."

• At Paizo: "A Matter of Knives - Chapter Three: An End to All Skulking Games" by Ed Greenwood. Fantasy.
      "From her hiding place behind a stack of shipping crates, Tantaerra leaned forward, trying to get as close to the conversation as possible without being seen. Bendrar was Loryn Garldrake's son, and the woman giving orders had to be Semdeira Sarpent."

• At Tor.com: "The Stranger" by Anna Banks.
      "The Syrena don’t trust many humans. Rachel is one of them. The story of how Galen met her—and how they bonded—is both exciting and heartbreaking."

• At Tor.com: "Burning Girls" by Veronica Schanoes. Dark Fantasy.
      "about a Jewish girl educated by her grandmother as a healer and witch growing up in an increasingly hostile environment in Poland in the late nineteenth century. In addition to the natural danger of destruction by Cossacks, she must deal with a demon plaguing her family."

• Now Posted: Planetary #28. Science Fiction.

"Krax Delivered" by Joel Zaptman.
     "She fought for freedom!"
"Incident on Titus Thirteen" by J Eckert Lytle
     "He went fishing and caught aliens" 
"Dragon Sword" by Jerry Johns
     "Was he using the dragons...or were they using him?"

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "City of Chrysanthemum" by Ken Liu.  
• At Every Day Fiction: "The Game" by Tiffany John. Science Fiction.
• At The Moon Lens: "Shadwell Stair" by Wilfred Owen. Audio Horror. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Dis’ Country" by James Zahardis. Science Fiction.

E-Books
• At Amazon: Province Five (The Golden String) by Al Vickers. Science Fiction. [Via SF Signal]
At Free eBooks Daily:

• Demon Trap by P.S. Power. Fantasy.
• Triangle: False Mirror by D. G. Speirs. 
• Shadow of the Sun by Merrie P. Wycoff. Paranormal Historical Fiction.
• The Cage by Jason Brannon. Horror.
• A Gateway Made Of Bone by Iain Grant. Fantasy.
• Machines of Easy Virtue by Jack Price. Mystery/Sci-Fi.
• Wanted by Jason Halstead. Science Fiction.
• Star Soldiers by Andre Norton. Science Fiction. 
• Dead and Moaning in Las Vegas by Brandon Meyers. Zombies.
• Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down by Lisa Olsen. Horror.

At Smashwords:

• "Two Percent Power" by Brian Manning, Fantasy.
• "Luck Of The Claw" by Matthew Gill. Adventure.
• Tail of the Dragon by Timothy Reihm. Fantasy. 98k words.
• "How (Not) to Play with Magic" by Elizabeth A Reeves. Paranormal.
• "The Sickening King (The Grid 2)" by Amy Cross. Fantasy.
• "Old Shock" by David Senior. Horror.
• "Corpse Garden" by Ana Patrick. Horror.
• "Shred - Cuts of Flesh" by Jacob Prytherch. Horror.
• City of Whispers by Katherine Sorin. Horror. Vampires. 67k words.
• JON-29 by Gary Mark Lee. Science Fiction. 63k words.
• "Europa" by Gene Denham. Sciencr Fiction.
• "Shelter" by George Page III. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At The Moon Lens: "The Man Who Went Too Far" by EF Benson. Horror.
      "The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded till up on the north bank of the river Fawn in the country of Hampshire, huddling close round its grey Norman church as if for spiritual protection against the fays and fairies, the trolls and "little people," who might be supposed still to linger in the vast empty spaces of the New Forest, and to come after dusk and do their doubtful businesses."

• At StarShipSofa: "Philosophy of Ships" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Science Fiction.
     "The philosophy of ships being the question : if a ship has its planking replaced plank by plank over a period of years, when does it become a new ship? Yoachim applies this to humanity – once we have ultimate control of the biological self, and can engage and share/merge with others in virtual space, what is it that is the essence of humanity."

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "First Man in History Who Could Not Die"  Science Fiction. (1951)
• At Atomic Kommie Comics:"Plaything" Science Fiction. (1953)
• At Diversions of the Groovy Kind:"The Rubber Ball Project" Adventure. (1976).
• At Four-Color Shadows: "A Little Pain Never Hurt Anybody" Horror. (1953)
• At Four-Color Shadows: "Attila the Hun" Adventure. (1952)
• At The Horrors of It All: "Greatest Horror of Them All! / The Fanged Freak" Horror. (1975/1954)
• At The Horrors of It All: "The Head of the Family!" Horror. (1954)
• At Pappy's Golden Age Blogzine: "Tomorrow's War" Science Fiction. (1952)

Everything But the eKitchen Sink - All for Free

There's too much good stuff to single anything out today, but there a litlle bit of everything. All free. More tomorrow, but hopefully less.





