Tip of the Free Fiction Iceberg

Some good free genre fiction to start the day, and much more to come this weekend.


[Art from "The Man Who Saw Through Time" in fiction below]


 



Fiction
• At Giganotosaurus: "A House, Drifting Sideways" by Rahul Kanakia.
     "The leading edge of the crowd was just fifty feet below me. The mass of dirty limbs and garishly clothed torsos swayed, and arms were raised up. I waved, and the carpet of humanity rippled in time to my movements. I presumed they were cheering."

• At Online Pulps: "The Man Who Saw Through Time" by Leonard Raphael. Science Fiction.
         "Gary Fraxer went into the future and saw something that must not happen!" from Fantastic Adventures, September, 1941

• Now Posted: Ideomancer Vol. 12 No. 2 Speculative Fiction

"Doctor Blood and the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron" by A. C. Wise.
    "This is Bunny, their leader, born Phillip Howard Craft the Third. At the moment, she is up in the recruiter’s face, waving a poster of Uncle Sam under the aforementioned tagline, a floating head against a backdrop of Martian red."
“Deux ex Chelonia” by Vicki Saunders.
      "A house on a hill cannot be hid, but it can be remodeled. Stuccoed and columned, the ancient split level made a credible temple — until we lost the God."

• Now Posted: Interstellar Fiction #11. Science Fiction.

"A Memory Deferred" by Kurt MacPhearson
      “Good afternoon, Mr. Andrews,” the man on my doorstep said with a smile as genuine as a tattoo. “I’m Kellen Haversham, Customer Service Rep for SedorOn Health Systems, here to inform you of Project Reunion, an experimental breakthrough that now enables us to reunite you with your wife.”
"Atonement" by Shane Gavin
     “No, it’s not like that,” I said. “They pump you full of this mulch that speeds up your brain. It really did feel like fifty years.”
"X, Y, Z" by Robert Pritchard
     "They interrogated me for some hours because the details I gave of the crime were precise and plausible, but when they followed up they found no evidence of misdeeds. For example, the man I claimed to have killed was still alive, and in good health."
"Out of the Fire" by Ron Collins
     "My name is Randy Caldwell, and I’m eleven years old. I’m stuck in a box under the Frank’s place, but whatever you do don’t come get me or you’ll get transferred like I done."

Flash Fiction
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Police Control" by Stefan Aeschbacher. Science Fiction.
• At Ideomancer: (Speculative Poetry)

• "Undoomed" by Sofia Samatar
• "Artemis Speaks to Aphrodite"  by Alicia Cole
• "Solaris" by Rob Bliss

Audio Fiction
• At Clarkesworld: "From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled . . ." by Michael Swanwick.
      "Imagine a cross between Byzantium and a termite mound. Imagine a jeweled mountain, slender as an icicle, rising out of the steam jungles and disappearing into the dazzling pearl-grey skies of Gehenna. Imagine that Gaudi—he of the Sagrada Familia and other biomorphic architectural whimsies—had been commissioned by a nightmare race of giant black millipedes to recreate Barcelona at the height of its glory"

Other Genres

• Audio at American Radio Theater: "The Whistler - The Gingham Elephant"
• Fiction at Online Pulps: "Wings For an Angel" by C. S. Montanye (1948) and  "Whatever God" by William Merriam Rouse (1918) Noir/Pulp.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Inherent Problem with Crying at the Movies" by David Macpherson. Mystery.

Monday Free Fiction

@Fantasy Magazine: "The Edge of the World" by Michael Swanwick.

"The Edge of the World lay beyond the railroad tracks. The streets were narrow here, the sideyards crammed with broken trucks, rusted out buses, even yachts up in cradles with stoven-in sides."

@AE: "Get Happy" by KJ Kabza. Science Fiction.
@Smashwords:

• "Animus Robot" by Nicholas Sheffield. SF.
• "Smoke and Mirrors" by Chrystalla Thoma. Fantasy.
• "The Hench Woman's Handbook" by Tara O'Donnell. Fantasy.

@Free eBooks Daily:

• "An End to Dreaming" by Michael Matheson
• "The Gift of a Kiss" by Daniel A. Roberts.
• "Shalilayo" by Justin Lee Mitchell.
• "People Of The Tiger" by Wayne Edward.
• "Veiled Eyes" by C.L. Bevill.
• "Phantom Keys" by Vernon Scott.
• "What the Dead Fear" by Lea Ryan.
• "Bitten" by Merrill Gemus.
• "Double Deal" by Drew Beatty.
• "The Luna Document" by H Jason Schulz.
• "The Mousetrap" by Heather Wielding.
• "Pillow Talk" by Sabrann Curach.
• "Freedman" by Drew Beatty.

Serial Fiction
@AEG: "Aftermath (Part 2)" by Shawn Carman. Fantasy.
@Author's Site: "The Journals of Doctor Mormeck (mountain)–Entry #19" by Jeff VanderMeer. SF.
@More Red Ink: "Texture of Other Ways (Part 3 of 3)" by Mark W. Tiedemann.

