Midday Free Fiction

  And the good stuff keeps coming.  There are two good e-zines, flash fiction, and some old time radio in this post alone.  And yes, there's more to come.  [Art from SQ Mag linked below]












Fiction
Now Posted: New Myths: Issue 24, September 1, 2013. Speculative Fiction.

• "A Slender Darkness" by D. A. D'Amico
      "The sweeping curve of indigo reminded Rhyse of Daisha's lithe body, the way her smooth shoulder had moved under his clumsy fingers as he applied the ink. She'd gasped when he'd used the hot wire to set the line, her voice exploding in breathless sighs of pleasure."

• "The Hidalgo's Domain" by Thomas Canfield.
        "The light took Bradshaw by surprise. He hung suspended in the water, moving his fins just enough to maintain his depth, wondering how he could have miscalculated so badly. The water had a beautiful rich tint to it, a silky, sensuous blue, not unlike waters Bradshaw had dove in the Caribbean. But why here, he wondered. There was a spring five miles further to the west, a small one that scarcely warranted a name. But here the network of caves ran uninterrupted through miles of porous limestone. No natural light ever penetrated these waters. Bradshaw should not have breached the surface till he returned to his original point of entry again. This was not his point of entry."

• "Cerebral Vortex" by Sean Hazlett
       "The hollow-skulled dolphin carcasses started washing ashore about a week ago. No matter how many times Dr. Janet Kimball examined the bodies, she was at a loss as to what was behind these mutilations. Dr. Kimball observed an atrocity that had become so common she was almost numb to it – almost, if not for the dolphins’ missing gray matter. In all her forty years, she’d never come across such a peculiar and gruesome sight."

• "Butterfly Weather" by Hannah Lackoff
      "On Monday morning, there were ants in the kitchen. I searched under the sink in vain for the traps I knew I had bought. I tried the medicine cabinet, the hall closet, and finally found them on top of the refrigerator, out of my reach without the assistance of the step stool. I was twenty minutes late for work."

Now Posted: SQ Mag: Edition 10

• "Shoe Shine Picture" by Robert Datson. Dark Fantasy.
     "Concrete lies under Sam’s thin sleeping bag and he keeps still, knowing the moment he moves, bones will push through the thin material and his comfort will disappear, bringing him firmly into contact with his current situation."

• "Intangible (Part 5 of 6)" by A.A. Garrison. Fantasy.
      "It was the fall of '89, late September, no different than the thirty-seven she'd known previously. But that changed on a Thursday afternoon, as she motored down the road in the family minivan, Kyle and Tia in tow."

• "That Blasts the Roots of Trees is My Destroyer" by David Halpert. Dystopian Science Fiction.
      "Tenement apartments hugging the Green Zone show their true colors in the sober light of day. Moss and climbing ferns hide the cracked foundations and graffiti courtesy of resident syndicates. Charlie’s disposable Sanyo reads yellow for this district, advising citizens to express caution when venturing out in broad daylight."

• "Drunks" by Michael C Schutz-Ryan. Horror.
       "When I first met Neil, he was drinking Heineken at Jim’s party. Well dressed and very drunk gay men stood around a veritable garden of potted plants; they watched each other watching each other and tried to appear disinterested."

• "Mr Strawn and the Book" by Morgan Knight. Steampunk.
      "Mr. Strawn stepped off the sleek magnetic train and walked down the wooden boardwalk of the depot, boots clunking. He carried a canvas bag shaped around the thick book inside of it. It made him think of a snake that had misjudged its meal every time he picked it up."

Flash Fiction
• At SQ Mag: "Visiphorical Art" by Michelle King. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Morrow Upon Midday" by Timothy Marshal-Nichols. Science Fiction.
At New Myths: Speculative Poems.

• "Morrighan" by Steve Gordon
• "Before the Sun" by Jeffrey Graessley
• "The Shaman's Daughter" by Alexandra Seidel

Old Time Radio

• At Boxcars 711: "The Graveyard Mansion 2 Pts. Complete" - The Witch's Tale 1933.
• At OTR Plot Spot!: "Incident at Switchpath" - Beyond Tomorrow 1950, "The Third Man's Story" - Quiet, Please 1948, and "Hunter's Moon" - Part 05 of 08. Science Fiction and Horror.
• At Relic Radio: "The Wendigo" - Theater 10:30. Horror.

Too Early for a Clever Title for the Free Fiction.

Sunday morning begins well with new fiction at GigaNotoSaurus and the latest issues of two fantastic free ezines, Indian SF (pictured at left) and Mirror Dance. There's also flash fiction, an audio children's fantasy, and some classic pulp noir.  More to come today, of course.










Fiction
• At GigaNotoSaurus: "Small Strange Towns" by Rashida J. Smith.
     "When Nana left Ben the house and acreage it took him a full week to remember he’d spent much of his childhood in Strange. A month after the funeral he missed and between jobs, he decided the Saab could use a good road trip. Time to figure out why he could barely recall the closest thing he had to a hometown."


Now Posted: Indian SF Issue 5 September – October 2013

• "Shorn of Lustre" by Meg Jayanth
"Yama likes his elaborate rituals"

• "Shaking Off The Chains" by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
"I have drunk deeper of the waters of truth"

• "Sleeping… Waking… Being" by Russell Adams
"Maybe something new had escaped, taken up residence this summer in the flowerbeds"

Now Posted: Mirror Dance - Autumn 2013.

• "A Concerto and Fugue" by Amy Holt. Fantasy.
      "Mr. Humphrey stands to take his turn on the platform stage. Absently, he rubs the sideboard of his wooden doppelganger. He arranges his frail bones and slipshod tendons in the performance chair and, after a sigh, begins."

• "The Boy and the Dragon" by Ann-Marie Martino. Fantasy.
      "Now, this dragon was a young thing, a fractious male, but he wouldn't bother waking up to eat just anyone, and, in truth, found humans rather tiresome and not all that appetizing."

• "A Mixed Catch" by Jess Hyslop. Fantasy.
     “Oh my heart, my heart,” Annie’s mother cried, clutching her weathered knuckles to her chest, “Annie’s leaving us, leaving us! And we should all be thankful, for there’s someone else to feed her now!”

• "Sadko" by Edward Ahern. Fantasy.
     "In the old days in Novgorod there was a boy named Sadko, strong, blue-eyed and curly-haired. Sadko was so poor that he had not a kopek except for what people gave him to play on his dulcimer for their dancing. He was not always happy, for it is dull work to always play while other people dance."

• "The Unicorn Game" by Alicia Alves.
     "It’s not that I don’t love him. I do, in a way. I just don’t want to marry him. Of course, what I want doesn’t matter. In Albion, all of its daughters must marry and so shall I."

• "A Hollow in the Moment" by Mike Phillips.
      "Though he could still hear him as he crashed through the thick undergrowth ahead, Jason wasn’t exactly sure in which direction his brother had gone. He was afraid of getting too far away from camp and getting lost in the mountains."

Flash
• At Every Day Fiction: "Last of the Damned" by Harding McFadden. Fantasy.
• At Indian SF: "Birth Of A Witch" by Siobhan Gallagher.
At Mirror Dance: Fantasy. Poems

• "Purgatorium" by David R. Cravens.
• "Ice" by Alexis Marie.
• "Act of Creation" by J. A. Grier
• "The Throne, Restored" by Shelly Bryant.

