Sunday Freebies

Here are a few free goodies to take your mind off the chaos that is the holiday season.  There a couple good stories and several interesting sounding audio stories.



[Art from Countdown in audio fiction below]







Fiction
• At Hub Magazine: "The Dry Heat, The Dust, the Martinis and the Insects" by RJ Barker.
      "Edwards had sworn when he’d first seen where they had arranged for him to stay. He’d sworn long and fluently in as many different languages as he was conversant in and a few in which a couple of expletives were his only recourse. That done, he’d stood at the entrance to the looming white building and, sweating in the parched desert heat, tried ringing his agent to swear long and hard at him."

• Flash Fiction at 365 Tomorrows:  "Intoki" by Helstrom. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Beam Me Up: "Land of Fire & Ashes - The conclusion" by Colin P. Davies. Science Fiction.
     "A thoroughly entertaining and exciting tale."

• At Dunesteef: "Secret Santa" by Josh Roseman.
     "Wes is tired of being fat. He’s tried everything, diet, exercise, medication, even surgery, but he remains morbidly obese. Nothing works, and he’s about to find out why…"
 
• At Escape Pod: "Marley and Cratchit" by David Steffen.
       "In those days Jacob Marley was full of life and vigor. His smile shone so that anyone who saw him soon smiled widely in return. A moment in his presence would make one’s worst burdens seem lighter. His optimism and generosity brought out the best in others, catching easily as a torch in dry straw."

• At Every Story Tells: "Dusty" by Katharina Maimer Bordet. Fantasy.
     "In the kingdom of Elves, a new king was elected and his future queen gets ready for the wedding. But not everything goes according to plan."

• At LibriVox: "Countdown" by Kurt Becker. YA. Science Fiction.
       "The first flight to outer space became an actual fact – Mars would be the first stop. But before the spaceship took off, two insane enemies almost succeeded in preventing the departure. This science fiction story for teens was written"  in 1958.

• At Lovecraft eZine: Podcast #1. Horror.
      Seven horror stories from the Lovecraft eZine.  Later podcasts will not be free.

Other Genres

• Audio at Every Story Tells: "Together Forever" by Mick Bordet.
• Audio at PRI: Selected Shorts - "A Father's Story" 
• Audio at Tales of Old: "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar" by Bret Harte. Historical. 1862.
• Flash Fiction at Every Picture Tells a Story: "A Holly Berry Christmas" by A.M. Buxton. Suspence.

Free Anne McCaffrey Fiction, Audio Fiction, Suspense, Comics, and More.

Some very cool fiction today, including a new SF short story by SF/Fantasy legend Anne McCaffrey, A new Cat Rambo story as well as other great fiction and audio fiction. Also some cool comics, and the irregular Suspense/Noir section has some good stuff.

Congratulations to The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine for reaching its 100th episode!

Today's illustration comes from "The Skin-Rippers" in the comics section. I've loved giant ants ever since I first watched the classic Sci-Fi film Them!.







@Lightspeed Magazine: "Velvet Fields" by Anne McCaffrey.
"Of course we moved into the cities of the planet we now know we must call Zobranoirundisi when Worlds Federated finally permitted a colony there." Online and in MP3 download.

@Daily Science Fiction: "Pippa's Smiles" by Cat Rambo.
"Marcus hadn't thought marriage would be like this after three months. He had expected to love Pippa, but he hadn't thought she would love him so much, that she would follow him from counter to till in his tiny shop where he sold souvenirs and curiosities: stuffed mermaids, filagree jars, and great shark jaws set with more teeth than a carved comb."

@The author's site: "Say Hello to My Little Friend" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
"A handsome man walks into a bar…and can’t pick up women. Sounds like a joke. Or a bar bet. Or maybe, just maybe, a bit of magic follows him everywhere. A short, somewhat malicious bit of magic, with a fondness for Piña Coladas . . . A fantasy short story." Online until next Monday.

@Wizards of the Coast: "Poetry and the Sound of Falling Rain" by Ken Scholes.
"The cemetery on the outskirts of Carthys was layered in mist burned silver by the risen moon. Near the eastern gate, a lantern bobbed, and mumbled curses drifted across row upon row of gravestones."

Classic YA Horror
@Project Gutenberg: Uncanny Tales by Mary Louisa Molesworth (1896).
A collection of not especially scary ghost stories for younger readers.

Flash Fiction
@Flashes in the Dark: "Top of the Food Chain" by Peter McMillan.
@365 tomorrows: "Command Decisions" by Patricia Stewart.







@The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine: "The Battle Of Leila The Dog" by Rick Kennett.
"Cy De Gerch is being pestered by the sound of a whining dog…only dogs aren’t allowed on the bridge of a fighting space vessel in a war zone. What is going on?"


@PodCastle: Episode #154 "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Under the Still Waters" by N.K. Jemisin, read by Laurice White.
"Tookie sat on the porch of his shotgun house, watching the rain fall sideways. A lizard strolled by on the worn dirt-strip that passed for a sidewalk, easy as you please, as if there wasn’t an inch of water already collected around its paws. It noticed him and stopped."