[Art from Apex Magazine, linked below]






Fiction
• At Anotherealm: "Pushing" by Chris Barnham.
     "This night was different. Jed started in on me and I took it for a while but then he said something about never having any girlfriends. Said I needed to get home early to my mother, so she could read my bedtime story. Well, it was nothing to do with him that I still lived with Mum. Why shouldn't I? I wasn't so old. He made a rude comment about her, and my face felt hot and tight."

• At Author's Site: "After The Fall" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
     "But after a solitary walk along his isolated property’s borders results in a potentially deadly fall, he fights like hell to survive, knowing no one will come to rescue him. So, when he starts seeing things—seeing a creature he knows can’t exist—he grasps at his one chance for survival: believing in the impossible."

• At The Colored Lens: "No More Horizons – Part 1" by Adam C. Richardson. Science Fiction.
      "The soldiers called it Lake Exile. It sparkled below me like a field of glittering emeralds in the sunlight. The green mountain that loomed over us was Warden Peak, and although this planet was known on star charts as Manasseh, the soldiers called it New Alcatraz."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Wheel of Fortune" by Alexander Lumans. 
     "Skull: When your last breath issues out, it will be with thanks. Thanks that you are not bedridden with combat injuries or nerve damage. Thanks that you are not interrogated at dagger-point over the whereabouts of your world's supply of silicon and chromium."

• At Kasma: "The Way Home" by Gary Cuba. [via SF Signal]
     "The dog sat in the access port to the maintenance module, ears perked and tongue agog. It was a smallish, mixed breed with a pointy nose, alert eyes, and short, coarse hair painted in a pattern of brown, black and white. A tooled leather flight harness encircled its torso."

• At Lightspeed: "The Ballad of Marisol Brook" by Sarah Grey. Science Fiction.
     "Her name, this time, is Marisol Lysium Brook. The media, long bored with the minutiae of her death, occupies itself by speculating which stars will grace the guest list at her reconstruction gala"

• At Lightspeed: "Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon" by Theodora Goss.
     "When the Queen learned that she could not have a child, she cried for three days. She cried in the clinic in Switzerland, on the shoulder of the doctor, an expert on women’s complaints, leaving tear stains on his white coat. She cried on the train through Austria, while the Alps slipped past the window of her compartment, their white peaks covered with snow."

• Details at SF Signal: "The Crystal Empire" by L. Neil Smith. Science Fiction.
     "Earth is ruled by three mighty empires: The Saracen-Jewish Empire led by the Caliph of Rome, the Mughal-Arab Empire, ferocious in its determination to destroy its neighbor, and the great Sino-Aztec’s Crystal Empire, led by a living God."

• At Strange Horizons: "Jinki and the Paradox" by Sathya Stone.  
     "Years of erosion, that means the wind and water broke bits off the mountain along that way," he pointed east. "And brought them down here, to be dust." / "What mountains?" / "They're gone now," said Mr. Quest. "Eroded. You can see them if you look through Time."

• At Tor.com: "The Too-Clever Fox" by Leigh Bardugo. Fantasy.   
       "In Ravka, just because you avoid one trap, it doesn't mean you’ll escape the next. This story is a companion folk tale to Leigh Bardugo’s upcoming novel, Siege and Storm, the second book in the Grisha Trilogy."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "A Night of the High Season" by Bruno Schulz.
     "Everybody knows that whimsical time, in the course of mundane and ordinary years, occasionally will bring forth from its womb other years, odd years, degenerate years, somewhere in which, like a little sixth finger upon a hand, a spurious thirteenth month sprouts up; spurious, we say, since it will seldom grow to full size. Like late begotten children, it lags behind in its development: a hunchback month, a half-wilted offshoot, and more conjectured than real."

• Now Posted: Apex Magazine #49.