 Audio Fiction
• At Internet Archive [LibriVox]: Davy and the Goblin by Charles Edward Carryl. Children's Fantasy.
      "Eight-year-old Davy reads Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and begins to get very sleepy. Suddenly a goblin appears in the fire and takes Davy on a 'believing voyage' much like Alice's own adventures in Wonderland, where he meets many characters from fantasy and literature" Text Here.

Other Genres:
• At Online Pulps!: "Borgia's Barbecue" by Ted Coughlan. 1943. "Hand of Double Doom" by Vance C. Criss. 1937. "The Fifth Guest" by Norman A. Daniels. 1948.

It's Beautiful Free Fiction. Don't Let It Get Away

It's good start to the weekend with with two cool ezines bringing us nine free short stories, there's new audio fiction at the always awesome PodCastle, and two continuing audio serials. More to come. [Art from "Escape from Oz" below]



Fiction
At Aurora Wolf: Science Fiction and Fantasy.

• "Escape from Oz" by David Wright   
      "Chen felt the hypo pressing against the small of his back. The ceramic syringe had beat the low-tech metal detectors at airport security and the high-tech scans at Oz, but there was no way he could survive a five-hour flight with the battery-sized cylinder digging into his sacroiliac."
• "Fire, Cheese, and Conversation" by Nick Hoins.
       "Uani looked at the coals in the belly of the silver-black stove. He thought about the isolated, miniature world of that fire; an embryo of heat unaware that it existed in a passenger car that moved along a train track at sixty miles per hour."
• "Can You Spare a Dollar?" by Preston Dennett   
      "The body was lying alongside the road. It sure looked like a body. I hopped out of my truck to investigate. It was Stick Man, and he was dead. He was on his back, his arms draped beside his body, as if he had decided to take a nap."
• "Abenyu" by Lida Broadhurst.
     "Even a child newly slipped from a mother’s womb knows that in our Tribe, the early morning hours are sacred to the Horse God Ergane. And every morning I, as first born sit with my father, the chieftain Ogri, as our horses gallop, the shadows of their legs striping the rocks like gray snakes."

Now Posted: Electric Spec: Volume 8, Issue 3. Speculative Fiction.

• "Queen Méabh" by C.R. Hodges       
     "According to Irish mythology, Méabh - often anglicized as Maeve by those too lazy to learn Gaelic - the faerie queen of the Connacht, was buried here, in a tomb that until this day had remained unexcavated."
• "For Want of Stars" by Beth Cato       
     "If she could give Orion anything, she would give him stars, and everything they meant: crisp night air, clouds, a whisper of wind, the swoop of birds - a world unscarred, peaceful."
• "Amelia Amongst Machines" by David Brookes       
     "She had tried with no noticeable effect to communicate with them; the machines ignored her as though she wasn't there. They strode through dry, brittle scrub, metal feet crunching on grit and crumbled debris."
• "Someone" by David W. Landrum       
      "I like to go in places like that." He answered honestly instead of obfuscating or making up a story. "There's something about abandoned buildings that fascinates me."
• "Little Ms. Saigon" by Malon Edwards
     "Rehani didn't take the backpack. Our passports are still there. So is Isabella's manufacturer's certificate of origin. That doesn't comfort me, though. Just because Rehani didn't leave the country doesn't mean she and Isabella won't be hard to track within the myriad of unfamiliar scents that smell nothing like her."

Audio Fiction
• At Cthulhu: "The Wrong Side of the Tracks, part 3" Horror.
     "Today's episode contains the penultimate episode of "How I Found Livingstone" and the fantastic third part of T.C. Mcqueen's "The Wrong Side of the Tracks""

• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 6 - Out of Time's Abyss" Adventure.
     "Chapter III, Part Two - Bradley has escaped the Blue Place of Seven Skulls having found a passage to the river that runs beneath the building. As he wades through the waist deep river, in pitch blackness, something bumps him from behind!"

• At PodCastle: " El Alma Perdida de Marguerite Espinoza" by Jeremiah Tolbert. Fantasy.
     "Marguerite Espinoza took her last breath as the sun slipped behind the Salt Mountains outside the expansive windows of her third floor bedchamber. Alvardo nearly missed the moment, eavesdropping to the gathered family’s whispered conversations. He had falsely predicted her passing four times in the past three days, but the passing was unmistakable. As Maestro Eusebio had said many times, “When the moment comes, you will know.” And he did."

Now Posted: Subterranean Press Magazine Fall 2013.

Subterranean Press Magazine Fall 2013.
The latest issue of this always outstanding magazine is out with four stories for online reading, as well as epub and mobi downloads.   One of the better ezines.









Fiction

• "Doctor Helios" by Lewis Shiner.
      "Through the window of the Boeing 707 he watched the Nile as it flowed toward the distant Mediterranean. It glinted silver in the noonday sun, then turned greenish-brown as the airliner banked over the pyramids at Giza and descended toward the brand-new Cairo International Airport northeast of the city."

• "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang.
     "When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock of traditional literacy"

• "Hook Agonistes" by Jay Lake and Seanan McGuire.
      "Memory didn’t work the way that he remembered it. In the beginning there was Lowryland, and Lowryland would last forever, a monument to the eternal child within each and every one of—"

• "What Doctor Ivanovich Saw" by Ian Tregillis.
     "It was an early Wednesday morning, the day they first tested the psychic woman’s Faraday cage, when Aleksandr Ivanovich Grigoryev lost thirty rubles in a bet with a skeptical Cossack. Ivanovich always remembered it was a Wednesday because that same morning he was summoned to the general-colonel’s office, where the overseer of Arzamas-16 informed him that Dmitrii, his last surviving son, had died fighting valiantly on the Eastern Front. Dmitrii, who had been a cook’s assistant."

Sunday Morning Free Fiction

A little of this, a little of that - all good, all free.  [Art from Cast of Wonders]





Fiction
• At The WiFiles: "Intersentential Phenomena" by D.A. Cairns.
     "It was two in the morning. My ashtray was full, overflowing in fact and I was staring at it, watching the half finished and scrunched up butts transform into hideous looking little monsters whispering to me about my putrid lungs and the violence being done to my arteries."

• Flash Fiction at 365 Tomorrows: "Of Stars And Obscurity" by Sevanaka. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
 • At Cast of Wonders: "Snakes and Campers (A Camp Myth Tale)" by Chris Lewis Carter. YA Fantasy,
    No description yet.

• At The Drama Pod: "While Whispers Wait (Episode Six)" Macabre soap opera.
     "Simon is rattled when he sees someone from his past. Pippa is creeped out by David's obsession. Lynette confronts her brother.  Percival prepares to leave for Deilsburgh. A ghost from the past arrives in town."

