Read the Free Fiction, Luke

A wide variety of great free fiction today, including Lightspeed, Protecting Project Pulp, Goblin Fruit, and many other great sites. And more to come later. And thanks to Regan Wolfrom at SF Signal for a couple cool links this time!
[Art for ""The Opener of the Way" in audio fiction]










Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Safety Tests" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "Devlin trudges through his job on the space station waiting for retirement and hoping he won’t die first. A test pilot with Licensing and Regulation, he makes sure only the most qualified pilots make it to the test flight, let alone pass it. But sometimes, even the most jaded tester misses something. And the difference between life and death on a space station? Missing nothing. Nothing at all."

• At The Colored Lens: "The Flower Garden – Part 2" by Michael Shone.
     "Greg knew his thinking was impaired. He was halfway back to his father’s house, with Annie in the passenger seat nursing two doggy bags. And it meant that he was also going to have to run her back into town later. She might have some vague plan about staying over, but if she did, this was the worst possible way to go about it."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Velveteen Rabbit Says Goodbye" by Melissa Mead. Fantasy. 
       "There once was a rabbit who had been made of velveteen. For many years now he'd been Real--not just Real in the eyes of the Boy who loved him, but real to the world of grown-ups and rabbits with twitching noses and springy hind legs."

• At Lightspeed: "Angelus" by Nina Allan. Science Fiction.
      "He was in the bathroom cleaning the taps. I could only see the back of him—an overlong measure of spine, the lean, narrow shoulders hunched forward slightly as he polished the chrome with the yellow duster—but there was no doubt in my mind that it was him. I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years and had received no news of him in all that time."

• At Lightspeed: "Homecoming" by Seanan McGuire. Fantasy.
      "The locker room is always tense before a game. Alisa is trying to get her uniform to stay in place, counting more on safety pins and prayer than she probably should, and Birdie—true to her name—keeps whistling, which is probably going to get her slapped if she doesn’t stop soon. Cram twenty girls from opposing squads into one small space and tensions are going to flare."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Senbazuru" by V.H. Leslie.Horror.
      "After all these years he knows how I play, my preference for paper, stretching out my hand as if holding it above a flame. I watch his calculated response, knowing his reaction in advance; his index and middle finger stretched into a V if he is being particularly stubborn or folded into a ball to satisfy me, letting me win."

Flash Fiction and Poetry
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Breaking the Wedge" by Scott Summers. Science Fiction.
At Goblin Fruit: Fantasy poems.

• "Self Portrait in Tempera" by Dan Campbell. Fantasy.
• "What Is Owed" by C.S.E. Cooney. Fantasy.
• "I Will Show You a Single Treasure from the Treasures of Shah Niyaz" by Rose Lemberg. Fantasy.
• "Deity of Heat" by Cheryl Wood Ruggiero. Fantasy.
• "Desire Lines" by Sara Saab. Fantasy.
• "Goddess" by Michelle Yost. Fantasy.
• "Singing the Plains" by Rachael Bundock. Fantasy.
• "Better Late Than Never" by L. C. Ricardo . Fantasy.

At Flash Fiction Online:

• "The Social Phobic’s Guide to Interior Design" by Sarah Grey. Speculative Fiction.
• "The Shallows" by Nathaniel Lee. Science Fiction. 
• "Egocentric Orbit" by John Cory. Science Fiction. 1960.

Audio Fiction
At Dark Fiction Magazine. Horror.

• "A Map of Mercury" by Alastair Reynolds.
     “When we can rebuild our bodies, what is it that makes us human? And when we can mould the universe, what are the limits of art? A look into the future with the legendary Alastair Reynolds.
 
• "We’ll Always Be Here" by S. L. Grey.
     "Homicidal robots, misfit children, apocalyptic asteroids and Next Top Model. A celestial horror story that could only come from the warped minds behind The Mall and The New Girl."

• "Wish for a Gun" by Sam Sykes.
     "A grieving widower in a small Western town wants only to ease his loneliness – but in the hands of dark powers, even the best of intentions can go horribly wrong. A finalist for the British Fantasy Award’s “Best Short Story” of 2012."
• "Death on Elsewhere Street" by Jaine Fenn.
     "The Angels’ work for the city, legalised assassins. But when one goes rogue, is an execution justified or murder?"

