Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Free Fiction Flood

There's a ton of amazing free fiction this morning  And unless technical difficulties occur again, there will be more later!









Fiction
• At The Colored Lens: "The Right Game" by Zachary Tringali. Specukative Fiction.
      "A motorized carriage trundled down the street, splashing dingy water and filth onto the crowd. Avery waited until it had passed before crossing the street, leaping over puddles and maneuvering around people. A man stuck his hand out and Avery denied the entry to his inner jacket pocket with a twitch of his wrist before slipping down the alleyway created by two leaning buildings."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Salvage" by K.S. Dearsley.
     ""Sebastian, come look!" Madeleine called her brother to come and see what she had found. It was not the first time. "Not now, Maddy. Pitches'll sack me if I'm late again." Sebastian pulled on the palm guards he had made from a tire."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Tiny Lives" by Alan Baxter.
      "I twist the tiny cog into place, my old-too-soon fingers gnarled, golden brown, and cracked, but true. Complete, I turn the miniature dog over in my hands, the brass and copper of its construction shining in the late afternoon sun. I lift it to my lips, breathe softly into its mechanized heart and it stirs, shifts, and wags."

• At Enchanted Conversations: "The Clever, Wicked Girl" by Jazz Sexton. Holiday Fantasy.
       "This story is true, though you might not want it to be. There once lived a girl whose father had died in the war, and whose mother was confined to bed, and so the girl took it upon herself to earn money for her mother’s medicine and food for her six younger brothers by weaving baskets. It was of the entire town’s opinion that this child was pure and selfless, but you and I know better when it comes to children."

• At Enchanted Conversations: "Forest, Snow, Memory" by Patricia Scott. Holiday Fantasy.
      "I was powerful once. I was a God to them. They feared me as much as they worshiped me, the ancient diety of their deep, mysterious forests. In the darkest reaches of the wildest over-growths I was rumored to dwell, waiting to slake my unending thirst on those unwary and foolish enough to risk my displeasure by forgetting to do me proper honor."

• At Kasma SF: "Consequences of a Clockwork Theology" by C. J. Paget. Science Fiction.
       "Bishop Mayer isn't sure what he expected Professor Hemington to be, but this pretty, red-headed woman dressed in jeans, t-shirt and gardening gloves, definitely isn't it."

• At Lightspeed: "The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham. Fantasy.
     "For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway, only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sounds of Old Earth" by Matthew Kressel. Science Fiction.
     "Earth has grown quiet since everyone’s shipped off to the new one. I walk New Paltz’s empty streets with an ox-mask tight about my face. An acidic rain mists my body, and a thick fog obscures the vac-sealed storefronts. Last week they hauled the Pyramids of Giza to New Earth. The week before, Stonehenge."

• At Nightmare Magazine: "On Murder Island" by Matt Williamson. Horror.
     "The north wind’s been spraying Mainland Runoff in our faces for days, but that’s nothing new, nothing worth complaining about. Here on Murder Island, we have a little saying: “If ever you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and you’ll be murdered.” Or as the Weatherman likes to say: “Radar’s telling us to brace for more hot gusty winds, Mainland Runoff, and murder.” The forecast never changes."

• At Short-Story.me: "World's Best Zombie Slayer" by Paul Miller. Horror.
     "Technically, I'll be laying in the bed I plan to be in when I swallow a few year's worth of pain pills, but it all amounts to the same thing. I know this may seem strange in such a time of renewed hope and opportunity as we now live in, but you see, that's kind of the problem."

• At Short-Story.me: "Cannibalistic Freaks" by Caleb Stratton. Horror.
      "Running foot claps echoed off the frost covered asphalt; she was rapidly panting for breath--covered in blood spatter. Her thin arms rested on her upper thighs, preparing to regurgitate from the absolute horror she witnessed. Suddenly; he stepped out of the viscous ink like shadows, revealing an outrageous spectacle of cannibalistic grotesqueness."

Audio
• At Cthulhu: "The House on the Borderlands, part 12" by William Hope Hodgson. Horror.
   No description found.

• At Drabblecast: "How the Moon Got Its Cousin" by . Science Fiction.
      "Once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, when the world was one world with one moon and the stars did scintillate and sparkle in the sky, astronomers discovered a Beast of a Meteor flying through the vast black toward the Sun."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sounds of Old Earth" by Matthew Kressel. Science Fiction.
      Described above.

