Hump Day Freebies.

Happy Hump Day everyone. We have a few goodies this morning, including free fiction, flash fiction, comics and more.











@Free eBooks Daily [DRM]: "No Hero" by Tom Andry. Superhero.
@Pixel of Ink [Kindle]:

"Mr. Planemaker’s Flying Machine" by Shelagh Watkins. Science Fiction.
"First Frost" by Jennifer Estep. Paranormal. YA.
"Sapphire of the Fairies" by Richard S. Tuttle. Fantasy.
"Amaury’s Hellion" Paranormal Romance, Mature, Vampires
"Simian’s Lair" by David H. Burton. Children's Fantasy. [via SF Signal]
"The White Shadow Saga: The Stolen Moon of Londor" by A. P. Stephens. Fantasy.

@Smashwords: "Beginings" by Rael Bayellis. Superhero.

Flash Fiction
@Daily Science Fiction: "Paying the Tab" by Brian K Lowe.
@Flashes in the Dark:"Meeting of Minds" by Lori Titus. Horror.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Walk in" by Jennifer R. Baumer. Horror.
@Knighttime: "Techniques of Evasion" Fantasy/Humor.
@The New Flesh: "A Simple Certainty" by Joe Mynhardt. Horror.
@The New Flesh: "Pick 'Em Clean" by Georges Dodds. Horror.
@Strange Horizons: [poem] "Our Father Who Art" by Jeanie Tomasko.
@365 tomorrows: "Cerberus" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
@365 tomorrows: "A Test of Humanity" by Charley Daveler. Science Fiction.
@Yesteryear Fiction: "The Pyramid" by Dan Shelton. Fantasy.


Audio Fiction
Knighttime is an amusing series of missadventures, featuring two less than heroic knights in a unique fantasy world. There are currently sixteen episodes available in the archive. [via Radio Drama Revival]


Non-Fiction Podcasts
@Comics Podcast Network: Raging Bullets Episode #266 - DC's Relaunch
@The Functional Nerds: Episode #66 – Kim Harrison Interview.







@Atomic Kommie Comics: "Captive Planet" Science Fiction.
@Comic Book Catacombs: Cave Girl in "The Mau Mau Killers!" Adventure.
@Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "Terror on the Planet of the Apes Part 1" B&W. SF.
@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: "The Night the Statues Walked" Horror. (1953)
@Secret Sanctum of Captain Video: "The Quartermass Xperiment" Part 1 and Part 2. Sciience Fiction.
@The Horrors of It All: "Vampire's Daughter! / The Impatient Ghost!" Horror. (1953/54)
@Western Comics Adventures: Buster Crabbe in "Invaders From Beyond" Sci-Fi. Western.

QuasarDragon Presents "Dragon Lady" By Evelyn E. Smith

"Dragon Lady" By Evelyn E. Smith, from Beyond #10 (1955)

"BACK in the Eleventh Century, I was the only daughter of a rich and powerful king in the North, as well as being the most beautiful woman in the known world, though I say it as shouldn't. Naturally a combination of such talents as my looks and my dowry would make princes come from far and near to seek my hand in marriage."

Continue HERE.

Free Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Audio Fiction, and More

Another decent day of free entertainment.






Fiction
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Issue #66 featuring:
"Dancing the Warrior, Pt. I" by Marie Brennan.
"By sheer force of will, Sen forced herself upright. She hadn't won; that much was clear. If that had been the Grandmaster's test, then she'd failed, and this had all been a waste of everybody's time. She couldn't look at Kerestel, at Criel, at anything other than the Grandmaster's feet."

"The Fairy Gaol" by Heather Fawcett.
"I do not want his scrutiny now, with the cool blade of the dagger pressing against my thigh. On the nearest dance path, a woman laughs as a fat prince covers her ears and throat with wet kisses. I feign interest as he spins her across the path, through the starlight that pours into the atrium. Unbidden, I picture our last dance together, on a night so similar and so different."

And don't miss the latest BCS audio story "Mr Morrow Becomes Acquainted with the Delicate Art of Squid Keeping" by Geoffrey Maloney.
"They couldn't be serious, Morrow thought, could not possibly be...but then the Major allowed the squid to slip from his fingers and into his mouth."