Friday Freebies

Some very good free fiction today, including highlighted fiction "Forever Sixteen" at Daily Science Fiction and a free Greg Egan story. And even more great audio fiction including new audio by Drabblecast, Escape Pod, StarShipSofa, and Pseudopod. If you haven't heard of all of them, you've been missing out. And a few more goodies.

Today's illustration is from "Elegy for a Young Elk" at StarShipSofa.

Upcoming this weekend, comics, gaming, flash fiction and more. And next week I'm anticipating a ton of free fiction as several eZines are scheduled to be released.







@Daily Science Fiction: "Forever Sixteen" by Amy Sundberg.
"My guardians, tall and robed in blue, whisper when they see me now and shake their heads. They're dissatisfied because I haven't orchestrated an escape attempt for at least five Champions. Well, okay, exactly five. Since the Champion known as Eric."

@Free eBooks Daily [DRM]:
"Signature" by Ron Sanders. Science Fiction.
"Zendegi" by Greg Egan. Speculative Fiction.
"Summon Your Dragons" by Roger Parkinson. Fantasy.
"Avion: Book One of the Crystal Rose Chronicles" by Emma Daniels. Fantasy.
"Dorrin's End" by Sandra Miller. Fantasy.
"Itsy Bitsy" by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Horror.
"Specimen 313" by Jeff Strand. Horror.
"The Frank Diary of Anne" by Dan Dillard. Horror.

@Pixel of Ink [Kindle]:
"The Witch’s Ladder" by Dana Donovan. Paranormal.
"Beautiful Sins" by Jennifer Hampton. Paranormal Romance.

Serial Fiction
@Ray Gun Revival: "Thieves’ Honor Episode 15: Head Games, Part 2" by Keanan Brand. Science Fiction.
@White Wolf: "Silent Knife (part 15)" by David Nurenberg. Horror. Urban Fantasy.







@Drabblecast: "Ancient Engines" by Michael Swanwick and "Impulse Buy" by Evan Quinlan. Science Fiction.
"Planning to live forever, Tiktok?" The words cut through the bar's chatter and gab and silenced them. The silence reached out to touch infinity and then, "I believe you're talking to me?" a mech said...


@Escape Pod: "Leech Run" by Scott W. Baker, read by Alasdair Stuart. Science Fiction.
@Pseudopod: "Songs For Dead Hearts" by Mandana Faridani, read by Rajan Khanna. Horror.
@StarShipSofa: "Elegy For A Young Elk" by Hannu Rajaniemi, read by Anthony Naples. Fantasy.

Serial Audio
@BrokenSea Audio: Beta Flight : Episode 8 – “Keeping Up With The Joneses, Part II”
@Classic Tales Podcast: "The Mark of Zorro, Part 4 of 9" By Johnston McCulley, read by B. J. Harrison. Adventure.
@Guild of Cowry Catchers: Book 3 – Episode 12 Fantasy.

Fantastic Free Fiction

Some great free fiction today, including new fiction by some very big name writers, as well as classics and more. Many goodies for your eReader - even if your eReader is your computer.

An early heads up. Likely starting Monday or Tuesday, QuasarDragon will be adopting a much more streamlined look for the freebies posts. The amount of time spent on thumbnails and descriptions is causing me to fall behind in categories that deserve more attention.

Illustration from "The Dala Horse" below.








@Tor.com: "The Dala Horse" by Michael Swanwick. Fantasy.

"Long after the wars, there are things abroad in the world—things more than human. And they have scores to settle with one another"

@Tor.com: "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes" by Michael Bishop.

"Dai had always wanted his own house, perhaps one that he built himself from the ground up—but not necessarily. After all, he’d built many structures in the past, either storage sheds or warehouses, each with its own purposes and symmetries, its own architectural eloquences and enduring specific satisfactions."

@Subterranean Press: "Valley of the Girls" by Kelly Link. Fantasy.

"[Hero], of course, knew something was up. Twins always know. Maybe she saw the way I watched her Face when there was an event and we all had to do the public thing."

@L5R: "Insurgency" by Shawn Carman. Fantasy.

The blindfold covering his eyes was completely saturated with seawater, and his clothes hung heavily on his frame, dripping with the essence of the ocean itself. The wind tore at his hair and threatened to rip his blindfold off, but he had wrapped it far too tightly for that. “Komori!” he roared above the sound of the sea and the thrashing of a huge, violent beast. He could feel its flesh rolling and pitching beneath his feet and hands. “Komori!”

Free Kindle Book @Pixel of Ink: "Right Ascension" by David Derrico. [via SF Signal]

"Set in the year 3040, Right Ascension explores mankind’s place in the Universe, how we ascended to that lofty position, and the horrifying price of that ascension."

Serial Fiction
@More Red Ink: "Kin (part 1 and Part 2)" by Bruce McAllister, from the February 2006 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. [via SF Signal]

"The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened."

@More Red Ink: "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song" by Ernest Hogan (Part 1 of 3)

"Like a miniature Jupiter gone insane, the paint-blob hangs in the middle of the room—a Jupiter whose tides and weather and powerful gravity snapped on the strain of the secret of its monstrous microscopic inhabitants"

Classic Science Fiction & Ghost Stories
@Internet Archive: "The Retreat to Mars" by Cecil B. White, from the August 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.