• "Karina Who Kissed Spacetime" by Indrapramit Das. Science Fiction.
     "I always remember snow speckling the orange cone of streetlight that held my first kiss. It wasn’t snowing that night. This was before time fractured, left me slipping through its cracks like a bead of water. Perhaps it had been snowing in some other timeline during that first kiss. But not that one. It had barely been a first kiss, even. But it had been cold — cold enough to turn gutter water to slippery glass by our feet."
• "Titanic!" by Lavie Tidhar
     "When I come on board the ship I pay little heed to her splendour; nor to the gaily–strewn lines of coloured electric lights, nor to the polished brass of the crew’s jacket uniforms, nor to the crowds at the dock in Southampton, waving handkerchiefs and pushing and shoving for a better look; nor to my fellow passengers. I keep my eyes open only for signs of pursuit; specifically, for signs of the Law."
• "Call Girl" by Tang Fei (translated by Ken Liu)
     "Morning climbs in through the window as shadow recedes from Tang Xiaoyi’s body like a green tide imbued with the fragrance of trees. Where the tidewater used to be, now there is just Xiaoyi’s slender body, naked under the thin sunlight."
• "Reluctance" by Cherie Priest
      "Walter McMullin puttered through the afternoon sky east of Oneida in his tiny dirigible. According to his calculations, he was somewhere toward the north end of Texas, nearing the Mexican territory west of the Republic; and any minute now he’d be soaring over the Goodnight–Loving trail."

• Now Posted: Electric Spec Volume 8, Issue 2.

• "The Disconnected" by Aaron Ritchey
     "I don't do suborbital flights, but for this job I have to. I'm too obsessed with Abby to stay away. Abby, she's the Analog Prosthetic Ego tech who went funny."
• "A Beastly Game" by Sarah Pinsker
     "Being undead felt rather like being hung over, all things considered. Ben came to that conclusion as he staggered from the alley. He tried to piece together what had happened. He had been chugging beer with his rugby mates and the team they had played earlier that evening, enjoying a good commiseration buzz."
• "The City of Tears" by Maigen Turner
     "Silence drifted among the pillars of the marketplace, the sandstone arches where no voice rose. Silk-muffled women hung tongueless bells on their doors and hushed children in whispers. At the east gate, guards inspected packtrains bearing myrrh and cinnamon, ruby and lapis, cedarwood and dye crushed from the snails of distant seas."
• "Tartarus" by Charlotte Nash
     "I never believed her. She was a Stelline psych, and they work on commission. It was her job to make me useful again, even though I was in the GIMP, prison of prisons. Even though I remember things that make me not a man."
• "Bulls and Magic" by Jarod K. Anderson
      "At first, the bull couldn't be bothered with me. My whole damn life I'd listened to my parents tell me to stay out of the western pasture. Uncle Frank even had a pale, puckered-looking scar just above his hip that he'd throw in as supporting evidence for the cantankerousness of bulls"

• Now Posted: 4 Star Stories - Spring 2013.

• "The Huntress" by Tala Bar.
"The Huntress listened to the forest. It was a mixed wood of various oaks, pines and fruit trees that spread over some low hills well below the snow line. It had a variety of animals and birds and she could hear them all, large and small, going about their business"
• "Horace and Juju Tip the Scales" by Jeremy Miller.
     "She heard them before she saw them. A twangy sort of melody rang out in the air with a high pitched voice and a bass accompaniment that rattled her brain. Kaelan had dismounted an hour before and was marching with her rearguard. Two long columns stretched out before her, kicking up dust on the wide road leading south to Tanju. She decided to stop and let her army pass before swinging around to the opposite side of the road to ferret out the source of her headache."
• "One Mississippi..." by Libby A. Smith.
 "She thought of the human’s music as she dropped to the ground, pain tearing through her chest, a sound very different than the agonizing blast of the shotgun.  She loved wandering down Beale Street where she’d first discovered music blaring from a bar, or stopping by a music store where a human might be trying out a guitar."
• "How to Have Fun at the Family Funeral" by Laura J. Underwood.
"And no, I am not knocking bucolic settings.  I'm as fond as any of my kinfolk of sitting back in the hollow, watching night falling over the mountains or listening to the trill of a screech owl on the hunt."

• Now Posted: Nightblade Issue #24. Horror. Fantasy.

• "Shifting Sands of Blood" by Rebecca Harwell
"Inara wanted so much to look up at his face. The silence dug its way under her skin. Would he show mercy? She was running out of time."
• "The Peculiar Fruit of the Savage Chinchilla" by Kate Duva"Our innocent daughter would have been horrified to see this pelt decorating her mother’s shoulder, complete with the animal’s little hollowed head, its eye holes accented by two balls of jet black glass."
• "Compassion, During and After the Fall" by Cory Cone"There is someone there, and the woman knows it is the man who is not like her. He is surrounded by the light, always by the light."
• "The Imago" by Carly Berg"Lei’s fingers knew clay and her holy imagos made the other women gasp. The thumb-sized clay baby looked real."
• "Little Stitches" by M. Shaw"I don’t think they have a language; just a rhythm, and they don’t use it to communicate so much as to wear down, to drone out."