 E-Books
At Amazon: [via Freebook Sifter]

• The Crystal Of Dreams by Donalda Feith.
• Anachronism by Dave Tuckett. Fantasy.
• The Guilds: Atlas Grove by Clayton Horger. Fantasy.
• Love Lost - The Accidental Time Traveler by Mark Fouyer.
• Gravewalkers: Dying Time by Richard Schrader. Horror.
• Beowulf: The New Translation by Gerald Davis. Fantasy. Epic.
• Eric, the Homework Takers and all the Bullies in the World by Warren Green. YA Paranormal.
• The Quill (Powers of Perfection) by Bill Westlake. YA Fantasy.
• Age of the Masquerade by J. Spencer. Science Fiction.
• Life's A Witch by Katrina Rue. Paranormal.
• Ashes & Embers (The Amulet's Flaw Series) by Jess E. Strider. YA Urban Fantasy.
• Dynasty Wars by James Butler. Science Fiction. Alternative History.
• Dead Time: Azgiel's Return by Jason Wilcox. Dark Fantasy.
• Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon. Superhero.
• A Soldier's Dream by David Marcone. Science Fiction.
• Counterpart by Lara LaVonne Jordan. Paranormal.
• Nocturnia (The Murkmyre Saga) by Clifford James Hayes.
• Strange Air (a bone-chilling Victorian fairytale) by Tom Brown. Steampunk.
• Crystalogue One - Establish by Peter Eerden. Space Opera.
• Lethed (A Guardian of the Angels Novel) by Anyta Sunday. Paranormal.
• Rapture's Rain by Chris Pennington. Christian. Post-apocalyptic.

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Push Button Tyrant" Sci-Fi, 195x
• At Atomic Kommie Comics "Beast from the Deep" Sci-Fi. Ray Bradbury. 1953/
• At The Horrors of It All: "Blood on Her Lips" Horror. 1953.

Other Genres

• Audio at Alfred Hitchcock Monthly: "Ghost Negligence" by John Shepphird. Mystery.
• Audio at Internet Archive [LibriVox]: "Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park" by James W. Schultz. Mythology.
• Audio at Internet Archive [LibriVox]: "Stolen Souls" by William le Queux. Mystery.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Tonight the World Ends" by Rohini Gupta.

Many Doors to Free Fiction

The start of what should be a great free fiction day.  With free fiction from Nightmare and Tor, the first non-insect issue for The Journal of Unlikely . . . (hat tip to John DeNardo for beating by several hours on that one), several flash fiction stories (including the very welcome return of Yesteryear Fiction), audio fiction, and other genres ( Mediæval London looks quite interesting).  Much more to come with at least three more posts within the next 24 hours. [Art form The Journal of Unlikely Architecture]



Fiction
• At Nightmare Magazine: "All My Princes Are Gone" by Jennifer Giesbrecht. Horror. Dark Fantasy.
     "When the world was young, it was filled with monsters."

• At Tor.com: "Work Sets You Free" by David Barnett.
       "Gideon is a young fisherman in Yorkshire, England, in an alternate 1890, who embarks on a journey to find Captain Lucian Trigger, the famed Hero of the Empire, to deal with a mystery plaguing his home village. This story takes place as the naive Gideon sets off for London, but on the way encounters a very dark side to the British Empire's insatiable hunger for resources...."

• Now Posted: Journal of Unlikely Architecture #6. Speculative Fiction.

• "Go Through" by Alma Alexander
     "Pain. There is always pain. I think I carry it with me. I brought it here. I wear it. I leave it in the tracks I leave behind on the cobblestones."
• "Three Adventures of Simon Says, the Elder" by Daniel Ausema
     "When the first balloon fell, Simon was climbing a piece of asphalt that jutted up from the ground. He scrambled over and dropped into the lee of the jumbled ruin as the balloons fell harder. Some splashed acid as they popped, some turned into a rain of razor-sharp jacks, but most floated down intact"
• "The Painted Bones" by Kelly Simmons.
     "As Jamie is no longer speaking to Lily, she is currently considering switching strategies. But not this Wednesday. No, not quite yet."
• "The Tower" by Kelly Lagor
     "Dana looked up at the polished black tower before her, which stretched heavenward through the emerald canopy of the Enchanted Forest. Its apex had finally breached the cloud."
• "The Dross Record" by Matthew Timmins
     "The archives themselves were a strange mix of ancient and modern: the main rooms were gigantic open spaces hardly ever encountered in nature, but the floor, ceiling, and walls that were present were all original stonework; a water channel had been left in its natural angular course"
• "Geddarien" by Rose Lemberg.
     "The old man closed his heavy eyelids. 'These cities like ours, my boy, they have a life of their own. And sometimes, you should know,' he whispered, 'the city dances.'"
• "The Latest Incarnation of Secondhand Johnny" by Mark Rigney.
      "That this world might be their own — and of their own devising — was not a proposition with which the regulars bothered themselves. It was both too awful and too obvious to require mention."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Seaweed" by Mari Ness. Science Fiction.
• At Every Day Fiction: "Singularity of Attachment" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Science Fiction.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Memoir" by George Brannen. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "My Orbit is Not Done" by Duncan Shields. Science Fiction.
• At Yesteryear Fiction: "Flowers" by Earl S. Wynn. Fantasy.

Audio Fiction
• At Internet Archive by LibriVox: "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. Dystopia.
     "It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age characterized by irrationality, collectivism, and socialistic thinking and economics. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all) and the concept of individuality has been eliminated (for example, the use of the word "I" is punishable by death)."

• At Nightmare Magazine: "All My Princes Are Gone" by Jennifer Giesbrecht. Horror. Dark Fantasy.
     "When the world was young, it was filled with monsters."

Other Genres

• Audio at Internet Archive by LibriVox:  Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon. YA Adventure.
• Fiction at Spinetingler: "No Good Reason" by Christopher Ford. Crime.
• Non-Fiction At Project Gutenberg: Mediæval London by William Benham and Charles Welch. 1901.

God Save the Free Fiction - We Mean It Man - We Love Our Free Fiction.

Break out your reading glasses and hearing aids because there are many great free stories this morning. Wow! E-books and more to come.  A couple of links were swiped from Regan Wolfrom at SF Signal.

[Art from "A Meeting With The Elder"]




Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Skin Deep" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "When Cullaene learns the colonists want to question him about a murder, he fears for his life. But he must also think about the daughter of the people who took him in. She appears sick, and Cullaene soon realizes only he can help her. But helping her might mean sacrificing his own life.'"

• At The Colored Lens: "Garden of Little Angels" by Kevin Kekic. Speculative Fiction.
     "'Katelyn, d-do you think they are p-poison?' Arabella asked me. Her voice sounded hoarse, the cold air sending small puffs of mist from her lips. Next to her, little Gregory bounced on his feet, the possibility of food giving the boy a sudden burst of energy. It was our third day alone in the Whispering Forest, our third day without food. The waterskin I had stolen from Father was almost empty, and dusk was fast approaching."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Sparg" by Brian Trent. Science Fiction. Aliens.
     "From his cage, he had watched them conduct this peculiar ritual enough times to understand it was how they prepared their food. More elaborate than the brown fish-pellets they gave him. When his food dish was empty, they usually noticed as they shuffled in from the bedroom each morning. If they didn't, Sparg would gently thump his tentacles against the bars until they came over to see what was the bother. Then strange sounds would issue from their red mouths:"

• At Fantasy Faction: "Selleuk’s Bridge" by Nathan Hawke. Fantasy.
      "Thanni Ironfoot poked a stick in the fire and tried not to hear what the two Lhosir beside him were saying about the nioingr who’d sided with the Marroc up in Varyxhun castle. Taking the damned place was going to be bloody enough without having to think about whether he was on the right side of the fight."

