Mid-Week Morning Free Fiction

 Part 1 of ? - More to come today.

Fiction

• At The Colored Lens: "The Master’s Voice" by Todd Thorne. Speculative Fiction.
"“Eat. Eat,” came the woman’s voice again, followed shortly by the can opener’s dutiful grind. “Eat. Eat,” the voice repeated in lifeless monotone as blobs of wetness sucked loose and splattered."

• At HiLobrow: "King Goshawk - part 35" by Eimar O'Duffy.Science Fiction.
"When King Goshawk, the supreme ruler among a caste of “king capitalists,” buys up all the wildflowers and songbirds, an aghast Dublin philosopher travels via the astral plane to Tír na nÓg. First the mythical Irish hero Cúchulainn, then his son Cuanduine, travel to Earth in order to combat the king capitalists. Thirty-five years before the hero of Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, these well-meaning aliens discover that cultural forms and norms are the most effective barrier to social or economic revolution."

• At Mad Scientist Journal: "When I Grow Up" by K. Kitts. Science Fiction.

"When I ask my friends what they want to be when they grow up, they say a hotshot fireman, a policeman, the head of an assassin’s guild. Tyra’s always pushing the envelope. But when I grow up, all I want to be is what I can never be. I want to be like my friends. I want to be a human child."

• At The WiFiles: "Resistance is Futile" by Jessica Morrow Speculative Fiction.
"Every day was an exciting new one for Hamish Harrison. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but he couldn’t wait to jump out of bed at seven on the dot, and get straight into the thick of things."

Flash Fiction

• At 365 Tomorrows: "Family First" by Cameron Filas. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Heaven Needs an Upgrade" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "Other Theories of Relativity" by Nicole J. LeBoeuf, and "Mon pays c'est l'hiver"
• by Amal El-Mohtar.

Audio Fiction

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 24 - Tarzan the Untamed (Final)"

"Tarzan, Bertha Kircher and Lt. Smith-Oldwick have made their escape from the city of maniacs, Xuja. Now they are fleeing, pursued by the maniacal Xujans and their hunting lions.

• At Journey Into: "The Secret Diary" by Cassie Alexander. Fantasy.
"A young boy finds himself the target of several attempts on his life."

• At Escape Pod: "The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere." by John Chu. Science Fiction.
"The water that falls on you from nowhere when you lie is perfectly ordinary, but perfectly pure. True fact. I tested it myself when the water started falling a few weeks ago. Everyone on Earth did. Everyone with any sense of lab safety anyway. Never assume any liquid is just water. When you say “I always document my experiments as I go along,” enough water falls to test, but not so much that you have to mop up the lab. Which lie doesn’t matter. The liquid tests as distilled water every time."

• At Pseudopod: "The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree Jr.
"AP/Nassau: The excursion liner Carib Swallow reached port under tow today after striking an obstruction in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras. The obstruction was identified as part of a commercial trawler’s seine floated by female corpses. This confirms reports from Florida and the Gulf of the use of such seines, some of them over a mile in length. Similar reports coming from the Pacific coast and as far away as Japan indicate a growing hazard to coastwise shipping.”

• At Tales to Terrify: "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
""Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.""







Other

• At Crime City Central: "The Least Best Place" by David A Knadler. Audio
• At Crimewav: "Big Davey Joins the Majority" by Barry Graham. Audio.

Free Fiction Rhapsody

Is this science fiction?
Is this just fantasy?
Got some free fiction,
No escape to reality.

Fiction

• At AE: "Automatic Sky" by Stephen S. Power. Science Fiction.
"Marina’s world is a pale speck on Hub’s forward monitor. Having just unfolded at the edge of her system, he won’t arrive at Sonhar for two days, and the wait is killing him. When you travel halfway across the void to propose, you want to fold the void so thin you can hold your girl’s hand through it. Hub’s engine isn’t good enough for that, though."