• At Drabblecast: "Twenty Ways the Desert Could Kill You" by Sarah Pinkster. Fantasy.
     "3. The cactus isn’t poisonous, and neither is the snake, but the snake’s venom is a powerful anti-coagulant. You could bleed to death from the place you were bitten and/or pricked." and "Improved Stars" by Chantal Beaulne.

• At The Drama Pod: "QD-Twelve" by Mike Murphy. Full cast dramatization.
      "A superstitious man is delivered a mysterious prophecy proclaiming  he will die at Twelve."

• At Lightspeed: "Homecoming" by Seanan McGuire. Narrated by Judy Young. Fantasy.
      "The locker room is always tense before a game. Alisa is trying to get her uniform to stay in place, counting more on safety pins and prayer than she probably should, and Birdie—true to her name—keeps whistling, which is probably going to get her slapped if she doesn’t stop soon. Cram twenty girls from opposing squads into one small space and tensions are going to flare."

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "The Deadly City, part 3 of 3" by Ivar Jorgenson (Paul W. Fairman). Read by Julie Hoverson. Science Fiction.
      "Waking up to find themselves in a completely vacated city, several people try to cope."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Opener of the Way" by Robert Bloch,  Narrator: Simon Hildebrandt.  Horror.
      "A tremendous tale about the dread doom that overtook an archeologist in that forgotten tomb beneath the desert sands of Egypt". first published in Weird Tales, October 1936.

Other Genres

• Fiction at Project Gutenberg: Whispers at Dawn by Roy J. Snell. YA. Mystery. 1934.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Waiting Room" by Sarah Grill.

More Free Fantasy, SF, and Horror.

There's some very good free fiction today from some great sites, as well as flash fiction, and audio fiction.  All free, all great.  There's also  some good historical fiction, western fiction, and a suspense story.  After a long delay, QD Radio returns with the Dimension X adaptation of Heinlein's "Destination Moon."


  [Art for "The Memory Coder" linked below]
 
 


Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy.  

      "A loon called this morning, loud and clear in the cold hours before dawn, but it was not that which woke me from my sleep. As I opened my eyes, the bay and the beach were wrapped in heavy blackness, invisible clouds shutting out any hint of starlight above. For a moment, I lay in my lean-to, breathing heavily under the shaggy bison skin blanket."

• At Lightspeed:  "PauseTime" by Mary Soon Lee. Science Fiction. 

      Twenty minutes into the transatlantic flight, Connor started wailing. Pauline cradled him in her arms. Then she rocked him, she offered him her breast, she sang to him; Connor continued to cry. The man sitting on her right gave her a thin smile. “Did you forget the baby’s pauser code?”

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Blackbirds" by Norman Partridge
     "On an August morning in the summer of 1960, a man dressed in black shattered the kitchen window at the Peterson home."

• At Tor.com: "The Memory Coder" by Jessica Brody.
     "When a security breach is detected, the Memory Restoration Department is called upon to do what they do best: make you forget. But with every memory that’s taken out, a new one must be installed in its place. It’s a job that requires skill, artistry, discretion, and flawless proficiency in the language of memories. That’s why only the best programmers in the world are recruited to work for the department."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "I Heard You Got a Cat, I Heard You Named Him Charles" by M. Bennardo.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Coffee Pot" by Jez Patterson. 
• At Every Day Fiction: "Drawn to the Glow" by K.C. Ball. Fantasy.
• At Every Day Fiction: "The Old Man and the Safe" by Peter Wood. Science Fiction.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "An Honest Explanation" by Michael Pelosi. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Floribunda" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Monocle" by Alex Grover. . Science Fiction.
• At Yesteryear Fiction: "The Children of Passivity" by Ken Poyner. Fantasy.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #20" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "Bumberpuff and his crew are integrating into the Krakens, at least as best as they can. But can the Prawatt and the Sklorno get past years of confrontation to work together on the field?"

• At Lightspeed: "The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy. 
       Described Above

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Blackbirds" by Norman Partridge,
      Described above.

• At Protecting Project Pulp: “The Whistling Corpse” by G. G. Pendarves. Horror.
      First published in Weird Tales, July, 1937. "A gripping weird tale of the sea—of the thing that walked in the fog—and the terror that stalked on board an ocean liner."

• At SFFaudio: "The Inn" by Guy de Maupassant.
     "Then beneath them, in a tremendous hole, at the bottom of a terrific abyss, they perceived Loeche, where houses looked as grains of sand which had been thrown into that enormous crevice that is ended and closed by the Gemmi and which opens, down below, on the Rhone."