• At HiLobrow: "Herland - Part Five" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Science Fiction. 1915.
      "It is no use for me to try to piece out this account with adventures. If the people who read it are not interested in these amazing women and their history, they will not be interested at all."

• At Lightspeed: "The Litigation Master and the Monkey King" by Ken Liu. Fantasy.
      "The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou."

• At Lightspeed: "At Budokan"  by Alastair Reynolds Science Fiction.
     "I’m somewhere over the Sea of Okhotsk when the nightmare hits again. It’s five years ago, and I’m on the run after the machines went berserk. Only this time they’re not just enacting wanton, random mayhem, following the scrambled choreography of a corrupted performance program. This time they’re coming after me, all four of them, stomping their way down an ever-narrowing back alley as I try to get away, the machines too big to fit in that alley, but in the malleable logic of dreams somehow not too big, swinging axes and sticks rather than demolition balls, massive, indestructible guitars and drumsticks."

• At SciFi Ideas: "A Meeting With The Elder" by Cory Trego-Erdner. Science Fiction.
      "His contact among the kahoons met him the moment he stepped off the dropcraft. The sensory proboscis above its single, gaping intake nostril lifted in greeting, and the tendrils at its tip quivered as it tasted his scent. It then uttered a spoken greeting to him, the words emerging from its nostril. A kahoon’s four jaws were a formidable masticatory apparatus"

• At Strange Horizons: "Din Ba Din" by Kate MacLeod. Speculative Fiction.
   "I look down at my hands, past the dirt. Sun-darkened, wrinkled, but not loose skin on bone. I'm forty, maybe nearly fifty. This isn't the rocket launch I dread, not yet."

Flash Fiction

• At Strange Horizons: "All That Her Mother Left Her" by John W. Sexton. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Art of War" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.

Audio Fction
• At Author's Site: "Beam Up on Aisle Five, Part 2" by Scott Sigler.
     "In the first episode, the Rabbi and Big Ugly were supposed to find the President and bring his money back to Chad LaTilton, only before our heroes could complete this task, the President wound up dead. Now Rabbi and Big Ugly are on the hook for that cash — they have to find a lady named "Carnie" who might have a clue as to the money's wherabouts. Listen in for more lubesters, violence, a few shots of Sea Breeze and some Pomeranian poop"

• At Lightspeed: "The Litigation Master and the Monkey King" by Ken Liu. Fantasy.
      "The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou."

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Compensation" by C.V. Tench. Science Fiction.
      "Professor Wroxton Had Disappeared—But in the Bottom of the Mysterious Crystal Cage Lay the Diamond from His Ring!"

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Shadow on the Doorstep" by James Blaylock. Lovecraftian Horror.
     "It was several months after I had dismantled my aquaria that I heard a rustling in the darkness, a scraping of what sounded like footsteps on the front porch of my house."

• At Strange Horizons: "Din Ba Din" by Kate MacLeod. Speculative Fiction.
   "I look down at my hands, past the dirt. Sun-darkened, wrinkled, but not loose skin on bone. I'm forty, maybe nearly fifty. This isn't the rocket launch I dread, not yet."

Other Genres

• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Negative Amortization" by Camille Griep.
• Non-Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Master of Game by Thomas Edwards and Second Duke of York. 1413. Hunting.

Goodbye, Free Fiction Tuesday, Who Could Hang a Name on You?

Wow! Three free Ezines on the same day, Apex Magazine, Black Treacle, and Sorcerous Signals.  These three cover it all, science fiction, speculative fiction, horror, fantasy, and dark fantasy.  And as if that weren't enough, there are new stories.at Mad Scientist Journal and Phantasmacore. HiLobrow continues its serialization of Herland, there are some comics from very cool sites, plenty of ebooks, and even an audio short. Can I get a Huzzah?

It's only goodbye to free fiction Tuesday for a week.





Fiction
• At HiLobrow: "Herland - Chapter 4: Our Venture" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 1915.
     "We were standing on a narrow, irregular, all too slanting little ledge, and should doubtless have ignominiously slipped off and broken our rash necks but for the vine. This was a thick-leaved, wide-spreading thing, a little like Amphelopsis."

• At Mad Scientist Journal: "The Warning Sign: Dr. Maxwell’s Notes on First Contact" by S. R. Algernon. Science Fiction. [via SF Signal]
     "The Star-Weavers have contacted us! For decades, they have ignored our transmissions, even as they scattered their interstellar beacons across the solar system. This morning, everything changed. A Star-Weaver was here, on our little campus, and not just for a recon flyby, but to see us face-to-face. What follows below is for posterity."

• At Phantasmacore: "Procedural Generation" by Tom Graham. Science Fiction.
     "The days of the hermitage, his small urban sanctuary. Steven, for as long as he could remember, had been agoraphobic. His food was delivered (meals-on-wheels) and he spent his time between an indoor orchid garden, reading stacks of old newsprint, and mindlessly computing, data entry his method of maintaining his seclusive lifestyle."

• Now Posted: Apex Magazine #51 August 2013.

• "Victimless Crimes" by Charlie Jane Anders. Science Fiction.
     "The baby that had been Florence sighed. 'Okay fine. I have to do everything myself. I assume you at least brought an exo? Not that this body isn’t lovely and all, but these hands aren’t going to be karate–chopping henchmen any time soon.'"
• "A Matter of Shapespace" by Brian Trent
     "It stabbed up from the center of his otherwise empty room, its three sides so steep they were nearly vertical, converging to a sharp point that aimed towards the skylight. Jacob gaped at it, disbelieving the sight. The rest of his house was a blank desolation, bereft of furniture, color, and of course, pyramids"
• "Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster" by Christopher Barzak
     "It didn’t take with me, the world and its rules, the things it expected of me. In the end, that’s the only reason why I find myself still here after all these countless years, and still I refuse to leave the scene. If you drop a beat, I’m on it. If I hear the slightest scratch, I’m ready to spin. If my shoes give out, if I split a sole or break a heel, it doesn’t matter. I kick them off and keep on dancing like the music and my body can’t be put on pause"

• Now Posted: Black Treacle #4. Horror. Dark Fantasy.

• "The Devil’s Due" by Mike Rimar.
    "I leaned forward hoping to appear sufficiently inquisitive and peered at the Soul List. Created from the flayed skin of the eternally damned, the scroll unfurled across his obsidian desk. Smoke trailed from the blackened rim of the hole he’d made with his stiletto-like finger. Around the hole the remaining letters of a name fading from view."
• "Nainaine of the Bayou" by Christopher Keelty.
     "The white lady’s gun lay in the dirt. Nell thought about taking it, but it was too heavy and too long–at least twice as long as the rifle Mama was teaching her to shoot. Instead she dragged it into the shadows and hid it beneath some scrap wood. The spyglass on top looked valuable, but Nell didn’t have time to salvage it."
• "Corn-fed Baby and Gravy" by Christian Riley
     "The stink of shit and animal parlayed with a cloud of dust, rising up and through the opened windows of the Cadillac. Lawrence cursed, reached for a handkerchief and covered his nose. When the dust settled, he grabbed his clipboard and stepped outside, shielding his eyes against the rays of a setting sun."

