Showing posts with label Ray Bradbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ray Bradbury. Show all posts

Friday, August 30, 2013

I Got a Feeling... That This Week's Gonna Be a Good Week for Free Fiction

More great freebies.  Steven Baxter (One of the best living SF writers) has an audio story at Clarkesworld. There's a new reading of Ray Bradbury's unforgettable "The Veldt" at Selected Shorts (Hosted by Neil Gaiman, with the second story read by Leonard Nimoy).  There's more greatness by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mur Lafferty, etc.  Be sure to check back here regularly and to visit SF Signal for more free fiction.  [Art from "The Thrill of the Hunt" in audio fiction.








Fiction
• At Buzzy Mag: "Unremembered, Unforgotten" by Ken Altabef. Urban Fantasy.
      "Flakes of red crumbled away from her fingertips as Dolorza brushed absently at the mark. None found in the home, she thought, but three victims all the same. Her father, who had succumbed to lymphoma seven years after the exposure, her mother, who had died of a broken heart soon thereafter, and the silent price she herself had paid over the years."

• At The Silver Blade: "The Greatest Shade – Part 2" by Bryan Wein. Fantasy.
      "The next morning Dressen smacked his hand against the water sensor three times before the shower finally gurgled to life. A few seconds later the fluorescent tube overhead came on as well, thanks to some problem with the circuitry. Dressen cursed and dimmed the light with blind, groping fingers." - part one here.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The Shambling Guide to New York City - Chapters 1-18" by Mur Lafferty. Urban Fantasy. [via SF Signal]
      "A travel writer takes a job with a shady publishing company in New York, only to find that she must write a guide to the city - for the undead!"

• At Clarkesworld: "Cilia-of-Gold" by Stephen Baxter. Science Fiction.
     "She climbed up through the water, her flukes pulsing, and prepared to lead the group further along the Ice-tunnel to the new Chimney cavern"

•  At Decoder Ring Theater: "Red Panda Adventures (97) - The Phantom" Noir. Superhero. Humor.
       "As the tides of war begin to shift in favor of the Allies, all is far from quiet on the Home Front. A new boss of bosses has taken control of the city and declared war upon the Red Panda and his allies!"

• At Selected Shorts: "Dreams and Schemes" Science Fiction.
     "Guest host Neil Gaiman introduces two American classics. In Ray Bradbury’s futuristic “The Veldt,” a virtual reality nursery turns on its owners. The reader is Stephen Colbert. In James Thurber’s “The Catbird Seat,” a mild-mannered employee plots revenge. read by Leonard Nimoy"

• At WMG Publishing: "The Thrill of the Hunt" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Paranormal.
      "Her family called her Hilda, before the war, before the Great Wulf murdered them all with his mind. Now the war is over, Europe is in ruin, and the remaining Nazis have scattered. Hilda hunts them, but really, she hunts him. And thanks to an old friend, she has tracked him to Argentina. She’s supposed to kill him, but she’s not sure if she can. She won’t know until they’re face to face, until it’s time for one of them to die."

E-Books
At Amazon: [via Pixel-of-Ink]
At Amazon: [via Freebook Sifter]
Other Genres
• At WMG Publishing: "Name Calling" by Kristine Grayson (Kristine Kathryn Rusch). Romance.
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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Celebrating the Birth . . . Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)
      Ray Bradbury was, first and foremost, a great storyteller. Whether writing Science Fiction, Horror, or Dark Fantasy, his stories were always very accessible.  Among the many awards he has received are World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in horror fiction, and being named a  SFWA Grand Master.  While he probably best known for Fahrenheit 451 which has been required reading in many schools, it is my humble opinion that his best works are his short stories, including those in The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.  And although Bradbury was extremely diligent about copyright renewals, a few of his works are legally available.




Free fiction after fold

Read more »
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

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
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
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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Thursday Morning Freebies

 A few gems this morning. More later.

