Part Two

A ton of great freebies for part two of today's links. More later if possible. (Photo for Selected Shorts in audio fiction below)










Fiction
• At AE: "First Date" by David Tallerman. Science Fiction.
     "How many nights has Johnny walked by the House of Mirrors? How many times has he glanced at its drab plastic facade and wondered? He was never scared to come, but they take the rules seriously in the House, it’s all legit, and if your biomet says you’re under twenty-one they won’t so much as look at you. So Johnny waited — not with patience, but with determination stubborn as faith. And now it’s time. Tonight he can do more than look."

• At Author's Site: "Craters" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "What they don’t tell you when you sign up is that the work takes a certain amount of trust. The driver, head covered by a half-assed turban, smiles a little too much, and when he yes-ma’ams you and no ma’ams you, you can be lulled into thinking he actually works for you."

• At The Colored Lens: "Blessings by the Shade" by S. L. Nickerson. Alternative History. Mythic Fantasy.
     "They still tell stories about the day I was born, of how a lilac comet streaked across the stars and the volcano ceased spitting fires to the heavens. They call it omens but I call it a conspiracy of convenience. This is what made me High Priestess, because I am blessed."

• At Cosmos: "Angels Call in Strange Disguise" by Christopher K. Miller.
     "The clown’s presence means that you are, in all probability, going to die tonight. There’s not much your sailfone hasn’t told you. They don’t send these clowns to just anyone."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Tying of Tongues" by Kristi DeMeester. 
     "When the hooded woman came to our village, her bloodied skirts trailing behind her, the old mothers whispered behind chapped hands, and the animals found their holes and hid."

• At L5R: "The Sparrow’s Fate - Part 1" by Robert Denton. Fantasy.
     "When Moshi Rukia awoke on the third and final day of her visit to the Suzume Hills, she looked out her window to find the valley covered in a thick layer of snow. She knew winter came quickly in the valley, she just didn’t know it would be this quickly."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sense of the Circle" by Angélica Gorodischer. Science Fiction.
      "Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito."

• At Lightspeed: "The Dream Detective" by Lisa Tuttle. Fantasy.
      "In the beginning, I was not attracted to her at all. Quite the opposite. I don’t know if it was intentional on her part, and honestly, I’m not the sort of dick who always judges women on how hot they are, but if there’s any situation in which a person’s attractiveness matters, I think everybody would agree it’s a blind date."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "The Love of Beauty" by K.J. Bishop.
     "Near the middle of the night, Seaming dithered in front of the brick arch – formerly a minor gate in the old city wall and now a decoration in a lane. If there existed a main entrance to the Ravels, it was that arch. It stood only half a furlong from the glitz of Cake Street, but the short distance marked a change of register from the demimonde to the underworld proper."

• At The WiFiles: "God’s Great Acrimony" by D. C. Golightly. Speculative Fiction.
     "I will always savor the taste of blood. Even though I starve myself of its nourishment for strictly selfish reasons I can’t help but crave the bitter embrace of its crimson flavor."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Skipping Stones" by Devin Miller.
• At Every Day Fiction: "A Day Before All of Those Nights" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Fantasy. 
• At Quantum Muse: "The Collider" by Harris Tobias.
• At Strange Horizons: "Origin" by Heather Sommer. Speculative Poem. Audio.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Extremophile" by Aaron Koelker. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The End of the Extinction" by Isla Kay. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Ascensual" by Daniel Martin Fairbairn. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #24" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
   No description.

• At Beam Me Up: "Part 4 of Know How Can Do" by Michael Blumlein.
    "Of course we'll wait. How silly of me to think otherwise. Science begins wit h observation, and Sheila Downey is a scientist. We'll watch and wait together, al l three of us, the woman who made me what I am, the worm that isn't there, and me."

• At Clarkesworld: "86, 87, 88, 89" by Genevieve Valentine.
    "You are part of a vital effort to recover evidence of terrorist activity preceding the Raids, and on a larger scale, to preserve the heritage of a historic neighborhood of New York City."

• At Cthulhu: "House on the Borderland, parts 20 and 21" by William Hope Hodgson.  Horror.
     No description

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 08 - The Beasts of Tarzan" Adventure.
     "Tarzan has fallen into Rokoff’s trap. Pursuing the Russian, Tarzan has left his comrades behind to forge ahead. He comes to a tribe of cannibals who report that Rokoff is a day ahead of them"

• At LibriVox: "Jewels of Gwahlur" by Robert E. Howard. Fantasy.
     "Conan The Barbarian is after fabulous treasure in this exciting story. But he finds himself in more difficulties than he had counted on. Crafty and powerful human opponents seek to skin him alive, bestial mutations seek to rip his arms off, denizens of the deep want to devour him whole and scantily clad dusky beauties try to waylay him at every step."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sense of the Circle" by Angélica Gorodischer. Science Fiction.
     Described Above.

• At Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: "Lost Waters" by Kreg Steppe.
     "Daniel Pleasant, agent of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, is assigned to the United States of America to track down some missing items from the Archives. Pleasant is partnered up with a clankerton from the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical (O.S.M.) Elijah Paxton, and together the two set off to track the missing Archive items, their power rumoured to be able to bend time and space itself."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "Adventure’s Heart" by Albert Dorrington. Adventure.
      "A curiously carved throne of sandalwood stood at the far end of the chamber, its highly polished sides glinting with innumerable pearls inset. Above the throne gleamed a naked skull." - First published in Top-Notch, May 1, 1922.

• At Slected Shorts: "Expect the Unexpected"
     "Guest host Neil Gaiman presents tales with surprises. Jane Yolen’s “The Babysitter” is a contemporary Gothic with a twist; James Thurber’s classic “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” introduces a milquetoast with attitude; Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” anticipated our media driven lives; and Thurber’s “The Wood Duck” seems to have nine lives."

• At Toasted Cake: "Don't Look Down" by Anatoly Belilovsky.
     "A whistling in my ears: wind. It's called wind. I'm flying, flying in the wind, under the blue that's called the sky, toward the brown that's called the ground. I feel it push my hands, my legs, my face. I feel a weight against my back."


Other Genres

• Audio at The Way of the Buffalo: "The Chase" by Ken Liu. Surreal. Flash.
• Audio at Crime City Central: "Oedipus Shrugged" by Copper Smith.
• Audio at Every Day Fiction: "Twist Twist Shake" by E.M.Pearson. Suspense. Flash.
• Fiction at The New Yorker: "The Judge’s Will" by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Love Is All Around" by Raine.

Great Free Genre Fiction

More great freebies including, Comics, Audio Fiction and good old-fashioned text fiction.  And in case you missed it, be sure to check out yesterday's Wizard of Id for a droll pop culture fantasy reference.




[Art for "The Crystal Ray" by Raymond Gallum in audio fiction below]




Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Sing" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction. 1987.
     "Well, I’d never heard the word 'sing' before and I told him so. He kinda frowned and said it was the only word he couldn’t find a translation for. That word and a couple others he called 'related,' as if words could share blood like people do."

• At The Black Gate "The Sealord’s Successor” Part I and Part II by Aaron Bradford Starr. Fantasy.
     "This minor discomfort (which grew steadily less minor as the journey continued) served admirably to distract me from the terrifying drops and bottomless chasms to which we traveled so close. A single slip by one of our runners could send us plummeting, but Gloren and Yr Neh seemed quite unconcerned. How brave they were! But perhaps they knew what to expect of the Otrock Line."