• At StarShipSofa: "The Mad Scientist’s Daughter" by Theodora Goss.
     "In London, we formed a club. It's very exclusive. There are only six members. Five of us live on the premises. Helen, who is married, lives in Bloomsbury, but she comes to have dinner with us twice a week. We need each other. None of us has sisters, except Mary and Diana in a way, so we take the place of sisters for each other. Who else could share or sympathize with our experiences?"

Other Genres

• Audio at LibriVox: "Wulf the Saxon" by G. A. Henty. Historical Fiction - Norman Conquest.
• Audio at Tales of Old: "The Emperor Defeats a Pidgeon" by Gary Girod. Historical Fiction - Ancient Rome.
• Fiction at The Western Online: "Bold as Brass" by J. R. Lindermuth. Western.
• Fiction at The Western Online: "Quick Tom" by Paul Miller. Western. 
• Flash Fiction at Spinetingler: "The Riverboat" by Stephen Ross. Suspense.

A Few

Just a few goodies this morning (one very late).


 Today's QD Radio is Dimension X's 1950 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's early Science Fiction story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect"

[Art from "Bad Medicine" linked below]

Fiction
• At Online Pulps!: "Bad Medicine" by William Morrison. Sci-Fi.
      "Meet the scoundrels of the spaceways as they find that cheating cheaters is universal." From Thrilling Wonder Stories. February, 1941.

• At Weird Tales: "The Darkness at Table Rock Road" Michael Reyes. Horror.
     "I banish the memory, down the beer and light up a joint as I sink into my beanbag, all the while trying to visualize exactly where Wyoming is on the map. I can’t. Exhaling the smoke I decide I’m going to visit Blake and take mushrooms with him at a place called The Red Desert."

• Flash Fiction at 365 Tomorrows: "Uptown" by Derrick Paulson. Science Fiction.

Other Genres

• Audio at Radio Drama Revival: "Mumbai Chuzzlewits, Part 2: Murder, Alliances and Greed"
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Balancing Act" by Vijay Matheswaran. Literary.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman, QD is Safe, and More

Some fantastic free fiction to start the day.  There are a pair of stories by genre great Nina Kiriki Hoffman, a pair of stories at Lightspeed, and many more free fiction stories. There are also great audio stories, including a classic Robert Bloch story from Weird Tales.  And flas fiction for a bit of icing on the cake. Special thanks to Old Miser for a pair of links.

If you happen to use Google Chrome (why???) you might be curious as to why QD is sometimes listed as potentially dangerous.  QD is not now, nor has it ever been a dangerous site.  Because a perfectly legitimate, at the time, site that QD linked to years ago has since then apparently become "listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer," QD still sometimes gets a red flag. And even though the QD no longer even links to that site (all old links were deleted), you may still get a warning - don't fear, QD will never host, nor knowingly link to, any dangerous, illegal, or immoral* sites.  [Thanks to John D for the heads up about this issue]

* Immoral is subjective but QD will not link to porn, politics, or real hate speech.

More later - I hope (I have at least one link to steal from Regan)
 

Fiction
At AE: "The Mugger's Hymn" by  Julian Mortimer Smith.
      "John Gunn crept down Fumblers Alley all jagged nerves and awkward stealth. He hadn’t slept a wink in a week. He had kept himself awake with hits of pirate nicotine and splintery, shivery adrenaline. He knew that if he slept he would lose the tune, that better-than-certainty, that unthinking faith in the world."

At The Colored Lens: "Diffusion – Part 1" by Andrew Tisbert. Urban Fantasy. Slipstream.
     "No, these images were from the inside, through his clones’ eyes, evoking a different kind of terror. Some hit suddenly—a bright flash of light, a burst of pain shearing mercifully off into nothing. Others took time. His heart thumping out blood like a cavitating oil pump."

At Daily Science Fiction: "The Key to Everything" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
     "My special talent was pissing people off. That wasn't the technical term for it, but that was what I was good at. You would think there wouldn't be much demand for this talent. That would be you, wrong again." 

At Eclipse Online: "Firebugs" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
      “Esta, can you explain why you set that bush on fire?” Creche Mother Makis asked us.  Two of her sibs flanked her on the judgment bench.  All three stared at us, their faces expressionless, identical.  Hawk noses, narrow mouths, deep-set eyes under heavy brows, their hair hidden under the white hoods of their judgment robes."