"An archaeologist discovers documents and artifacts from an advanced but deceased Martian civilization buried in the dark of Africa."

@Gutenberg:The Best Psychic Stories edited by Joseph Lewis French (1920).

Featuring stories by Jack London, Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and others.

@Gutenberg: "The Scapegoat" by Richard Maples, from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1956.

"Who would not have pity for a poor, helpless victim? Nobody —except another poor victim!"

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "The Huddlers" by William Campbell Gault, from If Worlds of Science Fiction May 1953.

"He was a reporter from Venus with an assignment on Earth. He got his story but, against orders, he fell in love—and therein lies this story."

@Munseys and Gutenberg: "The Victor" by Bryce Walton, from If Worlds of Science Fiction March 1953.

"Under the new system of the Managerials, the fight was not for life but for death! And great was the ingenuity of—The Victor."

Reviewed Free Fiction
@BestScienceFictionStories.com: "Mouja" by Matt London. Fantasy / Horror.

"From the window of his guard hut, Takashi Shimada watched the trees. Three of the mouja lurked at the edge of the forest on the far side of the rice paddies. Takashi could just make out their shapes through the thick misty rain that made the flooded paddies seem to boil. [. . .] It did not matter if they traveled one mile per day or a hundred. The dead were coming, and they carried with them a hunger for human flesh."

SF Double Feature, Free Fiction, and Free Comics

Lt. Bob here. Today, as usual for a Sunday, we have some very entertaining comics (Some humans die, and that's always entertaining) and Mooooooviiiesss. Two classic Sci-fi films. Also some free fiction, much of it via SF Signal (A good site! That John DeNardo is one human who has his act together, unlike lazy, sleep-all-weekend Space Captain.)





Mooooooviiiesss.
Purple Death From Outer Space.Feature Length complication movie of the 1940 "Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe" Cliffhanger Serial.




Night of the Blood Beast (1958). Classic low budget sci-fi complete with a reanimated dead astronaut impregnated with alien embryos and a blood-sucking space monster produced by Gene Corman


Fiction
The Spring-Summer 2011 issue of FLURB is out with
Kek-W - Big Store Baoding
Leslie What - My Big Night Out With Thing
Alberto Chimal - Hotels Hoteles
Chris N. Brown - Medusa
Minister Faust - The Ghosts of Carnivores
Charlie Jane Anders - Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie
Robert Guffey - Bring Me the Head of André Breton!
Bef, or, Bernardo Fernández - The Last Hours of the Last Days
Las Últimas Horas De Los Últimos Días
Pepe Rojo - Stuff Cosas
Michael Swanwick - Cold Reading
Rudy Rucker - Dispatches From Interzone
Doug Lain - The Last Apollo Mission
[Via SF Signal]


@The Author's Website: "Heroes are Forever" by Heather Massey.
"Two lovers find their lives forever changed as technology and Fate collide in this near-future science fiction romance short." [Via SF Signal]

@The Author's Website: "When I Kissed the Learned Astronomer" by Jamie Todd Rubin.
"When I kissed the learned astronomer, I never expected to fall in love, discover intelligent alien life in the universe, and end up in jail." [Via SF Signal]


Classic SF
"The Holes Around Mars" by Jerome Bixby, from Galaxy Science Fiction (January 1954).
"Science said it could not be, but there it was. And whoosh—look out—here it is again!" At Munseys and Project Gutenberg.



"Sinister Paradise" by Robert Moore Williams, from If: Worlds of Science Fiction (September 1952).
"It was like a mirage in reverse, this strange island off the California coast—it couldn't always be seen, but it was there—in Time." At Munseys and Project Gutenberg.

Comics
@Digital Comic Museum: The spirit of Tarzan lives with, Wambi the Jungle Boy #5, and partial issues of Jungle Comics #134 and Jungle Comics #141. In CBR downloads [Free membership required].







@Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "Who Is Haunting the Haunted Chateau?" by Sheldon Mayer and Alex Toth.





@Golden Age Comic Book Stories: Adventures Into Weird Worlds #25 (January 1954). featuring "The Men From Mars," "A Million Light-Years Away," and other sci-fi stories.

And Basically Strange #1 an odd collection of horror/fantasy comics.




@Savage Tales: Hawkmoon, The Jewel in the Skull #1: Part One of Four.
"Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln is one of the fictional characters created by Michael Moorcock in his series of the Eternal Champion books. Hawkmoon is one of the less "problematic" characters Moorcock ever created a series around."



@The Horrors of It All: "She Wouldn't Stay Dead!" from Mystic #6 (January 1952).

And "The Eyes!" / "The Hidden Graveyard" from Adventures into Weird Worlds #2 (Feb 1952) and Uncanny Tales #23 (Aug 1954) respectively. Very cool.


@Crosseyed Cyclops: Several issues of the rather strange Venus series. This comic started out as a humor/fantasy about the love goddess on Earth but slowly evolved into a horror/fantasy with some SF elements. In CBR downloads.