• At The Colored Lens: "Eight of Swords – Part 2" by Darja Malcolm-Clarke. Speculative Fiction.
     "After class, she gave Chris an excuse about studying for the next day’s chemistry test so she wouldn’t meet him in town. He peered at her as if trying to detect animosity in her. But she had sealed herself off from him, as she always did when they got this way; she wouldn’t let him know anything, despite his claim that he was able to read her."

• At Cosmos: "Soul Song" by Frankie Seymour. Science Fiction.
     "Antarctica itself is still pretty spectacular, even with so much of the snow and permafrost gone. Valleys and vast plains of newly seeded green – not planted by humans; nature has done it all by herself."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Gullible Georgina Agravaine" by Michael J Greenhut.
     "The sheriff asked me to believe that a telephone call turned Georgina Agravaine into a werewolf. Evidently, the caller suggested that she might be one, and that's when the trouble started."

• At Lightspeed: "Three Days of Rain" by Holly Phillips.Science Fiction.
     "They came down out of the buildings’ shade into the glare of the lakeside afternoon. Seen through the sting of sun-tears, the bridge between Asuada and Maldino Islands wavered in the heat, white cement floating over white dust, its shadow a black sword-cut against the ground."

• At Lightspeed: "The Bolt Tightener" by Sarena Ulibarri. Fantasy.
    “There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.”

• At Strange Horizons: "Town's End" by Yukimi Ogawa. Speculative Fiction.
       "For five years in the city I worked as a receptionist at an English language school, where I had to deal with countless, groundless complaints and had developed a Noh-mask on my face devoid of any real expression. But even that was nothing to fight against this."

E-Book Shorts
At Smashwords:

• "Mother Goose: An Empire Falls" by Chris Van Dyk. 3k words. Fantasy.
• "Goldilocks: Blonde Assassin" by Chris Van Dyk. 3k words. Fantasy. 
• "What Neither Star nor Sun Shall Waken: A Sci-Fi Horror Story" by Ryan Notch. 5k words.
• "The Future" by Eric Guindon. 11k words. Science Fiction.

Flash Fiction

• At Quantum Muse: "Ambition" by Harris Tobias.
• At Strange Horizons: "Bang" by Stefon Mears. Speculative Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Almost Human" by George R. Shirer. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "The Bolt Tightener" by Sarena Ulibarri. Fantasy.
     Described Above.

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Crystal Ray" by Raymond Gallum. Science Fiction.
      "From the bow of one of America’s ships a beam of bluish light stabbed out and struck an enemy craft. It passed thru the vessel as tho it had been made of glass instead of thousands of tons of steel." - first published in Air Wonder Stories, November, 1929.

• At Strange Horizons: "Town's End" by Yukimi Ogawa. Speculative Fiction.
     Described Above.

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: The Wizard of Oz Children's Fantasy. 1956. In four parts.
• At Four-Color Shadows: "The Haunter" Horror. 1952.
• At The Horrors of It All: "Death by Inches!" Horror. 1952.
• At The Horrors of It All: "The Hunter Who Became the Hunted!" Horror. 1952.
• At Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "The Cannibal Monster of the Pigmy Planet" Sci-Fi. 1940.

Other Genres

• Audio at Ellery Queen: "Some People Deserve to Die" by Dave Zeltserman. Mystery.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Apple Season" by Ruth Schiffmann.
• Fiction at The New Yorker: "Kattekoppen" by Will Mackin.

Friday Part Two

 A few more good free fiction links. Will have more posts this weekend and try to get caught up on E-Books and Comics.





Fiction
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Copper and Steel" by Lynette Mejia.
      "She found him in the middle of an abandoned trash dump, rummaging through discarded radiator coils and old engine parts. For a while she simply watched him, picking slowly through the junk, examining a piece of something before tossing it over his shoulder. His left arm hung useless at his side, though based on the lack of compensatory dexterity with his right, it hadn't been that way for long."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Tattered Veil" by D. J. Barber. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "For The One Who Has Everything" by Xauri’EL Zwaan. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Pseudopod: "Wings" by Nathaniel Lee. Horror.
     "Fresh wails assault my ears as I leave the cell and haul the rusty door shut. The lock clicks. I wonder briefly if anyone still has the key. Well, the witch can sort it out if she wants to. I’m too tired to care. I see the witch, standing two cells down. She seems hesitant. ‘It’s very… damp,’ she remarks."

•  At Tales to Terrify: Show No 61. Horror.
     “Horseman” by Renee Hall and “We Can’t Dance Together” by Copper Smith.

Other Genres

• Audio at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Man Who Knew Too Much" 5 of 8 by G.K. Chesterton.
• Fiction at Author's Site: "Little Miracles" by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Detective. Cats.

Happy Holidays

We have found some great freebies for you this Christmas Eve.  As always there's an eclectic selection of genres and formats so there should be something for virtually everyone.

As some of the more observant readers may have noticed, there is a new "gadget" on the right hand called QD Radio.  Here we will stream classic genre old time radio and modern readings of public domain stories. Today it's Ray Bradbury's classic story "Mars is Heaven" adapted by the classic radio program Escape.  These will change almost daily.



[Art for Islands of Space in Audio Fiction]




Fiction
• At Electric Velocipede: "Glass Boxes and Clockwork Gods" by Damien Walters Grintalis.
     "When the one in red gives up and screams, no one makes a sound. We turn our faces away or rest our foreheads against the glass and wait. It won’t take long. Big is quick with the remaking. In between the screams, sharp snaps punctuate the air with exclamation points of splintered bone and leaking marrow."

• At Interstellar Fiction: "Alms Race" by Deborah Walker. Science Fiction.
     "Erin felt in her pocket and pulled out a ten-euro coin. She tossed it into the newman’s plate, which was already primed with a couple of euros and what looked like a very old, very green fifty pence piece."

• At L5R: "Scenes from the Empire" by Robert Denton & Seth Mason. Fantasy. Samurai.
      "Asako Jirou walked through the bustling movement of TwinForksCity, peasants and samurai alike parting quickly as the shugenja strode by. The man wasn’t certain if it was the mark denoting his status as an Inquisitor that inspired such behavior, or the Crane’s generally friendly attitude towards the Phoenix, but he didn’t much care."

• At Mindflights: "Beyond the Sky" by Lily Best. Fantasy.
     "It’s not that bad, really.  I just have to take some extra precautions…like double-checking under my bed for the things that really do live there.  In general, I’ve learned the best strategy is to avoid people.  Nothing is more unnerving and revealing than seeing the kind of things that a person attracts."

• At The WiFiles: "The Reluctant Soul" By Tala Bar.
     "Hassida the Stork felt frustrated. The man lying on the bed was almost dead – but almost, since his Soul refused to leave the inanimated body. That Soul was destined to go to a newborn baby, and it was the Stork’s task to take it there, but Hassida had no power over the Soul as long as it was still attached to the body, and what was she to do?"

Serial Fiction
• At Author's site: "Thieves' Honor - Episode 21 The Rescuers, Part 2" by Keanan Brand
     "I'm an engineer. I invent things. I maintain things." Through dusty glasses, Alerio stared at the expanse of desert, his face as forlorn as that of any mariner forced to travel without his ship. "I'm not supposed to sweat."