• At Nightmare Magazine: "On Murder Island" by Matt Williamson. Horror.
      Described above.

Other Genres
  • Audio at Crime City Central: "The Axiom of Choice" by David Corbett.
  • Audio at Protecting Project Pulp: "Agent Andy" by Russell A. Boggs. Pulp Fiction.
  • Fiction at Short-Story.me: "Patience" by Catina Noble.
  • Fiction at Short-Story.me: "Bad Judgment" David Gilbert. Crime.
  • Fiction at Short-Story.me: "Paco" by Michael J. Shanks. Crime.
 • Audio at PRI Selected Shorts: "Pushing the Limits"     Dorothy Parker’s “You Were Perfectly Fine,” Simon Rich's “Unprotected,” and “Center of the Universe,” and James Thurber's “The Day the Dam Broke."

Monday, December 24, 2012

Happy Holidays

We have found some great freebies for you this Christmas Eve.  As always there's an eclectic selection of genres and formats so there should be something for virtually everyone.

As some of the more observant readers may have noticed, there is a new "gadget" on the right hand called QD Radio.  Here we will stream classic genre old time radio and modern readings of public domain stories. Today it's Ray Bradbury's classic story "Mars is Heaven" adapted by the classic radio program Escape.  These will change almost daily.



[Art for Islands of Space in Audio Fiction]




Fiction
• At Electric Velocipede: "Glass Boxes and Clockwork Gods" by Damien Walters Grintalis.
     "When the one in red gives up and screams, no one makes a sound. We turn our faces away or rest our foreheads against the glass and wait. It won’t take long. Big is quick with the remaking. In between the screams, sharp snaps punctuate the air with exclamation points of splintered bone and leaking marrow."

• At Interstellar Fiction: "Alms Race" by Deborah Walker. Science Fiction.
     "Erin felt in her pocket and pulled out a ten-euro coin. She tossed it into the newman’s plate, which was already primed with a couple of euros and what looked like a very old, very green fifty pence piece."

• At L5R: "Scenes from the Empire" by Robert Denton & Seth Mason. Fantasy. Samurai.
      "Asako Jirou walked through the bustling movement of TwinForksCity, peasants and samurai alike parting quickly as the shugenja strode by. The man wasn’t certain if it was the mark denoting his status as an Inquisitor that inspired such behavior, or the Crane’s generally friendly attitude towards the Phoenix, but he didn’t much care."

• At Mindflights: "Beyond the Sky" by Lily Best. Fantasy.
     "It’s not that bad, really.  I just have to take some extra precautions…like double-checking under my bed for the things that really do live there.  In general, I’ve learned the best strategy is to avoid people.  Nothing is more unnerving and revealing than seeing the kind of things that a person attracts."

• At The WiFiles: "The Reluctant Soul" By Tala Bar.
     "Hassida the Stork felt frustrated. The man lying on the bed was almost dead – but almost, since his Soul refused to leave the inanimated body. That Soul was destined to go to a newborn baby, and it was the Stork’s task to take it there, but Hassida had no power over the Soul as long as it was still attached to the body, and what was she to do?"

Serial Fiction
• At Author's site: "Thieves' Honor - Episode 21 The Rescuers, Part 2" by Keanan Brand
     "I'm an engineer. I invent things. I maintain things." Through dusty glasses, Alerio stared at the expanse of desert, his face as forlorn as that of any mariner forced to travel without his ship. "I'm not supposed to sweat."

• At Author's site: "Kat and Mouse: Ties That Bind" - Part One" by Abner Senires.
      "Revell, the burly and bearded owner, was restocking the liquor bottles that lined the mirrored back counter. Mouse, my partner and fellow ronin, was perched on a bar stool, working over a plate piled with breakfast pastries."

Flash Fiction
Audio Fiction

• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #11" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "Quentin gets the best birthday present he never knew he wanted. An unexpected conflict  on the Hypatia, Quentin's yacht, threatens to change the entire season before it even begins."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs:  "Episode 13 - The Return of Tarzan"
       "Traveling by steamer down the west coast of Africa towards Cape Town, Tarzan has made fast friends with Hazel Strong, Jane Porter’s best friend. Unfortunately, Nicholas Rokoff is on board disguised as Monsieur Thuran."