Today's QD Radio features "There Will Come Soft Rain" and "Zero Hour" both by Ray Bradbury.  The first is one of Bradbury's more haunting stories.

[Art from Drabblecast -linked below[






Fiction
• At Daily Science Fiction:  "The Wyrd for Water is Water" by Marie Croke. "
       The wyrd for water is water, but my guards give me nothing but tea and wine though they know I hate the taste. I've tried to use my spit, but the Si'aer were much too specific in their language to listen to such disturbing beggary with their wyrds."

Flash Fiction
Audio Fiction
• At Antipodean SF: "The AntiSF Radio Show 174"
     " featuring the stories from Issue 174 of AntipodeanSF online"

• At Drabblecast:  "Bright Lights" by  Robert Reed. Horror. Science Fiction.
"The water fountains are low. The lockers are empty. The summer air is warm but there are people in the classrooms. People are talking, are moving. A female emerges from the nearest classroom. She is fully grown. She has dyed hair and competing odors and all of her teeth. Showing her teeth, she asks, 'Are you the teacher?'"

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Episode 18 - The Return of Tarzan Adventure,
      "Chapter XVIII – “The Lottery of Death”  Jane Porter, John Clayton and Nicholas Rokoff, posing as Monsieur Thuran, have been shipwrecked following the Lady Alice’s collision with a derelict off the coast of Africa. Taking to lifeboats, the crew and passengers of the doomed yacht are adrift in the Atla"

 • At 19 Nocturne Boulevard "Afterlives 2.4 - Fair Game"
     "Afterlives is a tale of what happens after death, or maybe afterlife.... and it isn't at all what you would expect"

Other Genres
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Friday, January 11, 2013

Bradbury, Drake, Leinster, and More

More great freebies, including several ebooks, comics, and a couple more audio fiction stories! 

Today's QD Radio is "To The Future" by Ray Bradbury, adapted on Dimension X. A science fiction story about totalitarianism and an extreme escape attempt.

[Art from "The Unwanted," linked below]




E-Books
• Via Pixel of Ink: "Synthetic: Rise of the Siren" by Shonna Wright.
• At Free eBooks Daily:
Audio Fiction
• At Escape Pod: "Scout" by Bud Sparhawk. Science Fiction.
     "The idea behind the drop was dramatic and simple.  Three attack cruisers would carpet bomb the area where the aliens landed.  The drops consisted of ten burrowers, thirty sweepers, and twenty HE bombs from each ship, all distributed to randomly bracket the target. The third, eleventh, and nineteenth bomb of each pod were slow-fuse HE duds, except for the one that contained me."

• At LibriVox: "The Red Dust" by Murray Leinster. Science Fiction.
      "The world, in a far distant future, is peopled with huge insects and titanic fungus growths. Life has been greatly altered, and poor puny Man is still in the process of becoming acclimated to the change even after 30,000 years."

Comics 
Other Genres
  • E-book at Free eBooks Daily: The Trail by M L Dunn. Western.
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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and More

Another day of fantastic freebies with Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and other great free fiction sites.  Today also brings the first Strange Horizons audio fiction podcast (It sounds quite good). More will be added to this post as the day goes on.

Today's QD Radio is "Knock" by Fredric Brown adapted on Dimension X.  Obviously with the whole story being only  "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..." the Dimension X is more "inspired by" than "based on" the story.

[Art from Blackburn Gaslight Adventures, linked below]


Fiction.
• At The Colored Lens: "Desert Song" by Carol Holland March. Speculative Fiction.
      "The skeleton stuck with us as we drove into the mountains at Flagstaff where it was cool and green. I thought a more populated area might scare it off, but it just kept running along the right side of the road, at a pace to keep it the same distance behind us."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Harmonies of Time" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Science Fiction.
      "You do not know me yet, my love, but I can hear you in my future. You are there from the beginning--at first just a few stray notes, but your presence quickly grows into a beautiful refrain"