• Now Posted: Sorcerous Signals Aug - Oct '13. Fantasy.

• "Blood Will Out" by Edward Ahern. . Fantasy.
     "The deadly downside to the obligations of nobility."
• "A Close Call" by Matthew Wilson.  Poetry
• "The Heart of a Diamond" by Lillian Csernica. Fantasy.
     "When murderous conspirators armed with magic attack the House of Treymorr, Lady Tavia's only ally is the Spirit trapped inside a prize diamond." 
• "A Legendary Snooze" by Brandon Barrows. Flash Fiction
• "The Men From the Council" by Robina Williams. Fantasy.
     "A modern twist to an ancient myth: When two besuited men drive up in their smart sedan to the hillside home of Baucis and Philemon to talk about planning issues, the old couple fear they are about to lose their home."
• "The Oak Witch's Helper" by Anna Sykora. Fantasy.
      "Maybe I'm a little batty, but every witch needs a helper like me."
• "The Odyssey of the Penelope Ann" by Ken Goldman. Fantasy.
     "Richard, the captain of the Penelope Ann ship, hardly qualifies as a mythic hero -- although he has some appeal to the local Sirens."
• "The Ragnarok Interrupt" by Mike Jansen. Fantasy.
    "Thor is his name, Norse God of Thunder and Lightning, always in for a good fight. With the end of times approaching, he departs for the battlefield, filled with divine anticipation. But the world has changed and Thor discovers he may just be a little outdated."
• "Sunniva" by David W. Landrum.    "The sorceress Sunniva wins the heart of Prince Dalin when they are very young. His parents do not approve and send her into exile. Dalin also travels far away. But to a sorceress, distances mean very little."
• "To The Fates" by John Grey. Poetry.
• "The Woodcarver's Angel" by E. M. Sole.
    "Lord Hennin finds a marvel to delight a king."

E-Books
• At Amazon: Exile of Lucifer: Chronicles of the Host, Vol 1 by D. Brian Shafer. [via Freebook Sifter]

At Free eBooks Daily:

• Hive by Rachel Starr Thomson. Fantasy.
• Meg: Origins by Steve Alten. Fantasy.
• UnEmbraceable by Precarious Yates YA
• Moorehead Manor by David McMullen-Sullivan. YA Horror.

Comics

• At And Everything Else Too: "Curiosity Kills / Assignment in Fear" Horror. Humor. 1972
• At And Everything Else Too: "The Cameo's Curse / Sonny's World" Horror. Humor. 1972
• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Into the 4th Dimension" Sci-fi. 1954.
• At Digital Comics Museum: The Complete Spirit Of Frankenstein from  ACG's Adventures Into The Unknown. Horror.
• At Four-Color Shadows: "The Space Court" Sci-fi. 1965.
• At The Horrors of It All: "The Boy Who Cried Vampire / Behold the Beast" Horror. Humor. 1972
• At The Horrors of It All: "Ultimate Cure / Measure of the Monster" Horror. Humor. 1972

Audio Fiction
• At Apex Magazine: "The Face of Heaven So Fine" by Kat Howard. Flash.

Well, When This Free Fiction Train Ends I'll Try Again

Some Tuesdays are great! With Lightspeed, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, and so much more, this is certainly one of them. 

The Lightspeed story "The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars" is supposed to have an audio version, but it isn't working at this time. Hopefully it just me or else it's fixed by the time you read this.

Much more to come, including at least one link swiped from the extremely effecient Regan Wolfrom of SF Signal.

[Art from "Blood Trail" linked in Fiction directly below]




Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Blood Trail" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction. Time Travel. 2001.
     "Detective Zack Wheldon solves cases. The tough cases no one else figures out. So, when the FBI comes seeking his help, he must decide which to choose: the serial killer he desperately wants to catch or the as-yet-unknown cases that will grow cold in his absence"

• At The Colored Lens: "The Land of Dreams" by Kate O'Connor.
     "Cass set the last feed bucket down and leaned against the paddock fence, idly tugging a soft clump of gray-green dream pig fur out of the wire. The sun was breaking free of the distant mountains just in time to be swallowed up by blossoming amber clouds. She frowned, twisting the wool around her fingers. Just another normal day on the farm."

• At Escape Pod: "Mono No Aware" by Ken Liu. Science Fiction.
    "The world is shaped like the kanji for _umbrella_, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion."

 
• At Lightspeed: "Catamounts"  by Marc Laidlaw. Fantasy.
     "'I have my limits,' said Gorlen Vizenfirthe, hooking a full mug of cheap brew toward him with one of the petrified fingers of his stony right hand. A coarse black strand of beard-hair poked up from the foamy head like a sick fern’s frond. 'And you, sir, are quickly approaching several of them at the same time.'"

• At Lightspeed: "The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars" by Yoon Ha Lee. Science Fiction.
     "The tower is a black spire upon a world whose only sun is a million starships wrecked into a mass grave. Light the color of fossils burns from the ships, and at certain hours, the sun casts shadows that mutter the names of vanquished cities and vanished civilizations. It is said that when the tower’s sun finally darkens, the universe’s clocks will stop."

• At Short-Story.Me: "A Helping Hand" by Rachel Anne Sloan. Horror.
     "Hands, not eyes, are the windows to the soul. The study of hands has long been a fascination for people the world over. Palmistry began several hundred years before the birth of Christ. Leonardo Da Vinci is famous for his artistic study of human hands. I am no different in my quest for the knowledge hidden in hands"

• At Strange Horizons: "Complicated and Stupid" by Charlie Jane Anders 
      "The doctor was a gray-haired woman with a tongue piercing and a faded bluebird tattoo on one exposed forearm. She wore a white coat over a lacy halter top and hotpants. She kept looking down Benjamin's throat with a penknife as if his malaise could be pharyngeal."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long" by Erica L. Satifka. Science Fiction. 
• At Every Day Fiction: "A Song Not Fully Sung" by Beth Cato. Science Fiction.
• At Strange Horizons: "my father as a sonnet on the human meaning of inhuman stars" by Andrew Brenza. Poem.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Djedi’s Device" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Escape Pod: "Mono No Aware" by Ken Liu. Science Fiction.
    "The world is shaped like the kanji for _umbrella_, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "Rose Face" by Harold A. Lamb. Adventure.
     "Where is the man who knows what is hidden in the heart of a woman?"

• At Strange Horizons: "Complicated and Stupid" by Charlie Jane Anders 
      "The doctor was a gray-haired woman with a tongue piercing and a faded bluebird tattoo on one exposed forearm. She wore a white coat over a lacy halter top and hotpants. She kept looking down Benjamin's throat with a penknife as if his malaise could be pharyngeal."


Other Genres

• Fiction at Short-Story.Me: "Rules of Everday Life" by Marilyn J. Holt. Mystery. 
• Fiction at the Western Online: "Incident at Canyon Diablo" by Lowell "Zeke" Ziemann.