• At Author's site: "Kat and Mouse: Ties That Bind" - Part One" by Abner Senires.
      "Revell, the burly and bearded owner, was restocking the liquor bottles that lined the mirrored back counter. Mouse, my partner and fellow ronin, was perched on a bar stool, working over a plate piled with breakfast pastries."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Hades Hotline" by Alex Petri. 
• At Quantum Muse: "Project Holmes" by Patrick Wiley.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Pan-Galactic Travel Agency" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #11" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "Quentin gets the best birthday present he never knew he wanted. An unexpected conflict  on the Hypatia, Quentin's yacht, threatens to change the entire season before it even begins."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs:  "Episode 13 - The Return of Tarzan"
       "Traveling by steamer down the west coast of Africa towards Cape Town, Tarzan has made fast friends with Hazel Strong, Jane Porter’s best friend. Unfortunately, Nicholas Rokoff is on board disguised as Monsieur Thuran."


• At LibriVox: "Phantoms of Reality" by Ray Cummings. Science Fiction.
      "Red Sensua's knife came up dripping—and the two adventurers knew that chaos and bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy kingdom of the fourth dimension." from Astounding, January, 1930.

• At LibriVox: "Islands of Space" by John W. Campbell. Science Fiction.
    "As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...." (1956).

• At Toasted Cake: "Bad Elf" by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn.
      "They tried to give me other jobs more suitable to my gifts, like reindeer euthanasia technician and pest exterminator."

Comics

• At Digital Comics Museum: Saäri #01 Adventure (1951)
• At Digital Comics Museum: Amazing Mystery Funnies #21 Some Sci-Fi. (195X)
• At Digital Comics Museum: Black Magic #19. Horror. (1952)
• At Heroines: Cave Girl "Shadow-God of Korchak" Adventure. (1953)
• At The Horrors of It All: "Demons of the Sun" Horror. (1952)
• At Seduction of the Innocent: "Santa's Claws" Horror. (1970).

Other Genres

• Audio at Crime City Central: "Grammar Got Run Over by a Reindeer" by E E Kennedy.
• Audio at LibriVox: "Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland" by William Gershom Collingwood. YA Adventure.
• Audio at 19 Nocturne Boulevard: Brown Monkey's "A Very Sherman Bear Christmas"
• Fiction at Author's Site: "Canopy" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Holiday.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Gift" by Mysti Parker.

Tuesday Frrebies

Even more good free reading than usual. There's new fiction at several great sites including the always awesome Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, etc. And there's some quite good audio fiction too!  And Don;t miss
Regan Wulfrom's Free Fiction links at SF Signal (And be sure to say hi to poor Regan )

[art for Kelly Link's "Catskin" linked below]




Fiction
• At AE: "Roadkill Joe" by Milo James Fowler. Scuience Fiction.
      "Roadkill Joe is a very old soul — Can’t die cuz he’s a freak!"

• At Author's Site: "Boz" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "Boz got his job on the colony ship The Beautiful Dreamer because he’s a competent introvert. He enjoys the fact that he’s spending years completely alone, monitoring the passengers passing the time in cold sleep. So when he wakes up one morning to Christmas carols, he gets scared. Very scared."

• At The Colored Lens: "The Wreck of the Emerald Sky – Part 2" by Sean Monaghan. Speculative Fiction.
      "He caught a loop and slipped up against the wall. It was a low thrust, perhaps five percent of a standard gee. Maneuvering thrusters."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "He Could Be Ambrose Bierce" by Shaenon Kelty Garrity.
     "On August 6, 1930," said Mona, "Justice Joseph Crater stepped into a taxi in New York City and was never seen again."

• At Interstellar Fiction: "Shuffle Town" by T. D. Edge. Science Fiction.
      "Rain lent some romance to the light blazing from the psycho-change tower above Reception but her heart trembled like a hamster away from its cage, even though she’d expected that."

• At Lightspeed: "Catskin" by Kelly Link. Fantasy.
      "Cats went in and out of the witch’s house all day long. The windows stayed open, and the doors, and there were other doors, cat-sized and private, in the walls and up in the attic. The cats were large and sleek and silent. No one knew their names, or even if they had names, except for the witch."

•  At Lightspeed: "Dreams in Dust" by D. Thomas Minton. Science Fiction.
     "The arrival of the dust-covered girl caught Keraf by surprise. The girl’s slender face, sun-beaten to a deep brown, blended seamlessly into the cloth wrapped around her head. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, but she wielded her rifle with ease."

• At Strange Horizons: "Wing" by Amal El-Mohtar. Speculative Fiction.
       "She reads—not the book around her neck, which is small, only as long and as wide as her thumb, black cord threaded through a sewn leather spine, knotted shut."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Selections from Lives of Notorious Cooks" by Brendan Connell.
     "and then she became pregnant and gave birth to a child, but, being frightened of her father’s reaction to such an occurrence, left it in a field where it was eaten by dogs and so Apollo became angry and sent a demon dog called Poine to Argos."

• Now Posted: Yellow Mama #35. Horror. Noir.

• "Baby Boy" by AJ Hayes.
• "Like a Boss" by Michelle Ann King 
• "Santa's Crack" by Richard Godwin
• "The Flag" by Diana Ferraro 
• "Modraniht:A Fairy Tale" by Mike Kerins 
• "Holly Jolly" by Christopher Grant
• "Trimming the Tree" by Kenneth James Crist 
• "A Little Scotch Will Help" by D. S. Jones
• "The Naughty List" by Earl & Paul Dick 
• "As Filthy as the Night Is Long" by Basil Rosa 
• "Small Bites" by Chris Rhatigan 
• "On the Interstate" by Kip Hanson 
• "Ten Months" by Mark Hendry 
• "Out of Juice" by Cindy Rosmus 
• "The Night's Rainbow" by Ali Znaidi 
• "The Hounds Within My Property" & "Lonely" by ayaz daryl nielsen 
• "Apricots, Figs & In This Room" by Lyn Lifshin 
• "Sandy & Winnie" by Meg Baird
• "Facts about Bones & More than Oxygen" by Christopher Hivner 
• "Rare Days & Teardrop" by Marc Carver.

Flash Fiction

• At Flashes in the Dark: "Ovidia’s Metamorphosis" by Patricia Court. Horror.
• At Strange Horizons: "End Times" by Sarah Terry. Speculative Poetry.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Tariff" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "Dreams in Dust" by D. Thomas Minton. Science Fiction.
      Described above.

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Warp'd Stories #3, Top Story, Chapter 4" by Julie Hoverson.
       "Sometimes a wing man is a bad thing. And sometimes inviting a new friend up for food just means dinner."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: “The Tree of Life” Part 2 of 2. by C. L. Moore. Science Fiction.
      "A queer, penetrating light shining upon his closed eyes roused Smith by degrees into wakefulness again. He lifted heavy lids and stared upward into the unwinking eye of Mars’ racing nearer moon. He lay there blinking dazedly for a while before enough of memory returned to rouse him. Then he sat up painfully, for every fiber of him ached, and stared round on a scene of the wildest destruction."