Issue #38 (2nd Quarter 2011) of Abyss & Apex: Magazine of Speculative Fiction is out with:
Fermi’s Plague by C. W. Johnson.
"'But Ana,' he told her, 'how do you know the American CIA won’t slip something into your supplies? A bit of shrimp–you wouldn’t even taste it–and my throat would close up forever.' And he throttled himself theatrically."

Demonfire Ash by Helen E. Davis.
"Eyes still closed, Geoff Bowman shifted his head. Pain like an iron spike speared him from temple to temple. Sunlight burned through his still-closed lids; sounds hammered his ears. It was one hell of a hangover, but why would he have been drinking? Strong wine was not allowed to Journeyman Wizards, and he, despite his years, was the newest of Journeyman."

Something Wild by Manfred Gabriel.
"I am a creature of habit. I run the same course every evening. Down the hill into town, away from our modern subdivision and past the clapboard homes built a century before, when the railway rolled through filled with corn and wheat and soybeans, and barges laden with timber cleared from northern woods eased downriver. When the town was an entity onto itself, instead of the bedroom community it has become."

Bots D’Amor by Cat Rambo.
"The bots were going to run Linus out of room soon, if they didn’t scavenge away some piece vital to the ship’s functioning and leave him choking on vacuum first. He didn’t think anyone else had these problems with their ship bots. Galina would say it was his own fault for encouraging them."

Concrete by Nathaniel Lee.
"Trent sighed. Another late night of unpaid overtime, filling out forms in triplicate to update managers who didn’t care about a project that was doomed to failure. He would have minded more if he wasn’t already nervous about going home."

Hail to the Victors by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon.
"The five of them sat in the sun, their photo-activated chlorophyll enhanced skins providing their lunch. They were beat and the sun was warm; they didn’t talk. Humans didn’t like being green‑-this was a necessary technology which could be turned on and off as needed in the face of the collapse of society and supply chains."

Trans by Paul Rogalus.
"Parker walks up the dimly lit sidewalk and stops at a nightclub called Altered States, looking out of place in his leather jacket. He hesitates at the door and adjusts the packbox on his back, puts on his mirror shades, then enters. At the bar he orders a Potion 9 and a set of green beans."


Serial Fiction:
@Paizo.com: "A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross (Chapter Two: The Observation Post).
"I lowered my spyglass and compared what I had seen through the mist with Amadi's sketch of the dinosaurs. His illustrations were astonishing for both their simplicity and their accuracy. At first glance, the dinosaurs we observed from our treetop post appeared identical to the brachiosaurus."

Classic SF:
"Category Phoenix" by Boyd Ellanby, from Galaxy Science Fiction (May 1952).
"Man, it would appear, can adapt to any form of society ... but not one in which the knowledge of extending life becomes a passport to death!"
@Munseys and Project Gutenberg.


Audio Fiction





@StarShipSofa: Episode#183 featuring the short story "Atom Drive" by Charles Fontenay and main fiction "Linkworlds" by Will McIntosh with narrators Jim Philips and Dan Rabarts. And much more.



@The Drabblecast: Episode #200 "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov, read/performed by a full cast. Very well done! Very good, though predictable, story.

"It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all..."

@Decoder Ring Theatre: The Red Panda Adventures #69 "Stop the Presses" (superhero/humor) - Campy fun.
"In the tradition of the great mystery men of radio, pulp fiction and the golden age of comics comes The Red Panda, famed protector of 1930s Toronto! Hiding his true identity as on of the city's wealthiest men behind a bright red domino mask, The Red Panda dispenses two-fisted pulp justice with strength, courage and eerie hypnotic powers. Joined in his quest by that Famed Fighting Female The Flying Squirrel, this terrific Twosome holds high the lamp of justice in a dark time!"

@LibriVox: The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, read by Roger Melin.
"It is 30,000 years following dramatically changed climate conditions on earth [...] Much of the human and animal population would not survive the climate change, and indeed those few humans who did survive knew nothing of all which their predecessors had learned and built."