• At The Colored Lens: "The Transceiver" by J.A. Becker.
"A cold shudder runs through me as I look through the one-way mirror at the psycho in the orange jumpsuit who’s handcuffed to the table. What I’ll see in his head, what I’ll feel and experience first hand will be like living nightmares. I don’t know if I can handle them. I’ve seen some terrible things, but nothing like what he’s done."

• At Lightspeed: "A Box, a Pocket, a Spaceman" by E. Catherine Tobler. Science Fiction.
"The spaceman shows up on a hot summer afternoon, not in the dead of night when you’re crouched in the garden peering through a telescope that shows you the endless glories and wonders of the night sky. There’s no spaceship making a bright arc against a star-spangled sky. Just a man in a spacesuit, standing at the edge of your hammock." Text and Audio.

• At Lightspeed: "The Grass Princess" by Gwyneth Jones. Fantasy.
"It was April, and down in the orchard the first flashing blades of the new year’s growth were pushing aside the old, worn, winter stuff. The sky was blue and very clear, but the wind was cold. So the nursemaids put the little princess down under an apple tree, wrapped in her shawls, and ran away to play tag under the twisted apple branches, to keep themselves warm."

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Upon the Body" by Ben Peek. Horror.
"The sin-eater arrived in Zonia Province two days before the death of the great gun fighter, Arryo Salazar. He was a small man, the sin-eater, thin and wiry, a rusting coil. At sixty-four, he had left the tautness of youth behind, and his skin, wrinkled, but importantly still unmarked, sagged and folded when he spoke." Text and Audio.

• At Strange Horizons: "Cold as the Moon" by Sunny Moraine. Speculative Fiction.
"Before the sun went down Daddy became a bear and ran away over the ice floes."

• At Tor.com: "Hero of the Five Points" by Alan Gratz. YA.
"There were a hundred stories told in the streets of Five Points about the giant gangster Mose. That he was eight feet tall and six feet wide; that his stovepipe hat was actually an upside-down smokestack torn from a Cheyenne locomotive; that his fists were the size of Cherokee hams, his feet so large it took the leather of two whole cows for him to be shod. When Mose was thirsty, it was said, it took a wagonload of beer to sate him, and in the summer months he carried a fifty-gallon keg of ale on his belt instead of a canteen."   






Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Time is Money" by John D. Sperry. Magic Realism.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Departure Gate 34B" by Kary English. Fantasy. Religion.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Turn" by Tara Isabella Burton. Parapsychology.
• At Quantum Muse: "Camp" by Happy Woodsman. 
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Rocketbike" by Jackson Fitzjames. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Black Rider" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Activation Required" by Donald O’Barra. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "Last Band Standing" by Siobhan O'Flynn. Audio.

Audio Fiction

• At Beam Me Up: "Beam Me Up # 419" Science Fiction.
Episode 28 of "In Plain Sight" written and narrated by Jason Kahn and “Even a Non-Corporeal Can Get Lonely" by David Scholes.

• At Cast of Wonders: "Into The Forever Place" by Luke Thomas. YA.
"I fasten the last braid about Jad’s shoulder and step back. My belly flutters as I look him over, which isn’t normal. Jad’s my best friend.I’m never more comfortable with anyone than with him. Today,though, he is to be venerated, and he looks the part. I knew the dyes used for this sash were precious, but only now do I understand what that means." Audio and Text.

• At Clarkesworld: "The Saint of the Sidewalks" by Kat Howard, read by Kate Baker.
"Joan wrote her prayer with a half-used tube of Chanel Vamp that she had found discarded at the 34th St. subway stop. It glided across the cardboard—the flip side of a Stoli box, torn and bent—and left her words in a glossy slick the color of dried blood: “I need a miracle.”"