• At Toasted Cake: "Anything Chocolate" by Caren Gussoff.
     "No description found"

Other Genres

• Audio Fiction at Bound Off: "Our Trip to the Moon" by Bob Thurber and "Driving Lesson" by Natasha Fish.
• Audio Fiction at Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine:  "A Good Man of Business" by David Ingram. Mystery.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Wasteland Gallery" by Chris Schramm. Literary.

C.L. Moore and Other Great Free Fiction

It's a rather good day for free fiction already with seven free fiction stories, five flash fiction stories, four audio fiction stories (including part one of a classic by C.L Moore), and a partridge in a pear tree. Oops, I mean an "other genre" story from The New Yorker, guess the season is getting to me. Very likely more later with a link or two swiped from my now elderly arch-enemy Regan Wolfrom.


[Disturbing art from Lightspeed, linked below]



Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Ghosts of Christmas Present" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Horror.
      "Fog, thick and old, smelling of saltwater and decayed dreams, rolled in off the ocean. The streetlights shone yellow in the dampness. A cat hiding in the enclosed stairway leading into the bakery hissed as Michela passed."

• At The Colored Lens: "The Wreck of the Emerald Sky – Part 1" by Sean Monaghan. Speculative Fiction.
      " The painted readout on the armature above her head was all blue. She was sleeping normally. He went in and pulled the sheets up over her, staring at her face for a moment. So sweet and angelic. How had five years turned this bubbly academic elementary school achiever into a semi-suicidal wreck?"

• At Lightspeed: "Family Teeth (Part 5): American Jackal" by J.T. Petty. Fantasy.
     “My dad just won the lottery, nine thousand dollars. Probably be half that after taxes, but he wants me to come home and help him spend it. Shit. Take a lot more money than that to get me back East.”

• At Lightspeed: "Swanwatch" by Yoon Ha Lee. Science Fiction.
      "Officially, the five exiles on the station were the Initiates of the Fermata. Unofficially, the Concert of Worlds called them the swanwatch."

• At Night Shade Books: "Invisible Men" by Christopher Barzak.
      "She said he was an “ex-peer-i-ment-al in-vest-i-gat-or, don’t you know?”  And lucky for me, I don’t catch her looking at me much, so I rolled my eyes at myself in the glass I was cleaning, then set it up on its shelf with my eyes rolling in its surface for a long time after."

• At Strange Horizons: "America Thief (Part 2 of 2)" by Alter S. Reiss.Speculative Fiction.
      "I couldn't get into that house when it was empty, because it was never empty. If I had a month to work, something might have come up that got everyone out. Or I could have come up with a trick that'd get them out of the house. But I didn't have a month. I had two more days, maximum."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Headstone In Your Pocket" by Paul Tremblay.
     "Two agents pin the driver against the truck’s chrome grille. He yells, claiming the hot chrome burns his skin. The agents don’t care, don’t say anything, and handcuff him. The smuggler is priority one. The cargo can wait."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Merger"by Michael Adam Robson.
• At Every Day Fiction: "Synonym of Discovery" by Jabez Crisp. Science Fiction.
• At Innsmouth Free Press: "Dead End in December" by Bryan Thao Worra. Horror Poem.
• At Strange Horizons: "The Beetle Horde" by James Valvis. Speculative Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Caveat Ereptor" by Patricia Stewart. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At LibriVox: "Tom Swift and His Sky Racer" by Victor Appleton. Early Speculative Fiction.
     "A $10,000 prize lures Tom into competing at a local aviation meet at Eagle Park. Tom is determined to build the fastest plane around, but his plans mysteriously disappear, which means Tom must redesign his new airplane from the beginning."

• At Lightspeed: "Family Teeth (Part 5): American Jackal" by J.T. Petty. Fantasy.
      Described above

• At PodCastle: "Miniature 74: The Book" by Lavie Tidhar. Fantasy.
      "There is a bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London and it’s never open. Its windows are covered in a thick film of dust and spiders grow webbed cities in its darkness. There are books inside that no-one’s ever read; books that human eyes had never seen, books where black ink spells secrets on black paper, books written in darkness that cannot be read in the light."

• At Protecting Planet Pulp: "The Tree of Life" Part One by C. L. Moore.Science Fiction.
      "There was neither food nor water in these ancient Martian ruins, and Northwest Smith knew that it could be only a matter of time before the urgencies of his own body would drive him out to signal those wheeling Patrol ships and trade his hard-won liberty for food and drink. He crouched lower under the shadow of the temple arch and cursed the accuracy of the Patrol gunner whose flame-blast had caught his dodging ship just at the edge of Illar’s ruins."
 
Other Genres
Fiction at The New Yorker: "A Voice in the Night" by Steven Millhause.

Lightspeed and More Great Free Fiction.

There's some very good free fantasy, science fiction, and horror fiction today, including stories from Lightspeed and Nightshade Books, a simultaneously posted story at The World SF Blog and Weird Fiction Review, and many more.  And don't miss this week's Protecting Project Pulp, which is in the other genres category. Special Thanks to the honorable Sir Regan Wolfrom for the heads up on a couple stories. More tonight or tomorrow.

[Art from "La Alma Perdida de Marguerite Espinoza" in fiction and audio fiction]


Fiction
At Author's Site: "Well-Chosen Words" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Alternate history.
     "The Gettysburg Address has become an authoritative expression of the American spirit—as authoritative as the Declaration [of Independence] itself, and perhaps even more influential, since it determines how we read the Declaration"

At Daily Science Fiction: "Since You Seem to Need a Certain Amount of Guidance" by Alexander Jablokov.
       "Thank you for your query. Violating the laws of physics in that way was quite enterprising, and we feel you deserve a reply. Just don't do it again."

At Lightspeed: "Ace 167 " by Eleanor Arnason. Science Fiction.
     "It was after I lost my job as the manager of a traveling troupe of precision unicyclists that I met Ace 167. I was down and out in a bar in Venusport, my last credit gone to buy cheap Venusian wine. The jukebox was playing an old, tinny-sounding Beatles tune"

At Lightspeed: "La Alma Perdida de Marguerite Espinoza" by Jeremiah Tolbert. Fantasy.
     "He had falsely predicted her passing four times in the past three days, but the passing was unmistakable. As Maestro Eusebio had said many times, “When the moment comes, you will know.” And he did."

At Nightshade Books: "Holmes Sherlock: A Hwarhath Mystery" by Eleanor Arnason. Science Fiction.
      "She did not translate military information, since that was done by hwarhath men in space. Nor did she translate technical information, since she lacked the requisite technical knowledge. Instead, she translated human fiction."

At The World SF Blog: "Brita’s Holiday Village" by Karin Tidbeck. Horror.
At Weird Fiction Review: "Brita’s Holiday Village" by Karin Tidbeck. Horror.
      "The cab ride from Åre station to Aunt Brita’s holiday village took about half an hour. I’m renting the cottage on the edge of the village that’s reserved for relatives. The rest are closed for summer. Mum helped me make the reservation—Brita’s her aunt, really, not mine, and they’re pretty close. Yes, I’m thirty-two years old. Yes, I’m terrible at calling people I don’t know."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "Damsels and Distress" by Kat Otis. Fantasy.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Room With a View" By David Elliott. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Who’s Better, Who’s Best" by Steve Smith. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
At Lightspeed: "La Alma Perdida de Marguerite Espinoza" by Jeremiah Tolbert. Fantasy.