Flash Fiction



@Daily Science Fiction: "The Modern Prometheus" by Ed Wyrd.
@Every Day Fiction: "The Hurt Club" by James Van Pelt.
@Flashes in the Dark: "A Proper Burial" by Jim Bronyaur.
@365 tomorrows: "Red Tank" by John Xero.

Comics
@The Digital Comics Museum: The Lost World Archive Parts One and Two. Collecting the serialized Lost World stories from Planet Comics in CBR format.








@Four-Color Shadows: "The Man From Another World" from Journey into Unknown Worlds #19 (1953). Pure skiffy fun.






@Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "Destiny: Oblivion" by Kraft, Kirchner, and Nebres, from Haunt of Horror #5. Classic 1970's B&W horror .






@The Comic Book Catacombs: Auro, Lord of Jupiter vs. "The Tyrant of Jupiter" from Planet Comics #27 (1943). Hmm, a Tarzan-like character fighting a flying dinosaur on Jupiter, how did the Voyager and Galileo probes get it so wrong?



@The Warriors Comic Book Den: "The Thing from the Sea!" (Wally Wood art) from Eerie #2 (Aug. 1951) - The whole comic is available as a CBR download there.




@The Horrors of It All: "Bowser" by Richard Corben, a classic 1970's horror comic. "a creepy crawly classic"





Video
@The Internet Archive: Adventure Island (1947).
"Based on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Ebb Tide," this adventure pits a group of shipwrecked sailors against the mad ruler of a jungle island." A low-key adventure film in free Avi and Mpeg downloads.

Flying Disc Man From Mars and Cool Free Comics

It's Sunday so that means it's Moooooviiiiieeee and comics time again.








Streaming online at Youtube, the 1950 Republic Serial Flying Disc Man From Mars.
"A strange craft spying on industrialist Bryant's plant is brought down by Bryant's new atomic ray. Bryant meets the one survivor... Mota from the planet Mars! Not exactly benevolent, Mota enlists the aid of Bryant (a former Nazi) in a scheme to bring Earth under control of a supreme dictator, for its own good of course, using advanced atomic weapons." IMDb


Chapter 1/12-A, 1/12-B, 2/12, 3/12, 4/12, 5/12, 6/12, 7/12, 8/12, 9/12, 10/12, 11/12, and 12/12.

Comics
@Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: A few short comic book stories including "Where Dinosaurs Dwell" from Marvel Tales #143 (1956) and "The Flying Horse" from Uncanny Tales #37 (1955).






@Beware, There's a Crosseyed Cyclops in my Basement: Chilling Tales of Horror #4 - classic B&W horror tales.








@Diversions of the Groovy Kind:"Harry" from Comix International #5 (1975). An unusual horror story, accurately described as "Poetic. Haunting. Sad. Ironic. Gorgeous."




Online @Four-Color Shadows: Sci-Fi humor "Adonis 2 PX-89" (1951) by Henry Enoch Sharp.

Also supernatural horror "The Evil Eye" from Chilling Tales (1953)



@Digital Comics Museum: Jumbo Comics #24 and Jumbo Comics #80.

Featuring the adventures of Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, the nautical adventures of the Hawk, and the supernatural adventures of Stuart Taylor. Both in CBR format [free membership required.]





@The Comic Book Catacombs: "The Man Who Killed A World" from Amazing Adventures #6 (Fall 1952). Golden age sci-fi.

And "Nyoka the Jungle Girl and the Human Leopards" (Oct-Nov 1954)




@DriveThruComics: Snatcher Bodies "Old sci-fi invasion movies get a kick in the fanny ... We've been invaded by aliens, there's a mad scientist on the loose, and someone has kidnapped Miss America! Can we defeat the alien horde before Earth becomes an inter-galactic rest stop and petting zoo?"

More SF humor with Akashik issue one, two, and three. (later issue not free) "Taus tricks her boyfriend into letting her steal his ship and leave him stranded on some undock spaceport. From there she runs out of wine, captures a stowaway and creates a strange sandwich." [free membership required].