• At Drabblecast: "To Whatever" by Shaenon Garrity. Comedy. Horror.
"To whatever lives in the walls—Please stop taking my half & half. Let’s get this out of the way: I know you’re there. Don’t think I’m unaware of the scrabbling sounds, the walls creaking from your bulk, the way my razor in the morning is never exactly where I left it last night. Richard always said it was the building settling—as if a building, however old, could take apples out of the fruit crisper—but he was as wrong about that as he was about a lot of things beyond the scope of this note. And since he moved out I feel you’ve gotten bold."

• At StarShipSofa: "Predvestniki" by Greg Kurzawa, read by Nick Camm. 
"Ben pressed his forehead and palms against the cold glass of the picture window. Twenty-three floors below, ice floes clogged the Moskva, bumping for position in the sluggish current. On the opposite bank, walkers bundled against the weather followed a towpath along the curve of river. The path skirted the park and disappeared under the covered span of the Pushkinsky pedestrian bridge."

For the Internet is Infinite and I Have Read its Free Fiction

Even more great free fiction, including a few proudly pilfered from Regan Wolfrom's free fiction links at SF Signal.


Fiction

• At The Colored Lens: "Truth Banks" by Damien Krsteski. Speculative Fiction.
"I picture the satellites containing the data of the Truth Banks, the supercomputers buried deep underground with backups and revision history, the top-secret security systems. If there’s one heist impossible to pull it’s this one, and yet the fifteen millisecond gap is right before me like a splinter in the holograms."

• At Comets and Criminals: "La Rosa Still in Bloom" by Beth Cato. Science Fiction. [Via SF Signal]
"Rosa spied Mason marching downhill, the formerly pregnant swell of his beer belly dwindled to a saggy bump. Morning light glinted along the barrel of the shotgun in his hands. She tapped her fingers against the windowsill and calculated the days since electricity failed: twenty-three. The chill of autumn crept into her very bones as the house creaked and sang to itself. As far as she knew, beyond their hill the human race had ceased to be." Text and Audio.

• At Lakeside Circus: "A Life of No Consequence" by Anton Sim. Science Fiction. [Via SF Signal]
"Seventy-nine years later, in the fourth year of the plague, scientists tamed time. They didn’t conquer it; that was entirely beyond human comprehension. But they found a way to fold the days and months atop one another and allow windows, openings. Through one such window they viewed the future, all 22 trillion variations of it, and discovered the single timeline in which humanity survived. And they were able to isolate and determine the DNA of the person who rescued mankind."

• At Strange Horizons: "Resurrection Points" by Usman T. Malik. Speculative Fiction.
"And thus we practiced my first danse macabre. Sought out the nerve bundles, made them pop and sizzle, watched the cadaver spider its way across the table. With each discharge, the pain lessened, but soon my fingers began to go numb and Baba made me halt. Carefully he draped DeadBoy." Text and Audio.

• Now Posted: Apex Magazine Issue 63 — August 2014.

• “Ten Days’ Grace” by Foz Meadows
"Julia Kettan first knew her husband was dead when she looked out the window and saw a car emblazoned with the crest of the Bureau of Family Affairs pull up in the driveway. Her legs went weak, though whether from relief or fear she couldn’t tell. Robert hadn’t come home the previous evening. She’d phoned it in that morning to both the police and the Bureau, not wanting to risk a second major infraction under the Spousal Laws in case anything really had happened, despite being convinced that Robert had just drunk too much after work and decided to sleep at a friend’s."
• “Sister of Mercy” by Amanda Forrest
"Morning, and the frost was thick on ferns already yellow with the changing season. The sun broke from the horizon, thin light stirring the dying insects to crawl for one more day. I pushed the scratchy woolen blankets off my body and stood, shivering, from the bed I made in the meadow."
• “The Sandbirds of Mirelle” by John Moran
"In the autumn of 2309 I crossed from one lonely star to another and took a tour to the sandbird tracks of Mirelle. The only other passengers were a married couple, and our guide was a priest in training. I was eighteen, and it was my first assassination."
• “Jupiter and Gentian” by Erik Amundsen
"Gen walked on the endless, oscillating sea of liquid metal hydrogen and tried, tried to keep her consciousness together. The knight who followed her into the atmosphere, swam through the outer sea of hydrogen with her, he was here too. His armor defied the pressure, his banner defied the heat, and his hands, deep within the boiling, rolling mass of Jupiter. He stood beside a tree that constantly remade itself as it burned and crumpled."