• At LibriVox: "Phantoms of Reality" by Ray Cummings. Science Fiction.
      "Red Sensua's knife came up dripping—and the two adventurers knew that chaos and bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy kingdom of the fourth dimension." from Astounding, January, 1930.

• At LibriVox: "Islands of Space" by John W. Campbell. Science Fiction.
    "As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...." (1956).

• At Toasted Cake: "Bad Elf" by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn.
      "They tried to give me other jobs more suitable to my gifts, like reindeer euthanasia technician and pest exterminator."

Comics
Other Genres

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


Monday, December 3, 2012

New Myths, Resident Aliens, and More Free Fiction


Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that QuasarDragon was taking a day off after the flood of free fiction released this weekend by a hoard of amazing, generous sites. However, that is not the case. As Baron Harkonnen might say, the free fiction must flow.  And flow it will, with more good stories from a variety of sources, including two more e-zines that just "posted."


Fiction
At Electric Velocipede: "The Woods of Wistman’s Grove" by Tyson Young.
     "The sceptics will tell you that the woods of Wistman’s Grove are a myth, their howls no more a chorus of mummified voices than the wind through bare trees. Yet when travelling the roads beyond Clearbell, even the naysayers take the sinuous trail over the hills. Lest they disprove their own doubt."

At Strange Horizons: "America Thief (Part 1 of 2)" by Alter S. Reiss. Speculative Fiction.
      "Bugsy wasn't going to kill me that night, because while they thought I was crazy for thinking I could do magic, sometimes people needed me to do magic for them."

At L5R: "War of Hearts" by Nancy Sauer. Fantasy.
     "Doji Shunya drifted through the garden, stopping now and again to exchange a polite greeting and a few comments with someone he knew before moving on again.  The evening’s party was only beginning to build tempo, and he didn’t want to commit himself to a lengthy conversation before mapping out who the most useful people present were."

At The WiFiles: "Kodiak" by Walter Campbell. Speculative Fiction.
     "If it weren’t for the Kodiak brown bear, Max would have complained about his boss long ago. The bear had been hired as head receptionist for HR just two months earlier, landing him an extra large desk and an extra large chair behind normal-sized glass doors on the third floor, just off the elevator."

Now Posted New Myths #21: Speculative Fiction.
"The Desert of Trees" by Matthew Bennardo.
      "Twice in that time, she built a fire from the endless supplies of dry sticks that carpeted the ground under the snow. She began with handfuls of brown needles that flared under the sparking chert and steel, and continued to feed the little tongues of flame until spruce and pine twigs curled and crackled before her."
"The Last Listener" by Eric Cline. 
      "Hawkins was a civilian security specialist under my supervision. His head was a smooth brown oval, thanks to a barber (I'd known him before he shaved it smooth); he had a single, discrete gold hoop through his left earlobe. Yeah, I'd thought of the Tidy Bowl man."
"Foolish Wishes, Fairy Kisses" by Brent Knowles. 
      "A tin can fell over below the stairs, a flash of fur rushing into the small pile of wood stacked inside the carport. Josh smiled, seeing that Grandma still set out her offerings. The Alders loved nature; feeders of birds and squirrels and they kept the busiest gnome garden on the island. They even scattered cake crumbs and filled thimbles with apple cider."
"God's Plan for the Lunar Colony" by Nicholas Whitley.
      "Before he even put on the jetsuit, Deacon Ridenhour had had a strange presentiment about his first Inquisition. Not a prophetic moment, Heaven forbid, but something like it nevertheless. The transit from the Space Station Travail to Lunar Colony A had gone smoothly though, despite his misgivings. It was just like in training--until the final approach."
Now Posted: Residential Aliens - Dec. 2012
"They Come Back" by Amberle L. Husbands.
     "The date in the paper’s corner—December 20th, 2012, Thursday—seemed smaller than normal, if anything, as if they’d tried to slip it in under the radar."
"Zantook the Santa" by Francis W. Alexander.
     "Although something bugged him about the event, Christmas 2011 on earth had been the best ever for Zantook, the Santa. This being his third Noel, multilocating had been a breeze, and delivering presents to the human boys and girls was the greatest joy he could imagine."
"The Apprentice" by Erin M. Kinch. Fantasy.
      "Unseen to most, her gifts raced around the room, scanning the crowd, searching for any who posed a challenge. To her, the ungifted stood in shadow, while other gifteds glowed with an internal light. Most people in this wretched kingdom had no gifts at all."
"Hath No Fury" by Stoney M. Setzer.  Superhero.
       "Her husband of two years looked up at her apologetically. He was already in the process of changing into his Mole-Man costume. “I know, babe, but I just got the call from Police Headquarters"
"A Different Blessing" by Milton Davis. Zombie.
      “We’re probably not, but it’s as close as we can get,” Edward answered, distracted by his concern for Ginger.  She was failing. He doubted if she would last her next donation. They were so brave, every one of them, giving to save others despite their condition.
 Flash Fiction
Running for the Ship by Bruce Boston
1492 by Gary Every
Manic is the Dark Night by Michael Lee Johnson
Gil Dreamt About Zombies and Women by Michaelsun Knapp
Audio Fiction