• Now Posted: Plasma Frequency Issue 6 - June/July 2013.

 "Be My Cure" by Sara Puls.
     "I have electromagnetic-destroyerism. It is not a superpower, much as it sounds like one. And it's not a curse, not technically speaking, anyway."
"By the Stars You Will Know Her" by Siobhan Gallagher.
     "She had the eyes of an ancient: mists and lightning swirling into a maelstrom galaxy, a kind of chaos that would pull you in if you gazed too long."
"Cognitive Terminal Velocity" by Adam C. Richardson.
     "Approximately twenty-one times faster than cognitive nominal. Sir, I am having difficulty interpreting your sensory data. Are we falling?"
 "Slaying Dragons" by Brent Knowles.
     "Will the servants ever learn?" Taloma muttered as she swirled away from the polished metal mirror where she had been preparing herself for night. The double doors were to be used only during the day! Guests who came late always entered via the side entrance."
"Witchdoctors and Tears" by Jeff Bowles.
     "She and Brandon had been trying for years. On their own for a time, then with specialists, then with practitioners of...fringe medicine. Jake the witchdoctor was only the latest in a long succession of herbalists, acupuncturists, and clairvoyants."
"Good Deeds in a Weary World" by Rebecca Roland.
      "Guy expected to come back from Spring Break in Mexico with some shot glasses, a residual hangover, and maybe a tattoo. What he hadn't expected was to be sent home to Seattle in a coffin."
"Knowledge You Can’t Give" by Brynna Ramin.
      "Below Obsidian City, John Stempfel held the city's towers on his shoulders, and Sally could never tell him anything useful on the telephone"
"The Hanging Gardener" by Ryan Harvey.
      "Seluku the gardener was interested in the stormy season for one reason. It meant King Nebuchadnezzar would be more paranoid about the priests of Marduk in their temple that towered in the middle of the city. "

• Now Posted: Quantum Muse - June 2013.

• "Exile From Earth" by Gordon Rowlinson. Science Fiction. 
       "People who have no hope are a lost people."   
• "Retro Skelter" by Harry J. Bentham. Science Fiction.
      "A renowned physicist and a hated civil servant are doomed to be shot if they can't construct a time machine within three days. The task seems impossible, until an extremely wild solution emerges." 
• "Make A Wish" by James Thompson. Science Fiction.
      "Regen's pet invades his store of gold artifacts and swallows some small items he's fleeced from superstitious natives on a primitive planet. Strange things begin to happen aboard his ship while he's enroute to the dealer who will buy his gold."
• "The Alarm" by Harris Tobias. Fantasy.
     "What use is money when the dragon awakes?"

• Now Posted  Three-Lobe Burning Eye - Issue 23. Speculative Fiction

• "The Murmurous Paleoscope" by Dixon Chance
      "I wish I had better news about the dig, but ere I relate that tale, I would be remiss if I did not assure you that the Paleoscope and Lithotome have made the journey to Utah fully intact, though it was a hard thing those last hundred miles by stage"
• "One in the Morning and One at Night" by Gemma Files
    "But her dreams smell of decay that night, and a tone runs underneath everything, a hiss. The dead-technology sense-memory of static on an empty channel."
• "Scolyard’s “The Constructs Forsee Their Doom" by Daniel Ausema
     "The most significant relationship of my life — and I’ve led a long and strange one, a life poisoned and infected by my beloved, decaying, doomed city — was with a man I never met. Do you know of the artist Pen Scolyard? Few have heard of him today, but he did have one work that people once knew. One painting that … well, that made him great."
• "The Hecate Centuria" by Claude Lalumière
     "In the light of the full moon, her vision enhanced by vermilion, Dematria watched in horror as Hecate’s changeling centurions terrorized her beloved goddess-city, Venera. The Romans had so far ignored the archipelago; in return the city-state fed the Roman capital with a steady supply of underpriced vermilion spice."
• "Big in Japan" by Lawrence Conquest
     "On the third day they bound my father with rope and lowered his body over the side of the boat. He could no longer speak by that point, his voice having degenerated into a series of choking coughs, but his eyes retained their old intelligence"
• "I Will Trade With You" by J.M. McDermott
      "North, I keep on, but there’s no way to know how far I walked before I stopped to rest on this lump of sand instead of that one. I need to rest to keep walking with these old, uncertain bones. When I’m ready to move again, I crawl a little, and wait for my legs to work right below me."