Monday Free Fiction - Part 1

 A few goodies to start the day.  More to come/















 
Fiction
• At Black Gate: “The Keystone - Part III of The Tales of Gemen" by Mark Rigney. Fantasy.
     "Velori shot awake, screaming, her legs a kicking flurry as she tried to free herself from her bedroll. Her alarm cries startled the mules, and they added their ear-splitting brays to the din. At the far side of their smoldering campfire, Gemen blinked himself to wakefulness, tried to sort out the torrent of sound, and began yelling for Velori to stop hollering. Only Dorvic remained silent."

• At Cast of Wonders: "The Carmel B Crazies" by Rick Kennett
     "On the day she turned seventeen Cy De Gerch peered through a window into rusty red desert and saw her future squatting darkly in its launch cradle."

 Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: " The Programmer and the Social Worker, or, A Love Story about Feature Creep" by Tina Connolly. Science Fiction.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Red Flags" by Richard J. O’Brien. Horror.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Sunless" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "Prairie Star" by Cat Rambo.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Bones are White #4: Beam Up on Aisle Five, Part 1" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction.
     "A new story and a rare foray into scifi/noir/comedy. Join Rabbi and Big Ugly as they stumble into quite a bit of trouble up on New Hoboken Station. Just hope you don't wind up with a pile of pomeranian poo on your forehead."

• At LibriVox: Frankenstein (Edition 1831)  by Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft. Gothic Horror.
      "A mentally unstable genius, Victor Frankenstein, inspired by the dreams of ancient alchemists and empowered by modern science, creates a humanoid but fails to nurture and educate it after it comes to life. It wanders alone into a hostile world, where fear of its size and ugliness subjects it to violence and ostracism, which in time it learns to blame upon its maker."

• At LibriVox: "The Secret of The Ninth Planet" by Donald Wollheim. Science Fiction
     "An alien race has put a station on Earth and other planets in order to steal the rays of the sun, possible causing the sun to nova within two years. Burl Denning, a high school student, is the only person who has the power to stop the alien project. Can he and the crew of the experimental space ship Magellan act in time to save the Earth"

Other Genres

• Audio at Crime City Central: "Algiers" by David Fulmer
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "A Legitimate Excuse" by Natalie Bowers.

Our Cups Runneth Over with Free Fiction

More greatness with new issues of Clarkesworld and Interstellar Fiction. There's also flash fiction from AntipodeanSF and 365 Tomorrows.













Fiction
Now Posted: Clarkesworld Issue 83, August 2013

• "Cry of the Kharchal"  by Vandana Singh.
     "The queen would know, but she was still turned from him. For months now he had indulged her machinations and schemes, petty though they seemed to him: collecting information, and acting on it to obtain desired results. 'If you are to control people’s lives, Avinash,' the Queen had told him, 'you must start small"
• "Sheperds" by Greg Kurzawa.
     "The lioness ambushed Abel’s flock as he herded them down from the high pastures. Dropping soundlessly from a rocky ledge along the sheep path, she landed on a lamb not six months old. The flock scattered. Turning to confront Abel, the beast rose to her hind legs and opened her claws. Her ears lie flat, her tail thrashed. From her mouth hung the lamb, scrawny legs kicking."
• "Found" by Alex Dally MacFarlane.
     "At this last asteroid, I had not traded for any. I had found its interior spaces open and airless, blast-marked, most of its equipment broken or gone, debris—shards of metal, rock, old synth materials, blackened bits of bone—still lodged in some deep crannies. In such a small asteroid, a sudden equipment failure could be unsurvivable. I knew this."
• "The Lovers" by Eleanor Arnason. 
     "There was a woman of the Ahara. She came of a good line within the lineage and grew up to be tall and broad with thick, glossy fur. Her eyes were pale gray, an unusual color in that part of the world. From childhood on, her nickname was Eyes-of-crystal. If she had a fault, it lay in her personality. She was a bit too fierce and solitary."
• "Cilia-of-Gold" by Stephen Baxter.
     "But, even as the people rose from their browsing and crowded through the cold, stale water behind her, Cilia-of-Gold’s resolve wavered. The Seeker was a heavy presence inside her. She could feel its tendrils wrapped around her stomach, and—she knew—its probes must already have penetrated her brain, her mind, her self"

Now Posted: Interstellar Fiction - Aug. 2013

• "The Sgovari Stratagem" by Alex Shvartsman. Science Fiction.
     "Jenkins watched through the small porthole in his cabin as yet another spaceship detached itself from the station and accelerated toward the stars."
• "Planet Texas" by Lance J. Mushung. Science Fiction.
     "I sat in the center of the spherical view screen in Austin’s cockpit with my pilot, Candace Weiss. With only the dim blue glow of our console marring the darkness of the cockpit, it was easy to imagine we were floating in space, surrounded by the splendor of the cosmos"
• "The Only Thing" by Conor Powers-Smith. Science Fiction.
     "You tell yourself you can’t be afraid. That even if you’re afraid, you’ve got to hold the line. You’ve got to be strong. And when the time comes, you run anyway. In every single engagement to date, if you were a human being, and you were in their way, you ran. Except for one group, on one day. And I’m going to get to them."
• "High Maintenance" by Jeffrey L Morris. Science Fiction.
     "George Daly thumped his vis-screen on its side. Nothing. He hit it again, a little harder. 'Crap.' He shut it down and ordered the nanobots to get to work, making tiny, tiny repairs to its insides."
• "The Tidal Lock" by Dan Peacock. Science Fiction.
     "A gust of wind blew a sheath of dust over the truck. The wipers swept the windscreen clean. For a second the Courier was reminded of the desert. There were all the stories he’d read as a kid; adventures set in the Sahara and the Kalahari full of grizzled explorers unearthing mysteries in ancient tombs; there were Pharaohs and sphinxes and pyramids and camels and palm trees."

Flash Fiction
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Switch" by Vincent E. Hansalik. Science Fiction.
At AntopodeanSF: Speculative Fiction.

• "Star Bright" by Tsana Dolichva.
• "Guesswork" by Nicholas Sheppard.
• "Casanova's Garden" by Sue Clennell
• "The Fixer" by Kevin J. Phyland.
• "The Raven" by Steve Duffy
• "The Young Old War" by David Scholes.

Get Ready to Reeeeeaaaaaaadddd . . . Free Speculative Fiction

There's already a lot of good free fiction with a new story by Ken Liu, a new issue of Quantum Muse, new episodes of  PodCastle and Red Panda Adventures, and much more. And yes, there's more to come.


[Art from "The Two Sisters" linked below]





Fiction
• At Aurora Wolf: "The Children’s Crusade" by Tom Howard.
     "The big house on top of the mountain looked as busy as an anthill someone had stirred with a stick.  Family and friends arrived day or night, asking about Jimmy’s mama.  She was in the hospital.  They gave Jimmy and his little sister sorrowful looks, followed by a pat or hug as they moved on to console their dad."

• At Enchanted Conversations: "The Two Sisters" by Loni Klara. Fairy Tale.
     "Not a single soul could be seen treading the paths of the small lonely village in which our ghastly tale will ensue. It was a dreary day with no radiant sun to light the path and no sweet music coming from the households. Quite easy to presume then, that the occupants were obviously not in the mood for lively instruments on this specific day. Alas, the wind blew strongly over the houses, drowning any sound that may entail from within, and carrying its force to the sea nearby, which was quite a rising tempest."