At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #8" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
      "Quentin and the Krakens deal with the aftermath of the Game, and start to plan for the season ahead and the future of the franchise."
At Toasted Cake: "Moonlight on the Carpet"  by David D. Levine. Speculative Fiction.
      "It was summer, a hot humid North Carolina summer, and there was nothing else to do."

Other Genres
Audio at Crime City Central: "The Naked Thread" by Monica Ferris. Crime.
Audio at PRI: Selected Shorts "Objects of Desire"
     “Counting the Ways” by Susan Perabo and “The Pony Problem” by Sloane Crosley.
Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Make That a Double" by Gloria Garfunkel.
Flash Fiction at Spinetingler: "It’s All Peanuts" by Emma Deanston. Suspense.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Free Fiction Tuesday


It's already a fantastic day for free fiction and I haven't even looked at the e-book sites yet.  Strange Horizons has extra free fiction as part of it's fund drive (PRI take note - please!). There's great free fiction and flash fiction from several other great sites.  Add some audio fiction and crime stories in the "other genres" category and it's already a great day!

[Picture from "A Princess of Spain" in fiction and audio fiction]


Fiction 
At AE: "The Fade" by Dylan Sargent. Science Fiction.
      "According to the notice, Don would be completely invisible by the early hours of tomorrow morning."

At The Colored Lens: "In The Garage" by Victor Alao. Speculative Fiction.
      "I don’t have a soul; that was one of the first things my mother told me. I asked her what she meant, but she smiled and said it meant I was special. Later that day, I asked myself what it meant; it was my first question to myself, what did it mean to have no soul? From all the information that poured into me"

At Lightspeed:
"A Well-Adjusted Man" by Tom Crosshill, Science Fiction.
      "On September 3, 2045, Jim Turner shot dead an innocent girl and went home to his family a well-adjusted man. It was supposed to be a simple escapee bust, out in the projects."

"A Princess of Spain"  by Carrie Vaughn. Fantasy.
      "Catherine of Aragon, sixteen years old, danced a pavane in the Spanish style before the royal court of England. Lutes, horns, and tabors played a slow, stately tempo, to which she stepped in time."
At Strange Horizons:
 "The Hateful Brilliance of His Eyes" by Alec Austin. Speculative Fiction.
     "This fragment, recovered from the archives at Tian Jing, is the only surviving account of the deeds of Captain Liao Jun and the Celestial Ascension during their exile in barbarian lands."

"Household Management" by Ellen Klages. Speculative Fiction.
     "He is, perhaps, the worst tenant in all of London."

"Good Hunting (Part 1 of 2)" by Ken Liu. Speculative Fiction.
     "A hulijing cannot resist the cries of the man she has bewitched."

"Good Hunting (Part 2 of 2)" by Ken Liu. Speculative Fiction.
     "I dream of hunting in this jungle of metal and asphalt," she said. "I dream of my true form leaping from beam to ledge to terrace to roof, until I am at the top of this island, until I can growl in the faces of all the men who believe they can own me."

At Weird Fiction Review: "The Stone Badger" by Misha Nogha.
     "She keeps hearing badgers. She hears their shadows creeping across the frozen ground mumbling faint sounds of subterra­nean rage. She wakes to the noises of licking fur, claws sharpening, purrs and growls. In the woods sounds layer on each other." 

At The World SF Blog: "Planetfall" by Athena Andreadis. Science Fiction.
      "Through the haze of her dark blue mane, the mershadow gazed sternly at her youngest. She had often warned her not to go near the shore. Afterwards, ever would she long for the hostile land, where her skin would crack and she would wither."

