I Know It's Only Free Fiction But I Like It, Like It, Yes, I Do

More good free fiction including, a classic by Philip Wylie, a poem by Jane Yolen, and audio stories by Mary Robinette Kowal and William Hope Hodgson.  Likely More to Come Tonight (including e-books). Until then, be sure to visit all six"Free SF Sites" linked in the right hand column.

[Art for Drabblecast, linked below]




Fiction
• At Baen: "Seven Miles" by T.C. McCarthy. Science Fiction.
     "Come." He adjusted the incinerator straps, flicked off the safety, and angled his body so that he could squeeze out the narrow portal. Ludmilla followed, her tail between her legs. "It's clear, Ludy, another day of work. Up!" The sound of his voice made her tail go straight, wagging, and she moved to lead the way." Also available as part of the free e-book Free Stories 2013.

• At Baen: "The Lamplighter Legacy" by Patrick O'Sullivan. Science Fiction.
     "The astronaut gripped Ernesto's wrist. 'Look, kid, you want to put the phone down and look around?' He had to shout to be heard over the helicopter's deafening noise. 'This is a once in a lifetime experience.'"

• At HiLobrow: "The Devolutionist - part 18" by Homer Eon Flint. Occult. Science Fiction.
     "Mona leaped to the controls. She turned the craft about automatically and started toward Hafen. Then she glanced over the side. What she saw brought her heart to her throat." From Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1921.

• At Project Gutenberg: "Gladiator" by Philip Wylie. (1930) Science Fiction. [via Free Speculative Fiction Online]
     "The chief obstacle to Mrs. Danner's placid dominion of her hearth was Professor Danner's laboratory, which occupied a room on the first floor of the house. It was the one impregnable redoubt in her domestic stronghold. Neither threat nor entreaty would drive him and what she termed his 'stinking, unchristian, unhealthy dinguses' from that room."

Now Posted: Aphelion Issue 174, Volume 17 June 2013. Science Fiction. Fantasy.

• "The Plague Merchants" by Kurt Heinrich Hyatt
     "A beer-swilling android and an attractive, uptight virologist try to save the Kloakan people."
• "Forever" by Kat Dysart
        "Kira wanted to get past that door hidden beneath the cellar more than anything.
• "Dimensional Shift" by E.S. Strout
        "Lt. Lori Colquitt disappeared into the unknown, but in the end, she found herself."
• "Soul Mates" by D.C. Plump
        "Two fallen angels fight vampires in a dark, urban fantasy with weapons and their love for each other."
• "The Demon Whitefish" by Jordan Moureau
       "The fate of the village rested in the fisherman's widow and a nobleman's servant."
• "The Pool" by Lester Curtis
      "A fable of sorts, exploring who we really are."
• "Escape of the Fire Demon" by Mike Phillips
      "Summoning a demon turns out to be a burning problem for an inexperienced wizard."
• "Heaven Falls" by Craig Wesson
     "Zach survived the war in the trenches by hearing the girl in the tower sing and dreaming of the princess from the sky."
• "The Seventh Folding of Willow Sprite" by Marjorie Kaye
      "The internet can do a lot: bring people together, find us love, and just maybe scare the heck out of us."
• "No Further" by Matthew Acheson
     "The dead were coming and all that was left of the Legion would face them, once and for all."• "Good Night, Timmy" by Rick Grehan
     "Timmy can’t talk, and he does not have any friends. However, that is about to change, thanks to an extra-terrestrial artifact."

Flash Fiction
• At Chilling Tales For Dark Nights: "Faces" by Christina Cross. Horror. Audio.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Dark, Beautiful Force" by Jessica May Lin. Superhero.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Like Fallen Pieces of an Old Picket Fence" by Van Hall. Horror.
• At Nature: "Buzz Off" by John Grant. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Party for Two" by Kevin Richards. Science Fiction.
At Goblin Fruit: Fantasy Poems.

• April by Nita Sembrowich
• Sheshnaag by Shweta Narayan
• Lexicon by Kristin Gulotta
• The Hooligan by C.S.E. Cooney
• Tea With Witches by Kate Chadbourne
• Zucchini by Penny Stirling
• Save Our Soulsickened by Adriana Tosun
• Caul by Jane Yolen
• The Ferryman by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
• Sunk by Yumi Dineen Shiroma
• If Wurrunna Had Seen the Mardi Gras by Michele Bannister

At Aphelion: Poetry.

• After I Traded My Voice Box by April Salzano
• Bullet Train by Richard Tornello
• I Dream of Rings by A. J. Huffman
• Lawthorn Cemetery by Jay Hill
• Practical Joke by Robin B. Lipinski
• The Fires by Dominic Lennard
• The Uncertainty of the Certainties by Mark Edgemon
• Party of Four by Rob Wynne and Jeffrey Williams

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Swallow" by Mateo Hellion. Horror.
      "In the dark corners of the earth, there are certain objects that carry curses with them.  They come in many forms.  In this particular story, an old chest is the object of interest.  When certain words are inscribed on this chest and then recited in its presence, strange things happen.  And when the chest happens ..." Also in MP3 download Here (scroll down to the 16th).