E-Books
• At Amazon.com: For Odin, for Thor, for Asgard by David Scholes.Fantasy.
• At Amazon.com: Moonlit by Jadie Jones. YA Fantasy. [via Pixel of Ink]

• At Free eBooks Daily:
• Bound by Blood by Tracey Jane Jackson. Paranormal Romance.
• Hike up Devil's Mountain by Penny Estelle. Early YA Fantasy.
• The Eden Project: Humanity's Last Chance by DP Fitzsimons. YA Science Fiction.
• Sapience by Bret Wellman. SciFi Romance.
• The Boat - Zombie Survivors by Christine Dougherty. Horror Thriller.
• Flee by Miranda Kavi. Paranormal Romance.
• Forever Fae by L.P. Dover. Fantasy.
• The Ups and Downs of Being Dead by M.R. Cornelius. Post-Apocalyptic Thriller.
• Hallowed Be Thy Name by Ryan Schneider. Science Fiction.
• Aftershock by S. A. Archer. Urban Fantasy.
• Touching Evil by Amber Garr. Urban Fantasy
• Vampire Miami by Phil Tucker. Fantasy. 
• Dark Union by SM Reine. Urban Fantasy.
• Refined by William Stadler. Fantasy.
• The Star Agency by R.E. Weber. YA Science Fiction.
• The Adventures of Rosie Crucial by Kim Farnell. Historical Fantasy.

At Smashwords:

• "Don't Rhine on My Parade" by Erin Evans. Contemporary Fantasy. 82k words.
• "Sleeping Beauty: Danger Within" by Chris Van Dyk. Fantasy. 3k words.
• "Meaning of Life" by R.A. Sears. Paranormal. 4k words.
• "The Temporary Wizard of Locklynn" by S.G. Rogers. YA Fantasy. 9k words.
• "New Beginnings" by Sonya Sparks. 50k words.
• "Chains of Prophecy" by Jason Crawford. 62k words.
• "The Zombies of Lancaster" by Jason Scimitar. 78k words. 
• "After: First Light" by Scott Nicholson. 34k words. Science fiction. Apocalyptic.
• "Day One" by Bryan Simpson. 2k words. Science fiction.
• "The River of Blood" by Roland Matthew and Joseph Ziemke. 2k words. Horror.
• "All The World In Wax" by Ray Daley. 2k words. Horror.
• "This Old Rock" by G David Nordley. 22k words. Science Fiction.
• "Masie's Mind" by Kevin L. O'Brien. 15k words. Science Fiction.
• "Spare Parts For Spaceships" by Andrew McEwan. 11k words. Science Fiction.

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "A Good Reason & the Real One" by Randall Brown. Science Fiction.
• At Strange Horizons: "Again, Pygmalion" by Stella Nickerson.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Guide To Alien Sex For Dummies" by Geetanjali Dighe.

At Kazka Press:

• "Wasted Youth" by Alex Gorman.
• "1116 Santiago Drive" by Holliann R. Kim
• "I Must Be Dead" by Michelle Ristuccia.
• "Testament" byJeff Stehman.
• "The Bleeding Game" by Natalia Theodoridou.

At Nightblade: Poems

• "The Traveling Dead" by Keith Kennedy.
• "Forbidden Island" by J.A. Grier.
• "An Unexpected Review" by Michele Bannister.
• "Where We Died" by Shira Lipkin.
• "Testament" by Jeff Stehman.

Audio Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon" by Theodora Goss.
      Described Above

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft. Horror.
     "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; and driven forth under a cloud of suspicion and terror the third son, my lineal progenitor and the only survivor of the abhorred line."

• At Strange Horizons: "Jinki and the Paradox" by Sathya Stone.
     Described Above

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Spirits from Outer Space" Sci-Fi. (1952)
• At Four-Color Shadows: "The Living Ghost" Horror. (1948)
• At The Horrors of It All: "Headless Horror!" Horror. (1952)
• At The Horrors of It All: "Carnival of Terror" Horror. (1952)

Gaming 
At DriveThruRPG:  Rules & Magic book for the LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing Game.
       Art free (except the cover) version of this Original Dungeons and Dragons retro-clone.  The game is rated as being only for adults (but that might be mostly for the art and not relevant here?)

Other Genres 

• Audio at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: "The Harmless Pursuits of Archibald Stamp" by Ann Cleeves.
• E-Book at Free eBooks Daily: The Good Knight by Sarah Woodbury.  Medieval Mysteries.