At Electric Velocipede: "The Night We Drank Cold Wine" by Megan Kurashig.
       "I don’t ask anymore, but Rhodes always explains. If I decide to pick up the phone, he will tell me a story of unexpected coincidences to make me laugh; and I will hardly believe it, even though I know his stories always turn out to be true."

At Lightspeed: "A Game of Rats and Dragon" by Tobias S. Buckell. Science Fiction.
      "Moonlighting as a non-player character was a hell of a way to earn a living. Never made much sense to spend all that time garbing up in a virtual uniform that matched gamespace, but Overton took pride in the details."

At Lightspeed: "Seven Smiles and Seven Frowns" by Richard Bowes.Fantasy.
      "Each time I find a new apprentice in these times of trouble, I remember being a girl of twelve, getting close to thirteen. The other lads and maidens my age were already starting to pair off."

At Mindflights: "Asperges Me, Domine" by Ashley Bobo. Fantasy.
      "She first noticed him when he tripped over a log, and she caught sight of the symbol of St. Bramwell, a silver cross with sharp points, on the hem of his robe. He was too young to be a full monk, but if he knew where the saint’s burial place was…"

At Weird Fiction Review: "The White" by Berit Ellingsen.
     "Last year one of the professor’s PhD students froze to death just fifty meters from the base. In a blizzard, he failed to find his way from the infrared observatory to the housing unit. It must have been difficult for the professor to notify the student’s parents."

Flash Fiction

• At Author's Site: "The Taste of Miracles" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
• At Enchanted Conversation: "A Queen's Discontent" by Marcia Sherman. Fairy Tale Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Lady Is Not" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
At Cast of Wonders:  "The Great Game, Part 6 – When Stars Fall" by James Vachowski. YA.
       "What? A meteor? Don’t be a dunce, child, there’s no such thing. That was a star falling from the heavens, as sure as I’m alive. But draw the curtains now, if you please. A single shooting star is an omen of luck, but seeing several foretells death."

At Dunesteef: "Todd Elrin And The Forever Reset" by Jonathan C. Gillespie.
     "It’s the last day of the year, and it’s time for Todd Elrin to leave his current location, and start the year over somewhere else, as he has done many times this particular calendar year. But an angry visitor from the future has other plans."

At Lightspeed: "A Game of Rats and Dragon" by Tobias S. Buckell. Science Fiction.
see above.

At Protection Project Pulp: "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" by Robert Bloch. Weird.
      "Captain Carteret bent forward and peered at the queer, metallic thing. His thin, usually pale face now glowed with unconcealed excitement. He grasped the black object with twitching fingers."

Other Genres
Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "A Blessing for Brothers" by Craig Fishbane.

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.

Wednesday Freebies

A few goodies today, including some non-fiction genre podcasts of note.











Free Kindle eBooks
@Free eBooks Daily: "Don't Count The Stars" by Jacob Heim. (and other DRM formats)
@Pixel of Ink: "Bug Island" by R.G. Cordiner. Horror.
@Pixel of Ink: "Out of Time" by Monique Martin. Paranormal Romance. Vampires.
@Pixel of Ink: "The Watcher" by John Brinling. Horror.

Serial Fiction
@Author's Site: Deluge (Part 79) by Brian Keene. [via Free SF Reader]

Classic Weird
@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: "Astra" by Arthur J. Burks. From Weird Tales. vol. 44. #. 7. (JPG scans)

Reviewed Free SF
@BestScienceFictionStories.com: "Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allan

Fan Audio
@The Sonic Society: "Sonic Summerstock Presents: The Shadow" [via Pendant Productions]







@Daily Science Fiction: "Distant Dragon" by L.L. Phelps. Fantasy.
@Every Day Fiction: "Let the Bastards See Your Teeth" by Jeff Samson. Science Fiction.
@Flash Pulp: "New Urban Legend: The Pale Child" by JRD Skinner.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Policy of Truth" by Lori Titus. Horror.
@Flashes in the Dark: "In My Sleep" by Brandon Lewis. Horror.
@Strange Horizons: [poem] "The Internet in Heaven" by Sara Polsky. Spec. Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "151" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "Krystal K. and the Janitor" by James Reinebold. Science Fiction.
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Caves of Despair... Once They Were Soldiers..." by Sergio "ente per ente" Palumbo. Fantasy.