At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft, adapted by Julie Hoverson. Horror.
     "An American returns to the family's ancestral home in England, only to discover that heredity can be terrifying."

Old Time Radio

• At Relic Radio: "The Old Die Rich" - Tales Of Tomorrow. Science Fiction. 1953.
• At SFFAudio: "The Grove Of Ashtaroth" - Escape. Horror.

Other Genres

• Audio at LibriVox: Kipps by H.G. Wells.
• Audio at Protecting Project Pulp: "Hide-Away" by H. A. DeRosso. Noir.
• Audio at Tales of Old: "The Jungle & Ex-Con Man" Historical Fiction.
• Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Golden Bough (Vol. 2 of 2) by Sir James George Frazer, Mythology.

Free Fiction In a Landslide! Pundits Baffled, but Pleased.

Today's a great day for free fiction. There are a couple new stories at Lightspeed, a short story by Bram Stoker and Nebula award winning author Nina Kiriki Hoffman at Strange Horizons, a new issue of Sorcerous Signals, and more great free written and flash fiction.  Don't miss the free audio fiction, including a Manly Wade Wellman story that was originally published in Weird Tales, and a new PodCastle miniature. There's a classic dramitization of a Ray Bradbury story and a couple interesting "other genres" items. There  a new free fiction listing at SF Signal  (please send poor Regan some coffee, caffeine deprivation is a serious mental health issue) And finally, some great free audio fiction news, Strange Horizons will begin  free fiction podcasts in 2013 (Huzzah!).

[Art for "As the Wheel Turns" at Lightspeed]

Fiction
At AE: "The Pack" by Matt Moore. Science Fiction. 
      "There is another complication. Each man was injected with a unique nanite model. Each man now hosts an identical hybrid model which appears to be the result of cross-contamination and replication."

At Daily Science Fiction: "Just Today" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
       "My best friend, Ben, is dead. We still hang. Not too many other people can see or hear him--just little kids and animals, and an occasional weirdo, so Ben is kind of stuck with me, which works for me"

At Lightspeed: "Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald. Science Fiction.
       "A slip, slide, falling through icy coldness, white noise like TV static. A breeze of hot buttery popcorn. Giddy laughter, sweaty bodies, fanfare music over the intercom, and what’s this? A ten-foot-wide movie poster of young, pale, undernourished Carrie Fisher, posed seductively in a gold metal bikini with a collar and chain around her neck."

At Lightspeed:  "As the Wheel Turns" by Aliette de Bodard. Fantasy.
       "In the Tenth Court of Hell stands the Wheel of Rebirth. Its spokes are of red lacquered wood; it creaks as demons pull it, dragging its load of souls back into the world. And before the Wheel stands the Lady."

At Strange Horizons: "Four Kinds of Cargo" by Leonard Richardson. Speculative Fiction.
       "The Captain had spent her childhood watching bad native-language dubs of those same epics, except the implication that all this stuff was fiction had been lost in translation. When she came of age, the Captain (probably not her birth name) had bought Sour Candy with Mommy's money, hired a crew, and declared herself a smuggler."

At Weird Fiction Review: "Xebico" by Stephen Graham Jones.
      "I had my Library Science degree in one hand, a beer constantly in the other. Officially, I was taking a post-graduation break before entering the rat race. Just catching my breath before putting my soul on the auction block, all that. Unofficially, two of the three professors I’d asked for recs were putting me off."

At Weird Fiction Review: "The Night Wire" by H.F. Arnold. 1926.
      "There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore – they’re your next-door neighbors after the street lights go dim and the world has gone to sleep."

Now Posted: the Nov '12 - Jan '13 Issue of Sorcerous Signals.

"Cycle of Justice" by Charles Kyffhausen.
"The unquiet spirit didn't know her effort to save her kinswoman would avenge her own death."
"Dead Girl's Sphinx" by Bernise Marie D. Carolino. Flash Fiction
"Dusting Pixie" by Margaret L Carter.
"Beware of accepting favors from magical creatures, even cute ones."
"To the Empty Castle of My Queen I Came" by W. Luke Hamel. Poetry.
"The Genetic Menagerie" by Mary E Lowd.
"Two cops chase down a rogue scientist, leading them to the fantastical world he's built with genetic engineering."
"Inner Mind's Pyramid" by M. K. A. Marble.
"When Gregor and his hired hands join Dr. Bloigh on an expedition to Giza to excavate an undiscovered pyramid, they find themselves confronted by an ancient Egyptian demon and a cursed sorceress."
"Spare Me" by Jerome Brooke.
"Osirus rules his world as Satrap of the Empire. He recoils in horror as his minions are loosed on the rebels who dare defy the power of the Imperium."
"They Called Me Red Hood" by Kelda Crich. Poetry.
"When Wizards Clashed" by Richard H Fay. Poetry.

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Hunter" by Ed Kratz. Fantasy.
• At Stange Horizons: "The Murder of Dionysos" by Florence Major. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "And Yet, It Moves" by Susan Nance Carhart. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
At Lightspeed: "Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald. Science Fiction.

At PodCastle: Miniature 73 "Sugar Skulls" by Samantha Henderson. Fantasy.
     "Yesterday was the first of November, the Día de los Angelitos, and Abuela and Ramon and the neighborhood kids made the altar for the children." 

At Protecting Project Pulp:  "The Golgotha Dancers” by Manly Wade Wellman. Weird.
     "Hung over my own fireplace, it looked as large and living as a scene glimpsed through a window or, perhaps, on a stage in a theater. The capering pink bodies caught new lights from my lamp, lights that glossed and intensified their shape and color but did not reveal any new details. I pored once more over the cryptic legend: I sold my soul that I might paint a living picture."

At Toasted Cake: "Biding Time" by Beth Cato. Speculative Fiction.
     "What is closure? How do you close a door if the house has burned to ashes?"

Old Time Radio
At Relic Radio: NBC Short Story "The Rocket" by Ray Bradbury. Science Fiction.

Other Genres

• Fiction at Author's Site:  "Updates" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Mystery. 2000.
• Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg: Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E.M. Berens. 1880.

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Kuttner, Laumer, Rambo, Rusch, and other Greatness

Some great free stuff today! There's some good free fiction, including short story by the couple of my favorite active writers Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Cat Rambo (even though I always picture a calico with a bandanna and an M60, Rambo is an excellent writer).  There's great audio fiction, including new readings of classic Kuttner and Laumer stories, e-books, and flash fiction. And finally, there's a new issue of the free gaming 'zine Frontier Explorer, which provides today's art.

And despite what you may have heard at SF Signal (one of the best sites out there), perfection only exists at the sites linked to, never here.


Fiction
At Aurora Wolf:  "An Apple a Day" by Harmony Melbourne. Fantasy.
      Patti May kept her eyes on her work. “Don’t know why. She’s a hypocrite. She helped them kill us. Don’t know how anyone could live with themselves after that.”

At Author's Site: "Dread Unlocks" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  Horror. (Up until next Monday)
     "In Los Angeles, everyone knows Ms. Tarbell dispels dread. She finds an amazing amount of it in that sunlight-filled city, but nothing like the unnamed horror she faces on her current case."

At Daily Science Fiction: "The Number Two Rule" by Lesley L. Smith.
     "Still looking out the window, I nodded. It was okay if I didn't say anything, right? I heard the liquid stream into the cup."