Flash Fiction

• At Chrome Baby: "Astreya’s Fish" by Siobhan Gallagher. Science Fiction. [Via SF Signal]
• At Lakeside Circus:"Fixed" by Levi Jacobs. Science Fiction.
• At Strange Horizons: "Note to the Caretaker" by Lisa Bellamy. Speculative Poem.

Gaming

• At DriveThruRPG: Pathways #41 (PFRPG) by Rite Publishing.

"Deep Dragon Template" Steve shows us what dragons canpotentionally lie deep in the Earth.Make a more powerful foe with the Deep Dragon Template. by Steve Russell.
"Principles of Mega-dungeon Design" Creighton shows us what megadungeonsare and how they can bedesigned.by Creighton Broadhurst
"Introduction to World Building" Explore how to make your own world! by Elton Robb.

Here's Free Fiction, Baby / Signed, Sealed, Delivered, It's Yours

BA "Ahead you see some great free fiction."
Bob "I waste it with my crossbow!!!"
Brian "Fireballs coming online!"

Fiction

• At Mad Scientist Journal: "Using Supernatural DNA to Enhance Sporting Performance" by Andy Brown.
"For centuries, the tales of supernatural beings and their magical powers have enriched our lives. Now that we have access to these beings after the Pan Species Accord of 1947 (PSA), DNA research has shown that some of the traits of these creatures may be transferable to humans. This project focuses on DNA applications with regard to physical enhancement in sportsmen and women."

• At The WiFiles: "The Wind" by Michael Shirzadian. Speculative Fiction.
"Not having noticed the door left ajar, it would have been impossible for Calo to have noticed the glass of ice water which had been placed meticulously and intentionally on the top of the door, leaning at a slight angle against the white panels above the frame so that at the slightest irritation the glass would fall on and soak the unsuspecting door-enterer below."

• Now Posted: "Heroic Fantasy Quarterly– Q21" Fantasy.

• "A Matter of Goats" by Ben Fenwick
"An astronomical mission take an English poet and a scientist deep into the Balkan hinterlands.  The secrets of Suleyman, old superstitions, and ancient wickedness unfold beneath the uncaring stars."
• "Tomb Robber’s Tale" by Sean Robson
"Robbing the Necropolis of Catapesh is dangerous, dirty work, but when Tariq and his nephew discover a greater secret with greater rewards they delve into an ancient sunless world and thread its lethal streets."
"Lady Cardula and the Gryphon" by Sawn Scarber
"Just because you’re a monster of terror and legend doesn’t mean you can’t be civil about things.  With bonus artwork!"
• "A Breath of Darkness" by Liz Colter
"Life as the Chosen One can be brutal, especially when there is no one upon whom to pass the torch, the gods have abandoned you and your immortal nemesis is stirring again."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Readymade" by Shannon Fay. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Suburban Singularity" by T J Moore. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Every Angle" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "The Tell-Tale Ear" by Alex Shvartsman. Audio Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Author's Site: "Nocturnal: Episode #41" by Scott Sigler, Horror.
"Marie’s Children attacked San Francisco General Hospital, and made off with not only Jebediah Erickson, the Savior, but also Pookie Chang. Pookie’s partner, Bryan Clauser, was badly injured in the fight. He is with Adam and Alder Jessup, and with Aggie James, the street bum who was held captive by Marie’s Children. Bryan and Co are racing to the apartment of Robin Hudson, who might be the monsters next target. Can they get to Robin in time?"

• At Drabblecast: "After the Cure" by  Carrie Ryan, read by Amy Robinson. Horror.
"I was shot with the cure in the dark. Later, someone would tell me it was a Tuesday, but before the tranq dart I didn’t know such a thing existed. It was either day or night, hungry or sated, alive or dead."