• At DargonZine:
"And Two Steps Back" by Keith English. Fantasy.
      "The recruits look good this batch," Kalen Darklen mumbled to the man next to him. The other officer looked from the new additions to the watch and to his superior. "Straight." He hesitated a moment but then continued, "Captain, you know that you don't have to be here any longer.
"Five Days in Winter Part 2" by Joseph Carney. Fantasy.
      "The early morning sun shining through a cloudless sky fell upon a hillside overlooking Leavenfell Keep. Fresh snow covered the hillside and a cold wind blew from the east carrying ice crystals from the bay where the keep was located. A murder of crows perched in barren oak trees huddled together for warmth."
• At Lightspeed:
"With Tales in Their Teeth, From the Mountain They Came" by A.C. Wise. Fantasy.
      "She woke with the words I love you on her tongue, speaking them aloud to an empty room. They tasted of smoke and ash drifting over a far-distant, muddy field. The War that had taken her lover had lost him. She knew he was dead, because she’d never spoken the words aloud before."
"Addison Howell and the Clockroach" by Cherie Priest. Science Fiction.
      "Addison Howell didn’t so much arrive in the town of Humptulips as appear there sometime around 1875. He had money, which set him apart from everybody else—because everybody else was working for the logging company, and mostly they didn’t have a pot to piss in, as my Daddy put it."
• At Nightshade Books: "The Advocate" by Genevieve Valentine. Science Fiction.
     "The Martian Embassy in New York is at the north edge of Midtown along First Avenue, in a grey building set back from the street by a courtyard and surrounded by a high stone wall."

• At Strange Horizons: "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar. Speculative Fiction.
      "I hate selkie stories. They’re always about how you went up to the attic to look for a book, and you found a disgusting old coat and brought it downstairs between finger and thumb and said “What’s this?”, and you never saw your mom again."

Flash Fiction
Audio Fiction
• At Gypsy Audio: "Blackburn Gaslight Adventures: Arc 2 part 1 Arachnophobia" by A.J. Clarkson.
• At Lightspeed: "Addison Howell and the Clockroach" by Cherie Priest.Science Fiction.
      Described above.
• At Strange Horizons: "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar.
      Described above.

Old Time Radio
  • At Boxcars711: "Caretaker" by James H. Schmitz. Adapted on X Minus One. Science Fiction.
  • At Relic Radio: "A Sound Of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury. Adapted on SF 68. Science Fiction.
Other Genres
  • Audio at Crime City Central: "Jade Skirt" by Simon Levack.
  • Audio at LibriVox:  Critias by Plato. (Origin of the Atlantis myth)
  • Audio at Protecting Project Pulp: “Whispering Death” by Lawrence Donovan. Action.
  • Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction:  "Illuminations" by Gustavo Bondoni. Literary.
  • Fiction at Author's Site: "Mr. Alibi" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Noir.
  • Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Strand Magazine, Volume XVII, February 1899, No. 98.
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Monday, January 7, 2013

Monday Part One

A good eclectic mix of free genre fiction to begin the day.

 Today's QD Radio is Dimension X - "No Contact"
"A strange invisible barrier is frustrating Man's attempts to explore the depths of space. Six expeditions have been lost trying to cross it, their fate a mystery since no signal can pass through the barrier. This is the story of the seventh..." - OTR PlotSpot.

Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Thieves' Honor, ep 23: "Walking Through Walls" (pt 1)" by Keanan Brand.
      "Mars held out his hand. The sergeant returned his sidearm; Mars holstered it then shouldered his duffle and strode across the security bay, the clearing area for all the personnel and goods coming aboard the Orpheus. Being part of the captain’s security detail, Gaines shouldn’t have seemed so out of place down here, but he looked as nervous as a quenya bug stranded in sunlight."