Free E-Fiction and Comics

A good day for e-fiction and comics today. As for the other categories, not the worry, their day will come (and there was one audio story today).




E-Fiction
Dark Valentine has released its Spring 2011 for free PDF download. It features,

"Swallow the Light" by Kristen Davis, Illustrated by Joanne Renaud
"Danny-Boy" Tonia Brown, Illustrated by Larry Nadolsky
"Swamp" by Matthew C . Funke, Illustrated by Kitamu Latham-Sampier
"Only the Lonely" by Mike Chinn, Illustrated by Eleni Trigatzi
"Felis Dirus" by Berkeley Hunt, Illustrated by Walter Conley
"La Fée Verte" by Paul D . Brazill, Illustrated by Pamela Jaworska
"Ambulance in Eden" by Trost, Illustrated by Natasha Killeen
"The Stalking Rail" by Alejandro Omidsalar, Illustrated by Jane Burson
"Masquerade" by Sarah Vaughn, Illustrated by Sarah Vaughn
"Questions for the Dead" by Jeannine Dotts, Illustrated by Mark Satchwill
"Beautiful Lily" by John M . Radosta, Illustrated by Jane Burson
"Easter Dinner" by Katherine Tomlinson, Illustrated by Pamela Jaworska
"China White" by Caitlin Hoffman, Illustrated by Laura Neubert
"Dark Highways" by Allan Leverone, Illustrated by Mark Satchwill
"I Just Have To, Baby" by James Valdis, Illustrated by Pamela Jaworska
Cover Art Joanne Renaud

In PDF download HERE.

At SF Signal, "Free Fiction for 3/5/11" featuring several links not found on QD. John does a great job with these, especially all the @ Author's Sites.

The links Are HERE.


At the Author's website: "Veil of Ignorance" by David Barr Kirtley
"We're at Conrad's vacation house, a sprawling mansion that orbits the gas giant Hades-3. (His father owns both the house and the planet.)"

Online HERE [via SF Signal]

Also at the author's website, four stories he wrote as a teenager, here.



At Munseys, "Assassin" by J. F. Bone from If Worlds of Science Fiction (February 1958). "The aliens wooed Earth with gifts, love, patience and peace. Who could resist them? After all, no one shoots Santa Claus!"
At Munseys HERE and Project Gutenberg HERE.

And "Freudian Slip" by Franklin Abel from Galaxy Science Fiction (May 1952). "Things are exactly what they seem? Life is real? Life is earnest? Well, that depends."

At Munseys HERE and Project Gutenberg HERE.


Audio Fiction
At SFFaudio, "The Library Of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, read by George Guidall. Considered a classic of magical-realism (far from my favorite genre, but to each their own).
"The universe consists of an enormous expanse of interlocking hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. "

In MP3 download HERE.


Comics
At Pencil Ink, "Skull of the Sorcerer" from Forbidden Worlds #3 (1951). Featuring Al Williamson story pencils / Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Joe Orlando partial inks (That is a serious collection of artistic talent!)


Online HERE.


At the Digital Comics Museum, three new posts of especial note. Jumbo Comics #28 featuring Sheena and Stuart Taylor HERE, Thun'da, King of the Congo 004 featuring Thun'da and Cave Girl, HERE, and Chris Welkin Planeteer comic strips from 1951 HERE. (all require free membership).




At Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine, "The Crime Chase Through Time" from Strange Adventures #4 (1950). This issue was written by SF/Pulp author Edmond Hamilton.



Online HERE.




At The Bloody Pulp! a pair of black and white horror tales "Crawling Death" and "A Skeleton in the Closet." Both were originally published in 1953 and later reprinted in B & W.



Online HERE.



The Epic Fantasy SitCom Pewfell "is an epic fantasy sitcom that follows the amazing adventures of an inept wizard, his warrior princess wife and the small blue gnome who hates him."



Online here, though chapter one begins HERE.



Much the Miller's Son is an amusing fantasy comic by Steve LeCouilliar.
"Book 1: The Good the Bad and Much" is available for online reading HERE, Book 2 begins here [indirectly via The Land of Nod]