Flash Fiction
At Strange Horizons:
Audio Fiction
At LibriVox: Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Adventure.
       "This book follows Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar chronologically. The action is set during World War I. While away from his plantation home in East Africa, invading German troops destroy it and kill his wife Jane and the Waziri warrior Wasimbu who is left crucified."

At Lightspeed: "A Princess of Spain"  by Carrie Vaughn. Fantasy.
    Described above

At SFFAudio: "The Other Celia" adapted from the short story by Theodore Sturgeon.
     "Something drastic should happen to all snoopers – but nothing as awful and frightful as this!"  First published in Galaxy Magazine, March 1957.

Other Genres

Monday, October 8, 2012

Classic SF and More.

Some very good stuff today, including a classic era SF story from Orbit, illustrated to the left.  Be sure to check them all out, or at least save the one you think sound good.  More tomorrow.










Magazines
Now Posted  the Oct - Dec '12 Issue of The Lorelei Signal featuring
      "Bingham's Deep Woods Fairies" by  J.C. Conway. Fantasy.
      "Flesh and Bone" by Danielle Gronwold. Fantasy.
      "Imaginary Enemies" by C.J. Paget. Fantasy.
      "Believing in Luck" by Josie Gowler. Fantasy.
      "Madame Melodia and the Love Machines" by Karen Maric. Fantasy.
      "Before Midnight When Ten Billion Sleep" by Gary Girod. Fantasy.
      "Star Rats" by Darrell Albert. Fantasy.
      "Stow Away" by R. Scott Russell. Fantasy.
      "The Uncle Returns" by John Hayes.  Fantasy. Poetry
      "Children of the Unicorn Clan" by Anna Sykora. Fantasy.

Fiction
At Cosmos: "Automation of a Salesman" by Gregg Jansen. Science Fiction.
      "Normby, second in sales ranking only to Trochus24, was desperate for the Robo-Salesman of the Year Award and the memory upgrade that went with it."
 At Daily Science Fiction:  "Mama's Science" by Shane D. Rhinewald. Science Fiction.
     "At ten, Darcy considered her father the center of the universe, a constant like one of Newton's laws. She had just learned about basic physics in science class the day she returned home to find out that he had gone into the stars to seek other fortunes."
At Project Gutenberg:  "The Mating of the Moons" by Kenneth O'Hara.
     "She came to Mars in search of  something, she knew not what, to give her life meaning. She found it ... in a way...." From Orbit volume 1 number 2, 1953
At Ray Gun Revival:  "Barbeque" by Michael S. Roberts. Science Fiction.
     “Retiring early, all four of us. And guess what else!” He took a swig from the frosty bottle, wiped his chin. “I bought a spaceship!”
At Strange Horizons: "In the Library of Souls" (part 2 of 2), by Jennifer Mason-Black.
      "You didn't cry," she said. "Ten years old and your mother had died, and you cared more for the books."

Audio Fiction
At Beam Me Up:  "In the Service of the Public" by Mark Webb.  "This story an Earth diplomat in service to an inter-galactic government." And  the conclusion of Edward McKeown’s “The Dive.”
At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 20 - Tarzan of the Apes"
      "Tarzan has pursued Terkoz, now a rogue ape who has abducted Jane Porter to make her his wife."

At PRI: Selected Shorts "A Touch of Magic" Fantasy.
      "A boy magician fantasizes about a glorious career, and then learns about real life the hard way, in Haley Tanner’s “Vaclav the Magnificent,” read by Sarah Steele, and the lovers in T.C. Boyle’s “Swept Away” are blown together by a raging wind."
At SFFAudio:  "The Beckoning Fair One" by Oliver Onions. Horror.
      "sometimes called the greatest ghost story in the English language"
At Toasted Cake: "The Tailor and the Fairy" by Samantha Henderson. Fairy Tale.
     "Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom there lived a hard-working tailor named Albert."

Other Genres
Audio at Crime City Central: "Mirror, Mirror" by Beverle Graves Myers.
Audio at Tales of Old: "Touch and Go" by Russell James.
     "A young, struggling pilot in World War I's Lafayette Escadrille leaves with his patrol for enemy lines. In the midst of a dogfight, he becomes separated from his squadron. He is forced to land at a strange airfield, and his role in the Allied war effort changes forever."
Fiction at Online Pulps Site: "Murder Done Twice" by Robert Leslie Bellem Noir [1946] and "Caught Out" by Fred C. Smale [Detective]