• At Kat and Mouse: "Ties That Bind - Part Three" by Abner Senires.
      I turned back to Rachel. "I think you two better start talking," I said. "We're not taking your job until we know who he is"--I nodded at Isaac--"and what's going on."
• At L5R:  "Finding the Balance" by Seth Mason. Fantasy.
    "In Rokugan, a simple priest of the Dragon Clan finds himself embroiled in the battle against the Dark Naga, the sinister serpentine threat to the entire Emerald Empire."

• At The WiFiles: "Crimes Against Humanity" by Rhonda Parrish.
     "I don’t need your pity. There are the whiners who will go on and on about how we’re the unfortunate ones, like somehow surviving is worse than being turned into one of them. Bullshit, man, that’s just utter crap. Sure it’s tough, surviving, but it beats the crap out of the alternative. Dead is, well, dead and undead is worse."

Flash Fiction

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #13" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "A pre-season injury throws the Krakens future into question. John Tweedy demands new players for his defense, but the way he wants to do it rubs Quentin the wrong way. And once again, the rumors start up of Becca "The Wrecka" Montagne taking Quentin's spot at quarterback."

• At Beam Me Up: "Equalization" by David Scholes.Science Fiction.
       No description found.

• At Drama Pod: "A Visit to the Catacombs" by J  J. Weintrau.
        "And yes, to remove anything from the premises, from the smallest stone to an undiscovered fragment of a relic, is a criminal offense. The Altamontivecchi catacombs are a national treasure."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 15 - The Return of Tarzan"
     "Tarzan has found himself thrown overboard into the Atlantic. Finding a derelict lifeboat, he successfully navigates to land – the very beach whereon lies the cabin of his father – the place where he was born and raised"

• At Selected Shorts: "Exchange" by Ray Bradbury.
     "Guest host John Lithgow introduces three stories about reading and writing. First, Walter R. Brooks’ talking horse Mr. Ed learns to read, with hilarious consequences, in “Ed Has His Mind Improved,” performed by Tony Roberts. In Ray Bradbury’s “Exchange,” read by Rochelle Oliver, an overworked librarian has her spirits lifted by a lonely soldier. Finally, late SHORTS host Isaiah Sheffer dreams of tigers in a Jorge Luis Borges short."

• At Toasted Cake:  "The Tides" by Ken Liu.
      ""When I was little," Dad says, softly chuckling, "the Moon was so small I thought I could put it in my pocket, like a coin."

Other Genres
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Free Audio Fiction, Nightmare Magazine, and More

There's some very good audio fiction for you today. Three of the usual suspects (DrabbleCast, PodCastle, and StarShipSofa) all have great free stories for you today. And there's more great audio at SFFaudio and LibriVox!

And there's also some terrific text fiction too. Nightmare Magazine has another great free story, and there are flash fiction stories at the usual cool sites. And lastly, Project Gutenberg has two more issues of Futuria Fantastic, Ray Bradbury's classic fanzine. More later today.

[Art for Sintram and his Companions, linked below]

Fiction
• At Nightmare Magazine: "Summer" by Tananarive Due. Horror.
      "During the baby’s nap-time, a housefly buzzed past the new screen somehow, and landed on Danielle’s wrist while she was reading Us Weekly on the back porch. With the Okeepechee swamp so close, mosquitoes and flies take over Graceville in summer. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said."

Fanzines
• At Project Gutenberg: Futuria Fantastic Winter 1940 and Spring 1940. Science Fiction. Edited by Ray Bradbury.

Flash Fiction
Audio
• At DrabbleCast: "Little Grace of the House of Death" by Eugie Foster. Fantasy. Horror.
      "The niece of King Death had not yet chosen a name.  She was the only daughter and youngest child of Death’s sister, Merciful Grace, and everyone still called her by her baby name, Little Grace…"
 
• At LibriVox: "Sintram and his Companions" by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Fantasy.
     "a German Romantic writer whose stories were filled with knights, damsels in distress, evil enchantments, and the struggle of good against overpowering evil. 'My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.' Fouque blends the Romantic love for nature and ancient chivalry while telling a powerful story about a young man who yearns for that which he can never attain."