 At L5R: "Scenes from the Empire" by Robert Denton & Seth Mason. Fantasy vignettes.
      "My own days of late have been filled with the conflict my clan faces. The Mantis pursue their agenda of avarice and chaos despite the honor of our claims and destruction they cause."

Now Posted: The Red Penny Papers Vol. 3 No. 1 [via SF Signal]
“A Connection to Beyond” by Cat Rambo.
     “The editor writes that he believes it is the innocence of their hearts allowing them this great gift.” Papa was silent, studying me. Then, with hesitation in his voice he said, “You never hear noises you can’t explain, do you, Jenny?”
“Breathing Room” by Jamie Mason.
     "Willy uses a hose to siphon bootleg oxygen from the condo into the VW microbus he shares with Moo. This is a dangerous operation, not so much for them as for the Yuppies infesting the newly-built facility."
“Fearsome Critters and Friendly Giants” by M. Bennardo.
      "Yes, spring had returned to the Michigan North Woods, but Paul Bunyan had not. Instead, there was a barge at the Lake Superior landing with six brand-new, bright red Overpack horse-drawn logging wheels."
“Crossroads and Carousels” by Alan Baxter.
      "Mark Cooper lay under a light sheet, wishing a breeze would blow in through the open window. Not a breath stirred the curtains and the hot night lay heavy like a shroud."
“The Extravagant and Venturesome Lives of Woman Pyrates” by Katy Gunn.
     "Our pockets full of elephant teeth, gold-dust, lamp tassels, and rat pellets, we leap about the decks of our new plundered galley, the Whidaw."

Flash Fiction
At Every Day Fiction: "10 Things To Do in Los Angeles After You Die" by Emily C. Skaftun. Horror.
At Flashes in the Dark: "The Tattered Man" by Michael A. Kechula. Horror.
At Mindflights: "The Hollow Man - an alphabet" Fantasy. Poem.
At 365 Tomorrows: "Curiosity" by Daniel. Science Fiction.

 E-Books
 At Free eBooks Daily:

• Madam Chang's Red Dragon Saloon by Angeline Hawkes . Western. Horror.
• Here Lies Death by Harlan Vaughn. Fantasy.
• Dragon Time and Other Stories by Ruth Nestvold. Fantasy Short Stories.
• Ice Age by Iain Rowan. Horror Short Stories.
• Journeys of Wonder Volume 1 by Ian Kezsbom. Science Fiction Short Stories.
• Speed Dating with the Dead by Scott Nicholson. Horror.
• Brood by Lars Guignard. Horror.

Via Pixel of Ink:

• Blood Like Poison: For the Love of a Vampire by M. Leighton. Paranormal.
• Branded (Fall of Angels) by Keary Taylor.  Paranormal.
• Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter by Troy Tradup.  Horror.

 At Smashwords:

• "Lady Sarafina vs the Lawn" by Madison Keller. Fantasy. 4k.
• "Ever Shade (A Dark Faerie Tale #1)" by Alexia Purdy. YA Fantasy. 74k.
• "The Keening" by Keith Gapinski. Paranormal. 3k.
• "The Trick or Treat Door" by Shondra Snodderly. Paranormal. 1k.
• "The Exorcist's Assistant" by R.G. Taark. 12k.
• "Yarn" by Tony Crumpton. Horror. 2k.
• "Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradisio" by Jeff Vrolyks. Horror. 30k.
• "A Light in the Merced River" by Libbie Hawker. Steampunk. 5k.
• "Sons of Nowhere: Strange and Unusual" by Nicholas Almand. Science Fiction. 10k.
• "Alex Kaidan S01E01: Paradise Lost" by Darren Hoyland. Science Fiction. 15k.
• Broad Spectrum: The 2012 Broad Universe Fiction Sampler. Fantasy. Science Fiction. 49k.

Audio Fiction
At Author's Site:  "Lovestory" Part Two by James Patrick Kelly. Science Fiction.
    "first published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"

At Drabblecast: "The People of Sand and Slag " by  Paolo Bacigalupi. Science Fiction.
     "'Hostile movement! Well inside the perimeter! Well inside!' I stripped off my Immersive Response goggles as adrenaline surged through me. The virtual cityscape I’d been about to raze disappeared, replaced by our monitoring room’s many views of SesCo’s mining operations."

At Dunesteef:  "CHEMO: The Pieces Of Erica Smith" by J.M. Perkins. Horror. Zombies.
     "It’s only been two months since Agent Joseph faced masses of zombies while locked inside of a prison. Now, he has a new mission. This one is so big that half of all CHEMO is being mobilized."

At LibriVox: "Gambler's World & The Yillian Way" by Keith Laumer. Science Fiction.
     "Here are two stores starring the always unconventional Terrestrial Diplomat, Retief. As a diplomat, Retief does not always follow procedure. Well the truth is that he almost never follows procedure but somehow his wit and strength manage to salvage most situations from the bumbling of his superiors"

At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Luella Miller" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Horror.
      "Close to the village street stood the one-story house in which Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt. She had been dead for years, yet there were those in the village who, in spite of the clearer light which comes on a vantage-point from a long-past danger, half believed in the tale which they had heard from their childhood."

At 19 Nocturne Boulevard:  "The Shunned House" by H. P. Lovecraft. Horror.

     classic Lovecraft story adapted as an audio drama.

At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Dead Wet Chicks" (Fatal Girl, episode 4). Horror.

      "A serial killer in a remote town raise suspicions, and bring the team to investigate."

At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Baby Love" (Fatal Girl, episode 3). Horror.

      "Following a vision, Chiyoko, Alice, and Ken (minus the wounded Hyde) find themselves facing a hideous monster in the guise of the most innocent of things..."

At Protecting Project Pulp: “Raiders of the Spaceways” by Henry Kuttner. Science Fiction.
     "A warning throb came from the televisor. Kenworth sprang to the door, flung it open. Against the gray clouds, dim in the rain, a black oval grew larger—the collection ship, swiftly descending. And within it—Thona Trenton and the Raider!"

Gaming
 At DriveThruRPG: Frontier Explorer - Issue 2.
      "The Frontier Explorer is a fan supported and run magazine dedicated to science fiction role playing games and fiction. In its pages you will find optional rule systems, equipment, encounters, and more for various RPGs as well as fiction contributed by our authors and the community."

 Other  Genres
At Project Gutenberg: Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland by T. Crofton Crocker. Non-Fiction. 1844.

More Is Better Than Less

 A bonus links post today, with some more good free stuff.





Fiction and E-Books
At Author's Site: “Dark Rides” by Rachel Caine. Horror. [Via SF Signal]
     "There’s something deeply creepy about an unlit Ferris wheel in the dark. It looks like the skeletal remains of something large that once rolled across the earth scooping up screaming victims in its buckety jaws"
At Author's Site: "Pandora’s Box: A Spade/Paladin Conundrum" by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch. (until 23 Oct. 2012). Mystery.
      “I think we should call the bomb squad,” said Phil, the youngest, thinnest member of con security, so thin I had no idea how anyone could ever feel threatened by him. He was new.
 At Mad Scientist Journal: "Coda" by Eryk Pruitt. Science Fiction.  [Via SF Signal]
     "The specimen is Sam Tuley, chosen not just for his overzealous sex drive, penchant for alcohol and violence, and inability to make the most of a second chance, but rather because, try as he might, he will forever be damned to a hospital bed with tubes going in and out of him."