Non-Fiction Podcasts of Note.
@Functional Nerds: Episode #65 - Timothy Zahn Interview. [via SF Signal]
@SFFaudio: Podcast #117 – Scott, Jesse and Tamahome talk about audiobooks.
@SF Signal: Episode #66 - Panel Discussion of SciFi and Fantasy Conventions
@Comics Podcast Network: Fanboy Buzz Episode #63 - Comics News Roundup.
@Comics Podcast Network: Comic News Insider Episode #345 – San Diego Comic-Con Pre-Game w/ Ben Templesmith & Mr. Phil!

Freebies on a Gorram Monday

Your friendly space captain has a busy day today so today's post was made last night. We have some new fiction, including a variety from Absent Willow. Some classic fiction (Weird Tales and Galaxy ruled in their eras), some great gaming items, Art, and more. Have as good a day as possible on a gorram Monday! [Today's illustration is for the poem "When Wizards Clashed" by Richard H. Fay in Absent Willow]







@The Absent Willow Review:

• "As Martha Waits" by Edward Turner III.
• "Abigail" by James C. Bassett.
• "Emergence" by A.J. Faust.
• "Caught in a Trap" by Terry Light.
• "Lonestar" by John Richard Albers.
• "Desolation Dreaming" by Sean A. Lusher.
• "Wildman" by Richard Marsden Meatte.
• "Touch of Death" by BV.
• "From the Field" by Nick Medina.
• "Human Resources" by Gregg Chapman Nerves.
• "Appetites" by Pamela J. Jessen.
• "When Wizards Clashed" by Richard H. Fay.

@The author's Site: "All the Clowns in Clowntown" by Andrew J. McKiernan. (only until the 22nd of April) [via SF Signal]
"Binko stood his ground, white-gloved fingers twitching into nervous fists. The warmth from the overhead street-lamp drew sweat from his brow, sheening his greasepaint until it shone like fine-glazed porcelain."


Classic SF/Weird Tales
@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: "The Last Three Ships" by Margaret St. Clair, from Weird Tales (May 1950). (jpg scans).
"The best of it was that it wasn't really stealing. Everybody knew that the ships had been moored in the estuary because mooring them was cheaper than cutting them up for scrap would have been."


@Project Gutenberg: "The Rotifer" by Robert Abernathy, IF Worlds of Science Fiction (March 1953).
"Beneath the stagnant water shadowed by water lilies Harry found the fascinating world of the rotifers—but it was their world, and they resented intrusion."

@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: "Second Childhood" by Clifford D. Simak,
from Galaxy Magazine (Feb. 1951). (jpg scans).
"Achieving immortality is only half the problem. The other half is knowing how to live with it once it's been made possible -- and inescapable."







@Every Day Fiction: "Vestige" by Yvette Managan.
@Flashes in the Dark: "The Bottom Step" by Thomas Scopel.
@365 tomorrows: "The Mad Cow Special" by Marlan Smith.
@365 tomorrows: "What Happened to San Francisco?" by David Bastin.
@Tor.com: [Poem] "Ragnarok" by Paul Park.







@Free Listens: "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Louis Borges, reviewed with an MP3 download. Magic Realism.
"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings."

Serial Audio:
@Triplanetary: Superman "The Atom Man" Parts 13-16.
"Superman confronts his nemesis, Atom Man, as the transcription feature continues."







@DriveThruRPG: Blackmarsh from Bat in the Attic Games.
"Blackmarsh is a complete, ready to run setting for your campaign. It can be run as its own setting or an expansion of your existing world. Contained in Blackmarsh are 17 geographical entries, 78 described locales, and one detailed town; Castle Blackmarsh. Each entry provide one or more adventure hooks to use in your campaigns." For early editions of D&D and retro clones.

[free membership required]


@Earthdawn Blog: Tableau Infractus #7. A fan generated Earthdawn zine with "an interview with Andrew Ragland wherein he talks about his authorship on the new RedBrick release “Burning Desires”. Further chapters include descriptions of Iopos, several selection charts which explain the methods of spell casting in Earthdawn and of course is a chapter with miniatures included."