• At PodCastle: "Catching the Spirit" by Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt. Fantasy.
      "Pretty much nobody knows how, exactly, the Christmas Spirit started to spread. One theory goes that a child in Meridian Mississippi was bitten by an infected reindeer, and then spread the plague at her school Christmas pageant"

• At SFFaudio: "Plotting For Perfection" by Tim Prasil. Science Fiction.
      "A photographer on assignment meets his future love, an astrophysicist, and then is visited by photographs of their future life together."     

• At StarShipSofa: "The Boneless One Part 1" by Alec Nevala-Lee. Science Fiction.
      As Trip sat up, Ray was already heading for the stateroom door. A graying beard, grown over the past year, had softened Ray’s famously intense features, but his blue eyes remained focused and bright, and they caught Trip’s attention at once. If nothing else, it was the first time he had ever been awakened by a billionaire. “Come on,” Ray said. “You’ll want your notebook and camera.”
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Saturday, December 15, 2012

Early Bradbury and a Bit More

A few goodies to start the day. Project Gutenberg (arguably the most important site on the internet) has a real find, a pair of fanzines edited by a young Ray Bradbury, and featuring articles by a couple other recognizable names.  There are a few other goodies, including a couple of pulp-fiction stories and more. More later.


[Art from Futuria Fantasia Summer 1939]






Fanzines
• At Project Gutenberg: Futuria Fantasia - Summer 1939 and Fall 1939. Edited by Ray Bradbury.
     "For some time I have been wondering what the world is coming to. More than once I have got up in the middle of the nite, padded toward the bureau, and, peering into the mirror, exclaimed, "Stinky, what is the world coming to?"

Free Fiction
  • Flash Fiction at 365 Tomorrows: "Nano Chevall" by Morrow Brady. Science Fiction.
  • Old Time Radio at Boxcars711: "In The Groove" - Vanishing Point 1985.

Other Genres




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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Free E-Books and Audio Fiction

There are some quite good sounding free E-Books today as well as audio fiction of different categories. There many audio fiction sites that are now on QuasarDragon's radar for the first time, thanks in part to Audio-Drama.com, so expect to see a few "new" sites being linked.  (If you have young children, you might want to check out Classics on the Go in the other genres category).


[Art from Underlife linked below]






E-Books
At Free eBooks Daily:
At Smashwords:
 Audio Fiction
• At American Radio Theater: "The Big Hand" Adventure. OTR reconstruction.
     "An adventure story from 1951. There's lost treasure in the jungle and Doctor Becker leads an expedition to find it.  But first she needs a guide."

• At Brain Drops Keep Falling on My Head: "The Red Room" by H. G. Well. Horror.
      "One of Wells’s most famous non-science fiction stories, The Red Room, though ostensibly a ghost story, may instead be an allegorical tale about the dawn of the 20th Century. If anything, that makes it even scarier…"

• At Campfire Radio Theater:  Twilight Road by John Ballentine. Horror.
      "A young woman, pronounced dead hours earlier, springs to life on the embalming table. Haunted by disembodied voices and recollections of a shadowy afterlife, Cerina is desperate to escape the ghoulish confines of the city morgue. Might she suffer delusions due to her accident or is something far more grisly amiss?"

Old Time Radio
Other Genres


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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

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
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

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.

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Online Freebies

A very good day for free fiction with great free genre stories from many big sites - seriously awesome!. And a bit of an unusual gaming/fiction hybrid as Kobold Quarterly's free Midgard preview contains two short, short stories. And there;s more free fiction in a variety of formats (E-Book, Audio, Comic Book, etc).  More great free fiction links are available at SF Signal and Free SF Reader. And as always, lice are welcome. 

 The lovely lady to the left is from "Proper Villains Chapter Three: The Caper" below.