At Free eBooks Daily:

• Deadlocked by A.R. Wise. Horror. Zombies.
• Darkhouse by Karina Halle. YA Horror.
• The Burning City by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Fantasy.
• Hellbender by Jason Jack Miller. Fantasy/Horror.
• Everard by Chautona Havig . Fantasy.

Via Pixel of Ink:

• Dreams Unleashed by Linda Hawley. Near Future SF.
• Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula by Elise Stoke. YA Adventure.

At Smashwords:

• "Buck Johnson: Dragon Wrangler" by Wyatt McLaren. Fantasy. 4k.
• "Emily Dickinson, Superhero - Vol. 1, Episode 1 - Tomb and Graves" by Eric Nixon. 37k.
• "Magician Number One (Grin the Cheat #3)" by V Moody. Fantasy. 10k.
• "Erth" by Ben Manessis.  Science Fiction. 2k.
• "Solar Cycle 24" by Darrel Bird.  Science Fiction. 15k.
• "Five Byte Stories" by G.D. Tinnams.  Science Fiction. 15k.
• "Beef Stew from Anna Lou" by James Hampton. Horror. 18k.
• "Hunting Comp." by Michael Carter. Science Fiction. 2k.
• "Mantis" by Chrystalla Thoma. Science Fiction. 7k.
• Newt Run by Chad Inglis. Urban Fantasy. 100k.
• "Out of the Darkness" Horror.Ghost. 20k.
• "The New Order (The Board Short Story Series)" by Dorothy Darrow. YA Horror.

Reviewed Free SF At BestScienceFictionStory: "The Dandelion Girl" by Robert F. Young. 1961.

Flash Fiction
At Every Day Fiction: "The Flame" by Garrett Ray Harriman.
At 365  Tomorrows: "Gamberol’s Clock" by Alex Grover. Science Fiction.
At Spinetingler: "First Edition" by Warren Bull. Crime.


Comics
At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Homecoming" Science Fiction.
At Comic Book Catacombs: Jungle Jo in "Valley of the Demon Monsters" Adventure.
At Seduction of the Innocent: "Black Magic in a Slinky Gown" Horror.


Gaming
At Ancient Vaults: Item "Goat’s Cape,"  Spell "Gargantuanize," and Item "Verminstaff."
At Daddy Grognard:  "An Adventure for Every Monster - Succubus" 
At The Land of Nod: "Six Vile Vampires"
At Savage AfterWorld: "Savage Menagerie: Ankylophant" Gamma World.
 

 At QuasarDragon headquarters this morning.

Free Fiction

Cool free fiction!










@Author's Site: "The Light At Whale Cove" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

"Sheriff Dan Retsler finally believes in magic. He has to, after all he’s experienced in Whale Rock. But he can’t take it any longer, so he’s moving away from the magical town. His successor has arrived just as the ghosts return to the lighthouse. Now he must train a newcomer in the dark side of Whale Rock, while making sure the terror entombed in the lighthouse won’t move into the town itself."

@Daily Science Fiction: "My Dearest Miranda" by Jaime Lee Moyer.

"Such pests are easily dealt with in a civilized clime. The maids might find an occasional pixie in the parlor or the odd brownie in the pantry during an exceptionally bad year. One simply calls in the local exterminator wizard and never gives the matter another thought."

@Fantasy Magazine: "Are You Watching Carefully?" by Christopher Priest.

"Here’s what you do, Jerry says. You get one of those little pipe tobacco tins and you put stuff in it. Important stuff. A fingernail. Some hair. A scab. Some dirt from a special place."

@Lightspeed: "Some Fortunate Future Day" by Cassandra Clare.

"Time is many things, her father told her. Time is a circle, and time is a great turning gear that cannot be stopped, and time is a river that carries away what you love."

@Ray Gun Revival: "Vampire Brides from Planet Hell" by Nick Lewandowski.

"On civilian astrogation charts it appeared as a grinning skull with a red X for crossbones. Even the land-starved nobility of the minor Rim states refused to touch it. Drakken III—better known as “Planet Hell” in gin joints all across the galaxy."

@Short Story Me: "Avalonis" by Deborah Dalton.

Blood bubbled up through his fingers. He dug his nails deeper into his gut and pushed his flesh back into place. He hesitated to think that the hem of his shirt had been stuffed down into the laceration, but he wasn’t certain of anything except the liquid warmth spreading across his hand.

Serial Fiction
@Author's Site: "The Journals of Doctor Mormeck’s Avatar–Entry #17" by Jeff VanderMeer.

"I made my way farther and farther East, a Demon within me and angels on my trail. I had a whole century to kill before I could rescue myself but I wanted to be as far from the winter city as fast as possible."

@Kat and Mouse:"Into The Woods - Part Five" by Abner Senires.

"I woke to a dull pain at the back of my head, a loud thump near my feet, a gargled protest, and the sour reek of body odor mingled with the scent of scorched metal."

@Paizo: "Blood and Money - Chapter One: Nightwalker" by Steven Savile.

"The topiaries of Hasim Rakhman's palace were legendary, all manner of fabulous beasts carved out of the shrubbery to stand guard over the merchant’s equally legendary maze. Isra stood in the shadow of a leonine predator. The scent of jasmine was thick in the air, overpowering other, far subtler musks from the many more delicate plants in the garden."

Audio
@Dunesteef: "After School Snacks" by K. Bowen Black.

"Old Mrs. Wakefield seems like such a nice lady. All the kids love to go to her house after school on Fridays for treats. Such a wonderful tradition they all enjoy so much. There couldn’t possibly be something sinister underneath, could there?"

@Fantasy Magazine: "The Invisibles" by Charles de Lint, read by Stefan Rudnicki.

@PodCastle: "We Were Wonder Scouts" by Will Ludwigsen, read by Christopher Reynaga.

"My parents, Father especially, had little interest in the imagination. “Why would you read things that someone else made up?” he always wanted to know. We had no books of fiction in the house or a radio, and I didn’t have many toys."

Serial Audio
@Beam Me Up: "Things - Part One" by Peter Watts.

Set in "The Thing" universe.

@Cthulhu: "The Damned - part 5"

In this weeks show, the next part of Through the Brazzy Wilderness, then a 1923 Blues(sort of) track and finally the main attraction, part 5 of "The Damned".

@19 Nocturne Boulevard: "The Dunwich Horror - Part 3" by H.P. Lovecraft, adapted by Julie Hoverson.

"Our heroes arrive in Dunwich - and find something is on the loose."

Part 1

Part 1 of ?

illustration from "The Talisman’s Trinket" by P.C. Hodgell.





Fiction
@AEG: "Two Quiet Days" by Rusty Priske.

Tanari reached for his stick, propped up next to his simple cot, and used it to pull himself to his feet. He tried to ignore the screaming in his knees and back, but each day they got a little louder and harder to push into the background. Even his hands, which still remembered the feeling of wrapping around a bow and drawing the string back, were swollen at the knuckles and he had to make an effort to hold the walking stick.

@Baen Books: "The Talisman’s Trinket" by P.C. Hodgell.