• At DrabbleCast:  "Doubleheader XIII" Fantasy.
     "Locked In" and "Clockwork Chickadee" by Mary Robinette Kowal.
     "Samuel sat on the balcony, enjoying the fading light of day. When the ventilator pushed air into his lungs, he savored the salt brine from the sea. He pretended that he had control over breath, but it was much a fantasy as adjusting his wheelchair."

• At PodCastle: "The Copperroof War" by Megan Arkenberg. Fantasy.
     "It began in the south wing, near the long cold Hall of Empires and the chambers of the Duke of Cloud. Helene, the Duchess, woke at midnight to the metal sound of marching in the corridor, and farther away, the hollow ring of drums."

• At SFFaudio: "The Voice In The Night" by William Hope Hodgson. Horror.
     " With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck.  The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forrard in their den;  while Will — my friend, and the master of our little craft — was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin."

Other Genres

• Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Folk-Tales of the Magyars by Various. 1889. Mythology.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Forever Berries" by Oonah V Joslin.

May the Free Fiction Be With You!

     Today's free fiction is highlighted by the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, a new novelette at Tor.com (hate to see what the word "porn" in the title does to my Google ads), and several continuing serialized stories, including one by D&D legend Ed Greenwood. There are also many e-books and flash fiction stories of interest.  And as always check out "My Blog List" and "Free Fiction Sites" especially SF Signal's free fiction links by the always cool, Nixon Dogruns Regan Wolfrom for more free fiction pointers.




[Art for Episode 8 of The Land That Time Forgot - linked below]


Fiction
At HiLobrow: "The Devolutionist - part 17" by Homer Eon Flint. Occult-Science-Fiction. (1921)
     "“You may as well make your apologies now, Powart; you’re out of it! I’ve won, and you’ve lost! I’ve done a bigger thing than you have!”"

• At Paizo: "A Matter of Knives - Chapter Two: When Someone Wants You Dead" by Ed Greenwood. Fantasy.
     "Tantaerra cursed foully, then cursed even harder as she felt swords biting into the far sides of the crates she was now clinging to. The manyswords thing was hacking and hewing crates as high as it could reach, cleaving wood that was a lot older and damper than the lid it had just flung aside; its blades were through one crate-side already."

• At Tor.com: "Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom" by Micaela Morrissette.
     "In a possible far future animals have taken over and democratized the world where humans once ruled. Tim, a lonely slime mold, is worried about his human pet Mimi and her recent animal urges. He only wants her to be happy, but he doesn’t know how to keep her from sneaking out and cavorting with the human pet next door or any number of feral humans in the neighborhood. But through his relationship with her, he learns what it truly means to make a commitment to someone else."   

• Now Posted: Beneath Ceaseless Skies #106.

• "Cold, Cold War" by Ian McHugh. Fantasy.
       "Masaru peered past the struts and wires between his biplane's wings, trying to take the sight in. The tower's base was a madman's helter-skelter ziggurat, made of impossible stone blocks the size of townhouses, that cut a swath across the city's snow-covered grid of tenement blocks and terraces. From the ziggurat’s peak, the ragged-toothed tower reached up to a dark stain of cloud fixed in the sky directly above."
• "A Sixpenny Crossing" by Don Allmon. Fantasy.
       "'Stolen,' the General hissed. 'Stolen!' he shouted, enraged. 'It was Easric Dane, I know it! Upon my soul, it must have been he!' Not only was it awful, but Pearl couldn't possibly be suggesting there was any truth to it. Earsic thought of drowning the book in the river. But Pearl Snow had a wicked pack of cards. They brooked none of Easric's sass and weren't lightly ignored"

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "True Love" by Alex Shvartsman. 
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Chessie" by Lindsey Beth Goddard. Horror.
• At Nature: "Mortar Flowers" by Jessica May Lin. Science Science.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Mathmagicians" by Desmond Hussey, Science Fiction.

E-Books
• At Amazon:  Essential Reading in Science Fiction by David Scholes. 
• At Free eBooks Daily:

• H2O by Irving Belateche. Science Fiction.
• Never Too Far by Thomas Christopher. Dystopian Adventure.
• The Talent Seekers by Jemima Pett. YA Fantasy.
• The Dream Rider by Ernest Dempsey. SciFi Adventure.
• The Ryn by Serena Chase. YA Fantasy. 
• House of Cards by Ilana Waters. YA Paranormal Romance.  
• Vampire in Denial by Dale Mayer. YA Paranormal Romance. 
• The Remedy by Serena Chase. Fantasy.

Audio Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Penitent" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy
      "No. 17596 let the book fall out of his hands. It would tell him what? It would tell him that the world went on—that somewhere, out there, men and women were carrying on their affairs while he sat alone in his cell, sentenced to ruminate in silence and isolation."

• At Classics on the Go: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Chapter 3" by Lewis Carroll
     "Alice, the Mouse and other creatures swim to shore. They find themselves all wet and try to get dry by having a 'caucus-race.'"

• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 08 - The Land That Time Forgot"
     "The German crew of the U-33 have managed to refine the oil that has been discovered near the camp.  They pilot the U-33 downstream back toward the outlet to the sea – shelling the camp along the way.  In the meantime, Lys has disappeared from the camp – with anthropoid footprints indicating she has been abducted by Caspak’s native ape creatures."

Other Genres
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "She Smelled Pretty" by Kristi Charish