 
Fiction
At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "A Song of Blackness" by Nancy Fulda. Fantasy.
     "I had never met this man, this gnarled old usurper who lounged on furniture emblazoned with my ancestors' crest."
At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Hold a Candle to The Devil" by Nicole M. Taylor. Fantasy.
    "Florence sat in Miss Em’s desk and felt small and wrong there."
At Black Gate: “The Daughter’s Dowry” by Aaron Bradford Starr. Fantasy.
    "I inserted the key into the lock, amazed at how free of corrosion or accumulated grit the inner mechanism was. Yr Neh cocked his ears forward in surprise as well. Our eyes met, and we smiled to each other as I turned the key."
At Nature:  "The Tell-Tale Ear" by Alex Shvartsman. Science Fiction.
    "We seem to be having an equipment malfunction. I can hear bits broadcast from the Grand Cayman Casino and Erectile Dysfunction marketing campaigns while at the office. Somebody get on top of this."
At Paizo:  "Proper Villains Chapter Three: The Caper" by Erik Scott de Bie. Fantasy.
     "Humming anxiously under his breath, Tarrant watched as the last cart of treasure arrived from the docks as the sun set. This time was always torture and ecstasy for him: he could hardly stand the waiting, and yet he could not help his excitement for the game to come."
At Project Gutenberg: "The Metal Moon" by Everett C. Smith and R.F. Starzl. Science Fiction.
"The ship was now coming close to the vast curve of the crystal city. The earthmen became aware that the part below the city level was a dull ugly black." from Wonder Stories Quarterly Winter 1932.
At Tor.com: "Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill" by Marie Rutkosk.
      "Few know that the Great Chicago Fire was started deliberately, bringing genocide to deadly creatures called Shades. Fewer still know that they didn't die, not quite...and one human will confront the truth when an ominous beauty makes him gamble for his life."
At The WiFiles:  "The Hunt" by John Krissilas. Speculative Fiction.
    "I had been tracking it for several kilometers, I reminded myself, and finally, finally my patience had paid off. This is it. The animal was pausing to graze, confident that it was free from danger, unaware of the fact that I’d been watching and waiting."
Reviewed at Variety SF:  "The Chronic Argonauts" by H. G. Wells. (1888).
    "About half-a-mile outside the village of Llyddwdd by the road that goes up over the eastern flank of the mountain called Pen-y-pwll to Rwstog is a large farm-building known as the Manse. It derives this title from the fact that it was at one rime the residence of the minister of the Calvinistic Methodists."
At Kobold Quaterly In Free Midgard Preview:  [Requires Free Membership]
     “At the Sign of the World Serpent” by Wade Rockett. Fantasy.“I confess that I do not like the look of this so-called inn,”said Benedict, gazing at the rickety building before them"  and “The Bloodtide” by Jeff Grubb. Fantasy. "It had all seemed so simple, back in Savoyne, safely behind the protection of the Raven’s Wall. A simple mission into the Wasted West, to the reputed wreckage of a particular now-dead necromancer’s tower."

Flash Fiction
At Daily Science Fiction: "This is the Way the World Begins" by C.L. Holland.
At 365 Tomorrows: "A Practical Trip" by Robert White. Science Fiction.

E-Books
At Free eBooks Daily:
At Smashwords:
Via Pixel of Ink:

Audio Fiction
At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Cursed Motives" by Marissa Lingen. Fantasy.
     "Safy laughed despite herself. 'Unnatural? Of course I am.'"
At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Episode 22 - Tarzan of the Apes
    "Paul D’Arnot, Lieutenant from the French cruiser, has been captured by Mbonga’s tribe and subjected to the ordeal of torture by the cannibals."At SFFAudio: Two versions of  "The Nine Billion Names Of God" by Arthur C. Clarke.

Old Time Radio
At Journey Into: Mind Webs: "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury.
At OTR Plot Spot: "'Return Trip" - Suspense (1946) and "The Talkers" - Theatre 5 (1964) up until around: 25 Oct.

Video
At Internet Archive:  The Invaders-Unseen Pilot pt I and II (1967). Science Fiction.
 