"It’s the end of apprenticeship for Patch, young thief in the making and Kencyrath series protagonist Jame’s protégé, as she defends herself and her family on a night of murderous guild riots and tectonic shifts in political power within a city built on magic. A riveting stand-alone fantasy filled with walking gods and thief magic—all set in P.C. Hodgell's wondrous world of the Kencyrath series"

@Fantasy Magazine: "Unnatural Disaster" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

"Horizontal rain, darkness, and a nearly empty beach. Jaclyn Tadero trudged through the thick wet sand, listening to the ocean’s waves crash beside her. The Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead."

@Phillipine Genre Stories: "Freeborn in the City of Fallacies" by Andrew Drilon.

Valle Paradox: where shamed academics live on in feudal chaos, debating their flawed theories ad naseum, casting misshapen temporalgorithms into the cubic ether and warping actuality with every barbed, non-canonical entry into the world’s spatialgebra.

@Lightspeed: "Against Eternity" by David Farland.

"The wan gray of polluted skies will weigh on your soul, and you will recall bluer days, and wish for your childhood, when the grass seemed taller and would rub your inner thighs as you rambled through the fields."

@Ray Gun Revival: "The Final Meeting of the Truth Society" by Matthew Acheson.

"When I left my parent’s house that night, I remember looking out across the water and seeing that the setting sun had turned the sky a brilliant shade of crimson. It was a short walk down a dirt road to the Fairlee post office, and when I arrived there was a tall man with dark hair and wide shoulders waiting for me. His name was Stephen Robinson, and he was my oldest and dearest of friends."

Now Posted Innsmouth Magazine #8.
"Graffito Flow" by W. H. Pugmire.

"Silver moonshine filtered through the mist of dusk. Lifting her eyes to heaven, a blind woman sang to darkness. Autumn wind brushed against her lank hair and moaned softly at chapped red ears. She listened to the sound and whispered an accompaniment as the breeze embraced her like a friend who kisses throat with chilly fondness. Night and wind and invisible moon were her ancient friends; they would not mock or mar as others had…"

"And Out Came Words of Fire" by Paul Jessup.

"At first, I thought they were burns – like some form of branding. Bruises along her skin, raised under the flesh. She was barely married – I could see her hair was tied in the traditional newlywed knots, which swung in a pendulum arc around her head as she stumbled along the stone steps to the Temple of Saxis"

"We Are All Ghosts" by Peter Darbyshire.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with the silence of the grave. I don’t bother testing the walls of the tomb you’ve buried me in. I know there’s no way out. After all, you built it to contain not only me, but what’s inside me. I cannot escape. We cannot escape.

"We Can Watch the White Doves Go" by T.J. McIntyre.

The view from the top of the cliff revealed miles of unobstructed Alabama countryside. The river below stretched on and on, a glowing yellow snake lit by the waning sun. It slithered between rolling hills and square plots of farmland. Smitty imagined that if he looked hard enough, he might be able to see where the river met the Gulf of Mexico four hundred miles to the south, but it was only a matter of time…

"The Second Sphinx" by Rebecca Stefoff.

"A month before I was to leave for Egypt with Napoleon’s army, the Comte d’Erlette asked me to call on him. “My son, you do not have to go,” my mother said to me three times, but I was more than willing. It was past time for a reckoning with the Comte. I would demand an accounting and swear to repay all that he had spent on us."

"Curvature of the Witch House" by Wendy N. Wagner.

"The crows! The caw, gaw, gaaaw all day and into the twilight. As if they know they can stop my work. Lousy devils, snapping their beaks every time I step outside to chase them away. Shuffling on their feet of three claws."

Now Posted: Lorelei Signal - Oct - Dec '11 Issue
"The Comfort of Wood" by J.C. Hart.

A woman is forced into a noble marriage because of her gift of magic. But she finds that gift manipulated in ways she never wanted. Will she ever be able to escape the prison she finds herself in and once again find The Comfort of Wood.

"Firstborn" by Karen L. Kobylarz.

A Queen of Egypt in hiding from her husband. A mother still grieving the loss of a
son. A woman accused of desecrating the Tombs of Eternity. In saving the son of
another mother, another son will be lost.

"Haunted" by Finale Doshi-Velez.

The victim of an accident, Amanda finds herself haunting her friend and neighbor
and the person who was responsible for her death. The pain she causes her friend,
is almost as bad as the pain it is causing her. All she wants is to find her rest and
let her friend live in peace - but she doesn't know how.

"Her Ladyship, the Dragon" by Edgar Mason.

A young woman is cursed by her stepmother to become a dragon. Even after the
curse is broken - she still finds she has still become a dragon.

"The Prize" by V. Anne Arden.

A gladiator learns that sometimes the most important prize isn't just surviving.

"The Queen is Not Amused" by Ken Goldman,

Fizzbain is the favorite jester of the Queen and more than any he knows the cost
of her displeasure. When a young danced displeases the queen and is thrown into
the dungeon he looks for a way to save her. Unfortunately, a trick he learned from
a wizard backfires and he finds himself as the Queen's favorite in another way. Will
he be able to save the dancer and his own head from the Queen's displeasure
when she finds out how he tricked her.

"The Weaver of Linlea" by Lauren Bailey Fawcett.

A young storyteller hides a secret about her past - not only to protect herself, but
others she has never ever met. Her secret is threatened when the Prince becomes
ill and his fiancé believes the storyteller can save him. Will she reveal her past to
save a man she loves but can never have, or will protecting the nameless others be
more important.

Now Posted: Lovecraft eZine - Issue #7
"Sky Full of Fire" by Corinna Sara Bechko.

"I think it started the day the house fell down. I came home and there it lay, nothing but jagged crossbeams inclosing sad triangles of empty space. The detritus of a lifetime. A lot of broken things that meant nothing. That meant everything"

"The Lord of Endings" by John R. Fultz.

"I found the old hermit sitting like a stone in the desert. His skin was grey as granite, pitted by the timeless winds. His ramshackle hut stood between two boulders deep into the great, dry plain where the pale-skinned invaders never go"

"Loaners" by Aaron Polson.

"Mariana lay with her head off the edge of the bed, hair dangling nearly to the floor, and imagined how much cocaine she could buy with twenty-thousand dollars. "

"The Prophecy of Zarah" by Jenne Kaivo.

"My translation team has sought to convey the most exact meaning, while still retaining some of the poetic flow of the original."

"The Stranger From Out of Town" by John Prescott.

"The house was paid for, but it was devoid of life, and the thought of staying in that empty house sent chills through his body. The house was a two-story contemporary, well-built and worth a lot of money. It faced the west on Carpey Lake and had the traditional pier, two-car garage, and a wrap-around porch."

Serial Fiction
@Author's Site: "The Journals of Doctor Mormeck’s Avatar–Entry #16" by Jeff VanderMeer.

"For a millisecond I froze. In another millisecond I had morphed back into a full-sized komodo spasming and thrashing as if my attacker were riding my back."

@Author's Site: "The Journals of Doctor Mormeck (Mountain)–Entry #22" by Jeff VanderMeer.

"Gabriel came down like a colossus in flames—smashing through the roof of the library where my avatar sat reading love poems, his wings ablaze and the look upon his face hideous."

Audio
@Lightspeed: "Against Eternity" by David Farland, read by Stephan Rudnicki.