• At GigaNotoSaurus: "The Litigatrix" by Ken Liu.
      "The old man, Hae-wook Lee, had been bedridden for months. He lay on the sleeping mat, wrapped in a blanket. The drugs helped him sleep, and forget about the harsh words of his son."

• At Kasma SF: "HCV 541-35-1998" by Bernard J. Hughes.
      "You walk down the garage ramp of 1600 SW Second Avenue. As you walk past the cars parked there, you remember the old Porsche dealership that had stood there where you were a child. You get near the elevators. You are dressed in a nice, professional, off-the-rack black suit, a plaid scarf in the colors of Autumn, a specially modified pair of gloves, and a stocking cap. You dip your gloved-hand in the pocket of your coat."

Now Posted: Quantum Muse - August 2013 Edition

• "The Void" by Harris Tobias. Science Fiction.
     "A time traveler rescues his infant self from his own troubled past."
• "Lyranova" by Alex Mair. Science Fiction
     "At the speed of light, the slightest trouble can wreck an interstellar mission"
• "The Bridal Party" by Christopher Lepock. Alternative.
     "A father must defend his daughter against a paranormal horror."
• "Love Through A Glass Darkly" by Alex Mair. Science Fiction.
      "Five lovers Search for companions in a theocratic world. Can their love survive the attempts to destroy it?"

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Squeak" by Emma Osborne. Fantasy.
• At Horrors in the Dark: "Hi There, Sweetie" by Michael Johnston. Horror.
• At Nature: "The Best of Us" by Lee Hallison. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Decoder Ring Theater:  "Red Panda Adventures (96) - The End of the Beginning" Superhero. Noir.
         "The waiting is almost over at last. The preperations have been made, the plans laid, and the allied nations stand ready to strike a blow for freedom on a scale never before seen in human history. One piece remains on the chessboard that can doom it all, and only one man has the power to stand against it. But will it take everything he has and more to stop Hitler's God of War"

• At PodCastle: "Nightfall in the Scent Garden" by Claire Humphrey. Fantasy.
     "If you read this, you’ll tell me what grew over the arbor was ivy, not wisteria. If you are in a forgiving mood, you’ll open the envelope, and you’ll remind me how your father’s van broke down and we were late back. How we sat drinking iced tea while the radiator steamed."

Old Time Radio
• At Journey Into: "The Martian Crown Jewels" by Poul Anderson (from Seeing Ear Theater) 
      "There is only one Martian who can help Inspector Gregg solve the mystery of the missing Martian crown jewels: Syaloch, a seven foot bird-like being who has taken on the methods of Sherlock Holmes."

Other Genres

• Audio at American Radio Theater: "Pat Novak for Hire - The Search for Lola Madden" Noir.
• Audio at Decoder Ring Theater: "Crogan Adventures 05 - Incomplete Sentences"
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Wheat" by A. Cochrane

Free Fiction is Only Logical, Captain,

More free fiction, including the latest issue of Plasma Frequency (illustrated to the left), e-books, flash fiction, and more.  Almost forgot to let everyone know that Regan Wolfrom has returned from his week long sabbatical on Vulcan and has a new free fiction post at SF Signal.








Fiction
• At Cast of Wonders: "Dragon Art" by Christopher Partin. YA
     "It had scales like glistening river rock, eyes like opals, a snout like some fierce alligator, wings like a horrible vampire bat, a tail like a stegosaurus. It had legs like tree trunks and claws like bald eagles"

• At Project Gutenberg: In the Depths of the Dark Continent by Cornelius Shea. Adventure. 1905.
     "The next minute they were blazing away at the crab-like creatures. Jack noticed that every time a bullet hit one of their claws, it would immediately drop from the creature's body."

• Now Posted: Plasma Frequency Issue 7 - August/September 2013.

"Rift" by Eleanor Wood.
     "Lily set the plastic box beside the door even though Omri had never entered that way and never would. Leaving it on the table was too painful. She’d still been angry when she’d thrown everything in, but now the borrowed music and familiar clothes only rubbed salt on her torn heart."
"Inconstant Light" by Steve Simpson.
      "His mother had called him to come to the Nove de Julho Hospital, and his sister Cora was already there when he arrived. The three of them stood around the bed in silence, because his father's ending had begun."
"Battle Lines" by J. W. Alden.
     "A band of alabaster orbs slipped through his fingers and into the night. His eyes traced their arc as they soared away and melted into the sea of shadows below. He wanted to see where they would land, who they would find, but the auburn seraph at his side beckoned. Laughter and melody enveloped them as her arms slipped around his shoulders. She was lovely. He was happy."
"Different in Blood" by Julie Frost.
     ""This is what we do, Mrs. Hockney. Your secret and your prenup are both safe." I could smell the anxiety and upset coming off her in waves through the expensive perfume, which covered a faint underlying odor of wetland, hemlock, and sex. It made my inner wolf perk up, but I tamped it down impatiently. A case this close to the moon was probably a bad idea, but we were swamped and this one fell to me. Awesome."
"Litany for Compassion" by K. S. O’Neill.
     "I stand at the doorway with a gallon of methanol in my hand. Susan is upset. Susan is my roommate. She is sitting on the sofa facing away from the door. I think she’s crying. I have to change plans. I got six extra hours of database work this week at the university, so I had some extra money. I was going to surprise her with the gallon of fuel. We could run the air conditioner all weekend. I tell myself the Litany for Compassion before I put the fuel down."
"Memory Lane" by Milo James Fowler.
     "No one saw it coming. Not even his coworkers who found him hyper-multitasking regularly at Montgomery High School where he taught freshman English and journalism; those who knew for a fact that he never took work home; those who saw him at his desk long after hours, with music playing from the ceiling speakers and two or more programs running on his desktop computer screen, his mobile vibrating with incoming messages while various social media sites glowed from his latest-version Slate."
"The Clone in Sector 7" by Nanci Schwartz.
     "I first saw the raven-haired woman on a cold winter morning in the coffee shop I frequented. Usually the line of customers wound out the front door, but today the shop was almost empty. When she shuffled into the pick-up line, my breath nearly caught in my throat at her beauty: milk chocolate-colored skin, wide-set eyes, and short hair perfectly framing her face."
"T3"  By J. S. Watts.
     "The girl has had rather too much to drink. She is swaying slightly, standing far too near the edge of the swimming pool. A group of rowdy dancers swings uncomfortably close and she takes a step back to avoid them. Her foot treads down on nothing, and she falls backwards towards deep water, ending up suspended horizontally, a centimetre or so above the pool’s surface, arms spread out like a crucifix, a broad grin on her face."