@Lovecraft eZine: Two more classic Lovecraft audios.
"The Music of Erich Zann" "But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann…" and "The Rats in the Walls" "The place had not been inhabited since the reign of James the First, when a tragedy of intensely hideous, though largely unexplained, nature had struck down the master, five of his children, and several servants…"


Serial Audio
@The Drama Pod: Journey to the Center of the Earth Part Ten by The Drama Pod.







@The Horrors of It All: "The Skeleton / The Skin-Rippers" even gorier than usual horror.
@Digital Comics Museum: Unseen #6 (Sept. 1952) horror.
@Ditko Comics: "Inside The Crystal Globe" from Tales of the Mysterious Traveller #11 (1959).
@Four-Color Shadows: A humor comic featuring "The Space Bums"
@Savage Tales: Dagar the Invisible #17 - Sword and Sorcery.
@Secret Sanctum of Captain Video: Captain Video in "Dark Side of the Moon" two parts, Part One and Part Two and an adaptation of "The Time Machine" unknown # of parts Part One and Part Two. Sci-Fi.


Suspense / Noir
Pulp Noir @Online Pulps! "Coffin Customer" by H. Q. Masur from Ten Detective Aces (Nov. 1940)
"Detective Ed Travis had to cash in on bargain booty to keep his client from becoming a . . . . Coffin Customer" This and other Ten Detective Aces Stories Here.




Classic Audio @the Internet Archive: Running from 1942 through 1962, Suspense was one of radio's most successful anthologies. During the early years, this program featured traditional suspense stories almost exclusively, but by the last few years, there were as many horror, dark fantasy, and even science fiction episodes as anything else. Truly there is something for nearly everyone in the aproximately 900 available episodes. So many episodes that it takes ten pages to list them at the Internet Archive.

Page One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten.


Fiction @Spinetingler: "Blessing the Bounty" by D.A. Davenport.
"For Leona, five years of daily fear had driven the youth from her heart. By the time she was twenty she felt as worn down as the Tennessee mountains that had bred her"

Audio Fiction @Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Episode #20 "Famous Last Words," by Doug Allyn, read by Steve Steinbock.
from the November 2009 EQMM

Audio Fiction @CrimeWAV: Mark Coggins' The Immortal Game is now up to Episode Ten. previous episodes here.


Other Coolness
@Golden Age Comic Book Stories: [Art] Reed Crandall illustrations for Tarzan and John Carter of Mars Here and Here.

@My Star Trek Scrapbook: Scanned articles on Star Trek models from The Monster Times #2.

Two Free Magazines, Gaming Items, Noir, and More

A few free goodies to cure the mid-week blues.






Fiction
Apex Magazine Issue #22 is now free online, featuring:

"The Speaking Bone" by Kat Howard.
"The island itself was made from bones. There was a church, in another land, similarly constructed. The decayed flesh of the saints slipped from its underlying architecture, the white bones, sacred and incorruptible, incarnating the holy place."

"The Dust and the Red" by Darin Bradley.
"I was ten the first time I saw the pearl. The soil had come loose in the Sweetgrass, and to protect the family, my father dug the pearl out of its niche beneath the jamb. He had to clean it, and, since we only had one room, he had no choice but to show us."

"Rats" by Veronica Schanoes.
"What I am about to tell you is a fairy tale and so it is constantly repeating. Little Red Riding Hood is always setting off through the forest to visit her granny. Cinderella is always trying on a glass slipper. Just so, this story is constantly re-enacting itself."

And poetry:
"Quest/a>" by Jessica Wick.
"The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves" by Mike Allen, Sonya Taaffe, and Nicole Kornher-Stace.


Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #36 is now available for free download. It publishes stories containing an "element of the fantastic. Hard sf, soft sf, fantasy, heroic fantasy, dark fantasy, humorous fantasy, slipstream, magic realism, horror and terror"

Fiction this issue is "The Photographer’s Tale" by Daniel Mills, "A Fable of Worcester" by Victor D. Infante, "Angeline of the Woods" by Dylan Fox, "Told in a Brothel on Darien" by Elaine Graham-Leigh, "The Burden of Proof" by David X. Wiggin, "Totem" by Howard Watts, "Huracan" by Matt Baxter and "'A' Story: an Animated Adventure" by Nicholas Rasche. And there are reviews as well.



BestScienceFictionStories.com reviews and links to a free online version of "The Curator" by Stuart Clark (2008).
"about a hacker that finds an unusual place inside the network."






Audio Fiction
@The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine: "Tupac Shakur And The End Of The World" by Sandra McDonald.
"Where will you be when the end of the world comes? At home, able to spend the final days of your life with your loved ones? Or will you be caught far away, and spend your final days trying get back to them? And what does Tupac Shakur have to do with all of this?"

@ScottSigler.com: Tuesday Terror Episode #04: "Turnover" "a fan-generated anthology of stories based in the Siglerverse. "Turnover" is written and performed by Christiana Ellis and Tee Morris"

Flash Fiction
@Daily Science Fiction: "M is for Mall" by Tim Pratt, Jenn Reese, Heather Shaw, Greg van Eekhout.
@Flashes in the Dark: "All of the Lights" by Lori Titus.
@365 tomorrows: "For Services Rendered" by Roi R. Czechvala.