• At Dunesteef: "Last Contact" by Rish Outfield and B.D. Anklevich. Science Fiction.
"Everyone finds the Others revolting. They are aliens, unwelcome visitors now squatting on Earth. And when Hughes is forced to partner up with one of the Others for his Biology class presentation, he is mortified and disgusted. But will he still feel that way once he’s gotten to know her?"

• At Every Photo Tells: "The Haunted Peak" by Mick Bordet. Fantasy.
"There are many legends told about the Haunted Peak, but the road that winds past it holds a story of its own."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 21 - Tarzan The Untamed." Adventure.
"We left Lt. Smith-Oldwick separated from Bertha Kircher in the city of the maniacs. He has been taken into a locked enclosure and left to fend for himself – surrounded by a pride of great lions!"











Other Genres

• At Crime City Central: "Just This Once" by Michael Guillebeau, read by Fred Himebaugh.
• At The Western Online: "Destiny's Cross" by Bob Cacioppo.

• At The Western Online: "Hang on for the Ride" by Milo James Fowler.

• At The Western Online: "The Orphan from Ciudad Verde Pálido" by Tom Sheehan.

August First Free Fiction

 It starts.













Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: " Scents of Life" by Robert Lowell Russell. Science Fiction.
"Katie walked hand in hand with her grandfather along the forest path. Dappled light filtered through the trees. She liked the way his hand felt rough in hers and how his eyes always seemed to smile, even when it didn't show on his face. Whenever she stumbled over a stone, or a root, or her own feet, he'd steady her with a grip that was still firm and strong. He stopped along the trail and pointed to dandelions growing in a sunlit circle among the trees. Yellow petals crowned green stems ending in spiked leaves. Some flowers had already changed to puffs."

• At GigaNotoSaurus: "Between Sea and Shore" by Vanessa Fogg. Science Fiction.
 "The world is filled with spirits who would take a child. The gundarram, who hide in banana trees and send out their foul breath to sicken sleeping infants. The gargar demons with red fur and black wings, who fly through the rainforest looking for naughty children to snatch. Momimo, who appears as a little lost boy crying in the mangrove swamps, begging children and adults alike for help. There are even spirits who steal the lives of babies still in their mothers’ wombs."

• At Kasma: "Pink Ice in the Jovian Rings" by C.J. Paget. Science Fiction.
"There: Thebe. Ugly little thing. A potato of ice and crap, streakin' past like the comet it probably once was. Blink and you missed it. Maybe I feel a tug as it zips by, its mass just enough to stir me in my suspension coffin. Or maybe I'm imagining it. You imagine a lot of things out here. You need to."

• Now Posted: Quantum Muse - August 2014 Edition

• "The Waiting Room" by Harris Tobias. Speculative Fiction.
"Got a question for God, take a number." 
• "Slight Chance of Thunderstorms" by Jessica Baumgartner. Fantasy.
"This local weather girl is much more than meets the eye."
• "The Fortress" by Michele Dutcher. Science Fiction
"In a barren future, a young woman goes searching for a link to her heritage."
• "Cities of Men" by Rocky Hutson. Science Fiction.
"Retired astronomy professor discovers humankind is making a startling transformation."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Ulder" by Vajra Chandrasekera. Magical Realism.
• At Every Day Fiction: "An Isolated Mechanism" by Moriah Geer-Hardwick. Science Fiction. 
• At Farther Stars Than These: "Orion" by C. C. Parker. Science Fiction. 
• At Nature: "One Out, One In" by Aislinn Batstone, Science Fiction.
• At Quantum Muse: "The Arrival" by Harris Tobias. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Beginning is Impossible and the End is Impassable" by Nathan Witkin. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Wind Chimes" by Sara Norja. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Clarkesworld:“Gold Mountain” by Chris Roberson, read by Kate Baker. Science Fiction
"Johnston Lien stood at the open door of the tram, one elbow crooked around a guardrail, her blue eyes squinting in the morning glare at the sky-piercing needle of the orbital elevator to the south. The sun was in the Cold Dew position, early in the dog-month, when the temperature began to soar and the sunlight burned brighter in the southern sky. Summer was not long off, and Lien hoped to be far from here before it came. As the tram rumbled across the city of Nine Dragons, she turned her attention back to her notes, checking the address of her last interviewee and reviewing the pertinent bits of data from their brief earlier meeting."