Smaller But Still Cool:
@The Land of NOD: [Encounter] "Mu-Pan - Encounter XXIII"
@Big Ball of No Fun: [Monster] "Nuberu"
@Sea of Stars: [New Magic Item] "Naenia’s Flute"
@The Grand Tapestry: [Monster] "Cephalomalian"
@A Character for Every Game: [New Spells] "Level 1 Diablo Necromancer Magic"
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Item] "Mind Gems of Athra-Kla"
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Spell] "Fatestone"


Other Coolness
@Monster Brains: [Art] A gallery of SF art by Paul Lehr.
@Golden Age Comic Book Stories: [Art] A gallery of Ace Books covers for Andre Norton Books.
@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: [Art] Ed Emshwiller SF gallery.

Elaine Cunningham, Kim Stanley Robinson, Weird Tales, and More Freeness

A bit of a quiet day, but still some great free items. New Fiction by Elaine Cunningham, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Peter Orullian. Classic P.K.D. and a trio of Weird Tales stories from the 1930s (and some art), comics, flash fiction, audio fiction, and more. [Illustration from "The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham]








Fiction
@Paizo.com: "The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham.
"Still, the school is world-renowned, and I felt one might reasonably expect a certain breadth of knowledge in its scholars. To my surprise, little is known of the Mwangi Expanse. We are all one to these northerners. When they express admiration for my gold ornaments and the thread-art on my garments, their manner suggests an expectation of jangar-skin loin clouts and necklaces of monkey bone."

@Tor.com: "The Lunatics" by Kim Stanley Robinson, from Brave New Worlds.
"They were very near the center of the moon, Jakob told them. He was the newest member of the bullpen, but already their leader." [via Free SF Reader]

@Tor.com: "The Battle of the Round" by Peter Orullian.
"Maral Praig knelt beside the bleeding soldier and examined his wounds. A sword or spear had punctured the man’s gut several times. He would die if Maral did not heal him."

Classic SF
@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "Isle of the Undead" by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, from Weird Tales (Oct. 1936.)
"A gripping, thrilling, uncanny tale about the frightful fate that befell a yachting party on the dreadful island of living dead men"





@BestScienceFiction: A review of, as well as a link to, "Paycheck" by Philip K. Dick (1953).
"ALL AT ONCE he was in motion. Around him smooth jets hummed. He was on
a small private rocket cruiser, moving leisurely across the afternoon sky,
between cities."

@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "Here Lies" by H.W. Guernsey, from Weird Tales (Oct. 1937).
"An ironic little story about a practical communist who taught his friend when to take him seriously"

@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "The Last of Mrs DeBrugh" by H. Sivia, from Weird Tales (Oct. 1937).
"Mr. DeBrugh was dead, but he still regarded his promise as a sacred duty to be carried out."







@StarShipSofa: Episode #184 featuring: [Fiction] "A Very Private Tour of A Very Public Museum"by Scott Edelman, [Poetry] "Poetry Planet" by Diane Serverson, and [Serial] "Grail-Diving in Shangrilla with the World’s Last Mime" by Ken Scholes, with narrators Jeff Lane and Josh Roseman.








@Flashes in the Dark: "Instinct" by Lori Titus.
@365 tomorrows: "Special Ops" by Roi R. Czechvala.
@Daily Science Fiction: "N is for Nevermore Nevermore Land" by Tim Pratt, Jenn Reese, Heather Shaw, and Greg van Eekhout.


Comics
@Crosseyed Cyclops: Journey Into Unknown Worlds #53 in CBR download. Sci-Fi.







@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "The Sorceress of Zoom" from Weird Comics #17 (1941). Fantasy/Crimefighter.

@The Comic Book Catacombs: Sheena, Queen of the Jungle in "Vengeance of the Talu Chief" from Sheena #1 (Spring 1942) Pulp Adventure.

@Atomic Kommie Comics: Cave Girl in "Ape God of Kor" from Thun'da #2. Prehistoric Adventure.


Other Coolness
[Art] Conan Images. "The Tree of Life" at Crom! and Weird Tales and paperback covers at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

@Paleofuture: [Futurism Fail] "Picnics on Mars in the Year 2012" (1962).

Bonus Freebies.

Due to a different work schedule next week, posts will be at night (or afternoon) instead of late morning. But that meant either I wait until late Monday to post or else link to these cool items early. Easy choice. Also I will likely be experementing with formatting next week so don't be thrown off.



Fiction
Crossed Genres has its 29th issue up. This issue has stories crossing mystery with other genres (Science Fiction or Fantasy). [via SF Signal]

"In the House of the Brelsh" by Barbara Krasnoff.
"Bett sat on the floor, shivering despite her environment suit. Her headgear was in her lap and her small pack sat next to her; these, together with just enough currency to get her to the spaceport, were everything she owned. The next transport wasn’t due for several hours yet."