E-Books
At Smashwords:

• "The Ghost In The Kettle" by Rik Hunik. Horror. Ghost.
• "Immanuel" by Kevin L. O'Brien. Paranormal.
• The Word - A Tubal Cain Novel by Timothy Shaw. Fantasy. 100k words. 
• "Alabaster Emissaries" by Sylvan Scott.
• "Supernatural Sleuth, Case File #1" by Angela Wallace. Urban Fantasy.
• "Saga of the Everking" by David Johnson. Fantasy.
• "Alexia - the host of Nergal" by Donnefar Skedar. Horror.
• "Endurance" by T. J. Blake. Horror.
• "Standown" by Samie Sands. Horror. Undead.
• "The Correct Way to Fill Out Form PCR-103-u" by Sabrina Chase. Science Fiction.
• "Seeking Forever" by Stephen Sumner. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction 
• At Cast of Wonders: "Dragon Art" by Christopher Partin. YA
     "It had scales like glistening river rock, eyes like opals, a snout like some fierce alligator, wings like a horrible vampire bat, a tail like a stegosaurus. It had legs like tree trunks and claws like bald eagles"
• At Every Photo Tells: "A Brand New Cupid" by A.F. Grappin. Fantasy.
     "Wanting to become Cupid might be too much to handle…" 

Mini Free Fiction Post

Just a few today, likely much more tomorrow.






Fiction
• At The WiFiles: "The Boy Who Shook Hands with Darkness" by Albert Kivak. Speculative Fiction.
     "Three days after Tom Brewer’s portrait hung on the wall, it began to move. The sallow, crinkled paper encased in the frame depicted tales of the coastline: the Ferris wheel, the carousel, the boardwalk, all drawn with brisk detail in the lower backdrop of the rendered picture."

Flash Ficton

• At Enchanted Conversations: "Cinderella's Slipper" by Jude Tulli. Poem. Fairy Tale. Astronomy.
• At Every Day Fiction: "The Scurrilous aardvarks of Zephaniah Twinkle" by Stephen Duffin. Fantasy. Humor.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The View from the Base" by Jim O’Loughlin. Science Fiction.

E-Books at Free eBooks Daily:

• There Be Dragons by Peter Hallett. Adventure. Dragons.
• Soulstice by Diana Murdock. YA Paranormal.

There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues - Except More Free Fiction

Three e-zines full of speculative fiction, science fiction, and horror, and a scad of cool genre comics can cure any blues. Enjoy!












E-Zines
• Now Posted: Expanded Horizons Issue 40 (July 2013). Speculative Fiction.

• "Bicycle Girl" by Tade Thompson
     "Once more, the sun came out. It was brighter, you could tell even with closed eyes, but Aloy did not stir until he heard the dawn chorus. He had slept sitting down, facing a twelve foot wall with a window close to the ceiling. It was rectangular, roughly a foot wide and most likely barred. This was the only light source."

• "Into the Breach" by Malon Edwards
      "I’m off my bunk and into my jodhpurs, knee-high leather boots and flight jacket the moment the long range air attack klaxons seep into my nightly dream about Caracara.
Muscle memory and Secret Service training kick in; I’m on auto-pilot (no pun intended) and a good ways down the hall buttoning up both sides of my leather jacket to the shoulder a full thirty seconds before I’m awake."

• "Resurrection 2.0" by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo
      "It was October, the month of harvest, the month of blood. The cold Siberian winds blew from the North, lightly frosting the window with infinitesimal diamonds. A solitary figure stood by the moon window, staring past a blood-red wall of light towards the dark sewer called Mother Ocean."

• Poetry: "The Robo Sutra" by Bryan Thao Worra.

• Now Posted: Aphelion #175 - July 2013. Science Fiction.

"Little Green Things" by William R. Warren, Jr.
     "A never-before-seen installment in a new shared universe series, The Aphelion Project."
"Illegally Parked UFO" by N. E. Riggs
     "Inexperienced Kumar didn't really fit in at NASA until an alien and a traffic cop showed up outside their doors."
"Court Dresser" by Roderick D. Turner
     "Fabric, dyes, makeup, and flowers were Fessington's tools in a very different look at noble ambitions."
"Sprint Hack" by Zac Miller
     "Nelson chafed for years against his "perfect" competitors until he made his own solution."
"The Perfect Meal" by Stanley Wilkin
    "The biggest challenge to settling the planet was that humans tasted so good."
"Soigné Voyage" by George Schaade
      "The bombshell secret of the doomed liner's journey had been staring them in the face the whole time."
"Rip Tide" by James Neale
      "Sailors and a dragon gamble against a man who could see everything they were about to do."
"Almost Done" by Andrew Saxsma
      "How did the man across the street know that Ray was stuck on his dissertation?"
"The Emperor's Servant" by Owen Harrison
      "Gregor knew service to the Emperor took total committment. Anyone who gave less than all he had was a traitor."
"Kebakarania" by Christy Boston
     "Kind-hearted Mollie never understood why the others prisoners hated her or why the fires were coming for them all."

Poetry:

• "60 to 60 feet" by Richard Tornello
• "All the Astronauts" by Denny E Marshall
• "Below the Purple Waves" by Jonathan A. Stefanovic
• "For Some Copper" by Eric Otto
• "Light Headed" by Richard Tornello
• "Plato's Cave" by Clinton Van Inman
• "Wings" by September Griffis

• Now Posted: Black Petals #64. Horror.

• "A Matter of Principle" by Felicia Lee
     "Amber thought she’d be able to sleep through that shuffling down the hall. But she couldn’t."
• "Calendula and the Other Man" by Charlie C. Cole
     "Calendula and I were just kids during the Woodstock age, but still influenced, years later, by the countercultural reverberations from those famously groovy free-lovers"
• "Holiday Greetings from the Witness Protection Program" by Charlie C. Cole
     "In 1989, I was delivering a pizza order when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. The house was on fire."
• "Murder Scene-Fiction" by Bradley Nies.
     "Sitting in Stone’s office reception area is both disturbing and irritating."
• "The Day I Started Believing" by George G. Economou.
     "I had no idea that this day would change my entire life, and the way I think and perceive the world around me."
• "The Fortune Teller-Fiction" by Harold Kempka.
     "Mark spotted the old fortune teller machine after dining with his wife Marge at their favorite beachside restaurant."
• "The Last Day of the Ugly Man" by Charlie C. Cole
     "To me, that crazy crush of humanity I witnessed was the very twilight of civilization."
• "The Monkey Who Talked Too Much" by Charlie C. Cole
     "Franco and Merle jumped from the stifling school bus and sprinted for their favorite waterhole, Branson Quarry."
• "The Unholy Birth of Kitty" by K.P. Hooker
      "It was Kent’s job this year to set up his parents’ old incubator one week before Thanksgiving in his father’s house."
• "The Hartfield Creature" by Dominic Lennard
      "The creature had been seen by at least half the residents of Hartfield, a small suburb of the city, population six hundred."
• "Jaws 3D and Others" Poems by Jeffrey Park
• "Alien Rhymes" Poems by Janet Ro

Comics

• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Jonah" Sci-Fi. 1953.
• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Liana" Sci-Fi. 1972.
• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "Last Man" Sci-Fi. 1951.
• At Comic Book Catacombs: "The Disappearing Bullets" Adventure. 1949.
• At Comic Book Catacombs: "King Crocodile's Domain" Adventure. Sheena. 1949.
• At Diversions of the Groovy Kind: "Cassandra...Sorceress of the Seventh Wind" Fantasy. 1973
• At Four-Color Shadows: "Bug-A-Boo" Horror. 1953.
• At The Horrors of It All: "Demon Kiss / The Devil's Matchmaker" Horror. 1974.