• At Classic Tales Podcast: "MS Found In A Bottle" by Edgar Allan Poe, read by B.J. Harrison.
"After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18-- , from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java, on a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as passenger --having no other inducement than a kind of nervous restlessness which haunted me like a fiend."

• At Decoder Ring Theatre:  "Red Panda Adventures (108) - The Gadget"
"A new world is about to be born.But before it can be born... something will have to die, at the hands of The Gadget"

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 20 - Tarzan The Untamed" Adventure.
"We left Tarzan seeking an entrance to the mysterious city of madmen, tracking Bertha Kircher and Lt. Smith-Oldwick.  As he races toward the city wall hoping to climb the vines that grow on it, he is hunted and chased by one of the huge valley lions!"










Gaming

• At DriveThruRPG: "Frontier Explorer - Issue 9" Star Frontiers.
"Issue 9 is now available for download.  This issue is all about spaceships.  We have a couple of awesome deck plan by Joseph Meager that we rescued from a lost Star Frontiers site.  Plus submissions from some regular contributiors and a cargo ship by a new author, M. Derryberry.  In all, there are three sets of deck plans, a writeup on a fourth class of ships, some space stations, and a review of early atomic rockets."

• At RPGNow: "The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children" Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Pay What You Want.
"Not to worry though—they are freaky crystal-headed children. Inhuman RPG cannon-fodder. ‘Monsters.’ So it’s okay. They deserve it. So you can have fun carving them up. Right?"

Shining a Light on Free Fiction

If I could save free fiction in a bottle / The first thing that I'd like to do /
Is to save every story till eternity passes away / Just to read them with you

Fiction

• At Author's Site: “Rick the Robber Baron” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
"When Kita Ogude wakes up tied to a post in her simulation room, she knows marauders have tried to take her ship—again. But this time something feels off, and familiar. She thinks she knows this marauder. And her desire to regain her ship becomes secondary to something she has wanted for a very long time: revenge."

• At The Colored Lens: "Damned" by Nyki Blatchley. Fantasy.
"The spell to start my car didn’t work that evening, so I contacted the repair service and walked home from the office through darkening drizzle, rather than being ripped off by the Instant Transportation System. Rain insinuated itself inside my upturned collar. Typical: they spend a fortune on improving the fireballs and blasting spells, but nothing on controlling the weather."

• At Strange Horizons: "Vimvimrecoil" by Heather Knox. Speculative Fiction. Poetic. Text and Audio.
"Chainlink was too expensive so we built fences of what we could find: many-times mended chicken wire, corrugated cardboard, rusted pipes, photographs, gravestones. It's said the town witch piled animal bones, some big as my femur. She wasn't always a witch; she used to be a wife. Then the sea came.
        It's said the witch knew, but she couldn't because her husband didn't die until the flood. It's said she didn't use salt on their pork that night. It's said she locked the pigs in the attic but they drowned anyway. It's said she slaughtered the pigs the day before."

 Flash Fiction
• At Every Day Fiction: "Degrees of Starvation" by Beth Cato. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Cleanup Crew" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Beam Me Up: "In Plain Sight episode 27 by Jason Kahn and "Skipping Stones by Devin Miller." Science Fiction.
"It was a cold morning. On this planet, called Apella, the winters lasted years. Frost clung to some of the heartiest vegetation ever studied, and in their shadows, small animals sent up puffs of white dust in their quest for buried food."