"Soul of the City" by Jamie Mason.
"Capone’s guys got into a shoot-out with the demons. Again. This time it was Ba’al’s gang, up from the Fifth Circle, looking to grab a piece of the action. Word had it they’d started the ball rolling by whacking one of Capone’s soldiers in a speak-easy over on the south side."

"The Body and the Bomb" by John P. Murphy.
"Chief Constable Fatima Nouri took her motorcycle up to the clearing. It was far enough away from the blast to cut down on radiation exposure, but it was in the wilds of Sapphire’s native vegetation, out ‘in the blue’. "

"Down There" by Aaron Polson.
“The truth is, nothing scary ever came out of a basement. Except for a little mold. Or a couple rats, and that’s only if you’re a massive chickenshit,” Travis said. He was the prototypical history teacher/football coach hybrid whose body hinted a fit childhood but now carried a sizable gut. “It’s you artsy-fartsy types—all that Poe shit Aaron makes the kids read.”

"The Peculiar People" by Erik T. Johnson.
“The black witch and I have been next to each other as long as we can remember,” the black cat said. “Today the black witch looked up and saw black space everywhere above us with eighteen perfect five-pointed orange stars in it. At the same time, I opened my orange eyes and noticed the black witch gazing at the pumpkin-colored pentagrams.”

(Issue 28 - Superhero, with stories and articles by Leow Hui Min Annabeth, Tracie Welser, Nathan Crowder, Adam Israel, KB Lawrence, and Athena Andreadis, is online HERE.)


@The Author's Website: "The Bad Place" by Lincoln Crisler. a free, unpublished science fiction story in exchange for a tweet linking to the author's site.


Classic SF
@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: "The Triangle of Terror" by William F. Temple, from Weird Tales (May 1950).
"Also, he had the best library of books on the occult that I had ever come across."






@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "The Statue" by Mari Wolf, from IF: Worlds of Science Fiction (Jan. 1953).
"There is a time for doing and a time for going home. But where is home in an ever-changing universe?"






@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "Duel on Syrtis" by Poul Anderson, from Planet Stories (March 1951).
"Bold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red deserts ... a Martian!"

@Munseys and Project Gutenberg: "The Thing in the Attic" by James Benjamin Blish, from If: Worlds of Science Fiction July 1954.
"Honath and his fellow arch-doubters did not believe in the Giants, and for this they were cast into Hell. And when survival depended upon unwavering faith in their beliefs, they saw that there were Giants, after all."


Audio Fiction
@Gypsy Audio: Twisted Tales of Faerie - Snow White in three parts (Part one, two, and three) A "twisted" retelling of the classic faerie tale. Rated PG-13.

Serial Audio
@The Author's Website: The Starter episode #9 by Scott Sigler.
"Media Day is here! Quentin's first trip in front of reporters as the starting quarterback of the Ionath Krakens turns out to be more difficult than he anticipates. We talk about the Quyth life cycle, and meet a new species (the Leekee) for the first time."

@Beam Me Up: Episode #256 featuring "episode 11 of the Dark InSpectre series by Jason Kahn and thing seem to be getting quite dicey for our favorite mind reading detective […] part one of 'In Fall' by Ted Kosmatka."

Flash Fiction
@Brain Harvest: "White Snake" by Kyle Hemmings.
@The New Flesh: "Peodius Complex" by Jack Bristow.
@365tomorrows: "Limited Options" by Steven Odhner.
@365tomorrows: "Adoption" by Harris Tobias.
@Flashes in the Dark: "The Stomping of Feet" by Lori Titus.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Essence" by Steve Toase

Gaming
@WotC: [Adventure Hooks] "Scarblade" and "Killing Ground" (4e but easily adaptable)
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Spells] "Symbiotic Curse" and "Many Hands Make Light Work"
@The Land of NOD: [Encounter] Mu-Pan - Encounter XXI.
@A Character for Every Game: [Dungeon] "The Hazardous Depths of the Shroom-Goblin Tesseract (part 2)."
@Sea of Stars: [New Magic Items] "Geras’ Cane" and "Hebe’s Cup"
@Big Ball of No Fun: [New Monsters] "Fetch," "Guarana," and "Hyter Sprite"
@Underworld Kingdom: [New Monster] "Ho-ru, the Black Lizardmen"