Comics
At Atomic Kommie Comics: "World War III with the Ants" Sci-Fi.
At The Yellowed Pages: "A Ghastly Tale - No.1" and "A Ghastly Tale - No.2"  Horror.

Other Genres
At Project Gutenberg: "The Vinland Champions" by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz. Historic Adventure. Vikings. 1904.



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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Clarkesworld, PodCastle, and More

Quite a bit of good, free fiction from some of the better sites on the web, as well as good free audio fiction and flash fiction. Today's illustration is for the two highlighted stories stories in the latest issue of the awesome Clarkesworld magazine.












@Clarkesworld: "Conservation of Shadows" by Yoon Ha Lee.
"There is no such thing as conservation of shadows. When light destroys shadows, darkness does not gain in density elsewhere. When shadows steal over earth and across the sky, darkness is not diluted."
@Clarkesworld: "The Fish of Lijiang" by Chen Qiufan, translated by Ken Liu.
"After ten years, everything here has changed. The only thing that remains the same is the color of the sky."
@Lightspeed: "Defenders" by Will McIntosh. Science Fiction.
"The silence was shocking, the sense of isolation unnerving, partly because she knew it meant the jet had penetrated the Defenders’ cloak and entered Australian airspace."
@Subterranean Press: "White Lines on a Green Field" by Catherynne M. Valente.
"Let me tell you about the year Coyote took the Devils to the State Championship. "
@Anotherealm: "The Gift of Pleasure" by Tim Myers. Speculative Fiction.
@Author's Site: "Destiny" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. (2001). Fantasy. [Up until next Monday]
@Philipine Genre Stories: "Stars" by Yvette Tan. Speculative Fiction.
@Smashwords: "The Accidental Immortal" by Trista DiGiuseppi. Fantasy.
@Free eBooks Daily [DRM]:
@Pixel of Ink [Kindle]:
Now Posted: Quantum Muse August 2011 Edition featuring fiction

Serial Fiction
@Strange Horizons: "The Rugged Track (part 1 of 2)" by Liz Argall. Speculative Fiction.






@PodCastle: "Zauberschrift" by David D. Levine, read by Wilson Fowlie. Fantasy.
“Why have you come all this way to ask _my_ help? I am no wizard — I never even finished my apprenticeship. I am just a dyer.”
@Clarkesworld: "Conservation of Shadows" by Yoon Ha Lee, read by Kate Baker. [see above]


Serial Audio
@The Drama Pod: "The Fantastical Adventures of Percival Van Cleef Ep1" by Kate Mandalov Steampunk.
"Professor Percival Van Cleef is entering the Chelsea Royal Flower Show to uncover a Prussian plot to murder the Queen. Armed with combustibles and explosives he is ready to learn just how deadly is the art of flower arranging"


Non-Genre Audio Poetry*
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale, read by Ann Simmons. Right click to save the LibriVox MP3.

*Only because it inspired, and provided the title for, one of Ray Bradbury's more poignant SF stories.







@Daily Science Fiction: "Counting Coup" by Kat Otis.
@Daily Science Fiction: "Toad Sister" by Joanna Michal Hoyt.
@Daily Science Fiction: "Only Backwards" by Kenneth S Kao.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Instinct" by Susan Franceschina. Horror.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Five Urns" by E.J. Loera. Horror.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Around the World in 33 Days" by Trey Dowell. Horror.
@Quantum Muse: "Beside Myself" by Nathan Parshall.
@Sam's Dot: SciFaikufest Vol.9 No. 1
@Strange Horizons: [Poem] "Foxes" by Jamieson Ridenhour.
@365 tomorrows: "Cold Blooded Killers" by Patricia Stewart. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "Timing" by Duncan Shields . Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "The Cutting Edge" by Waldo van der Waal . Science Fiction.
@Weirdyear: "Angel on Fire" by C. A. T. Torres V
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Pyramid" by Dan Shelton. Fantasy.
@Linger Fiction:
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