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.

Part Two

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










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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flash Fiction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Other Genres

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

Free Fiction Forever

Some very good free fiction to end the month. A trio of good short SF stories and a trio of good flash fiction stories.  There's also cool audio horror from two great sites, flash SF audio at Escape Pod, and a fantasy audio story from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (OK it's a Mystery-Fantasy), and some worthy entries in the other genres section.


[Art from "Head Case" linked below]




Fiction 
At Buzzy Mag: "Paint It Black" by John McIlvee.
     "She dabbed her paintbrush against the palette and applied it to the canvas, blending and feathering with quick, bold strokes until she achieved the exact effect she desired. Stepping back, she appraised her work and returned to blend a spot with her thumb. A pleased smile spread across her tired yet regal face."

At Cosmos: "Head Case" by by Kate Orman.
       "The human mind isn’t big enough for two. Especially when one of you is a ghost."

At Daily Science Fiction: "A Wizard of the Roads" by Therese Arkenberg.
      "The road was falling apart, too bumpy to walk on anymore, so he'd taken the railroad tracks instead. On and on they went, without the curves of the blacktop, and the telephone poles marched alongside them. The wires hanging from the poles were empty, and so were the wires leading to the dark lights in the towns, or to the TVs and fridges and stuff in people's homes. He felt their emptiness. Empty, empty, empty."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Manticore" by Arthur Lorenz. Fantasy.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Beautiful Moon" by David Stevenson. Science Fiction.
• At Weirdyear: "Frog Fog" by Joshua Dobson. Weird.

Audio Fiction
At Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: “Normal” by Donna Andrews. Mystery. Fantasy.
       "a tale with vampires, trolls, and other spooky creatures. Award-winning novelist and short story writer Donna Andrews reads her story “Normal” (from the May 2011 EQMM), in which her not-quite-“normal” private eye and a support cast that includes a wizard solve a classical whodunit."

At Escape Pod: Flash Collection Science Fiction.
      "Health Tips for Traveler" by David W. Goldman, "Echoes of the Bouncing Ball" by Paul Celmer, "Tornado on Fire" by Luc Reid.

At Pseudopod: "Unfeeling" by J.D. Brink. Horror.
      "‘I don’t trust them anymore,’ August tells him. They’re in the master bedroom, which is about as big as Shovel’s whole damn apartment. George and Byrd are downstairs, checking out the car and getting everyone something to eat, respectively, as instructed."

At Tales to Terrify: Episode #47  "The Horse of the Invisible" by  and "Treason and Plot" by William Meikle. Horror.
     "The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or portion of the head or dress included in the photograph." - No description found of "Treason and Plot"

Other Genres

• Audio Fiction at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Chimes, Part 2 of 4" by Charles Dickens. 
• Audio Fiction at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine:: “The Brick Thing” by Jack Fredrickson
• Flash Fiction at Flash Fiction Friday: "F3, Cycle 106, Seven Days: The Stories"
• Flash Fiction at Spinetingler Magazine: "It’s All Peanuts" by Emma Deanston.