Gaming
@RPG Creatures: "Crombhalas" for nearly any fantasy RPG.

"The Crombhalas are hunter-scavenger creatures that have specialized in attacking surface-swimming prey. Their antennae are sensitive and pick up all surface disturbances, even in the unsettled waters of storm."







@Daddy Grognard: "An Adventure for Every Monster - Beetle"

"Deep in the ruins of the Caverns, all is not well. A band of dwarf and gnome miners have stumbled across a rockfall and, keen to find out what is on the other side, have broken through."






@The Land of NOD: "Monsters of Mu-Pan II" featuring more monsters from Asian mythology, Baku (Japanese), Harionago - Barbed Woman (Japanese), Kamaitachi (Japanese), and Monkey Folk (Chinese).







@DriveThruRPG: Delta Green: The Last Equation, from Arc Dream Publishing.
"The Last Equation is a complete Call of Cthulhu scenario for Delta Green."

and The Invasion of Jericho Bay (for Godlike), from Arc Dream Publishing. "In this scenario, the players take the role of Talents (Army, Navy or Marine) pulled from the cauldron of battle in Okinawa and sent through the mysterious Bubble which has engulfed a portion of the island, halting the progress of the invasion forces." [Free membership required]

Small But Cool
@Blog on the Borderlands: [New Magic Item] "Rod of Earthly Might."
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Item] "Sword of the Spider."
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Spell] "Give Strength."
@The Land of NOD: [Encounter] "Mu-Pan - Encounter XIX."
@Big Ball of No Fun: [New Monsters] Acheri, Bicorn, Chichevache, Dwende, and Echeneis. - Mostly statless.
@Sea of Stars: [New Magic Item] Disciplina’s Bracelet.
@Underworld Kingdom: [New Monster] Elasmotherium.

Suspense/Noir
@The Online Pulps Site: "Murder's Blue Motive" by Robert Leslie Bellem, from Dan Turner-Hollywood Detective (Feb 1943).

"Dan Turner had little sympathy for the dead woman, and a lot for the girl with the pistol. This seemed the time to take the law into his own hands."

Right click to open PDF or click HERE to visit this cool site (there are far more pulp stories available there).




@The Internet Archive: Martin Kane Private Eye - Murder on Ice. An episode of a very early noir TV series in MPEG download.






@The Internet Archive: The Adventures of Ellery Queen - Death Spins a Wheel (1951). An episode of the classic detective show in MPEG download.





Online fiction @Spinetingler: "The Birthday Present" by Gary Ponzo.
"You’re here to kill me aren’t you?” Sheryl Janeck held open the front door with the demeanor of someone greeting the UPS man. She couldn’t have seen the gun, I had it tucked into the back of my jeans."


Audio Fiction @CrimeWAV. Mark Coggins'The Immortal Game - Episode Eight.
"She reached her fingers round the back of my neck and pulled my head to hers. Cushioning her lips against mine, she probed my mouth with a hot tongue that darted around like an agitated tropical fish. Her mouth tasted of fire and liquor." Earlier and future episodes here.

Free Fiction and Lights Out

A few quality free items today.





Fiction
@Lightspeed Magazine: "Woman Leaves Room" by Robert Reed.
"She wears a smile. I like her smile, nervous and maybe a little scared, sweet and somewhat lonely. She wears jeans and a sheer green blouse and comfortable sandals and rings on two fingers and a glass patch across one eye." Online text and in MP3.



@The author's website until March 28: "Familiar Territory" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1997).
"Buster’s final wish – a Viking funeral. Although Winston, a small magician with a small talent, wants to give his familiar his ideal funeral, he can’t imagine how he’ll manage a burning boat at sea. Still, a Viking funeral is a small price to pay for years of companionship. Or is it a small price?"






@Strange Horizons: "起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows)" by Zen Cho.
"The hotel was not like any hotel Jia Qi had seen before. There was no drive swooping around a fountain featuring little peeing babies, no glass doors opening onto a golden lobby lit by chandeliers, no men in white gloves to open the doors for you."

Or read the whole issue HERE.


@Daily Science Fiction: "Skin of Steel" by Siobhan Shier.
"The hailstones leapt from the pavement, sizzling like oil in a pan. Elaine shrieked as one flicked her arm. It left a smear of wet before smashing into the pavement at her feet. I should have been overwhelmed by the need to protect her--but I wasn't. They'd taken that from me last night."



@The World SF Blog: "Mardock: Two Hundred Below" by Tow Ubukata (translated by Nathan Collins). "She stared, her eyes ice blue, out the hotel window at Mardock City and scowled at the night. The girl had braided blonde hair and wore a white glove on her left hand. Her right hand, bare, rested atop it."

And don't miss SF Signal's weekly listing of Free Fiction.





Flash Fiction



@Flashes in the Dark: "The Good Life" by Mary Ann Back.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Rosie" by Tammy A. Branom.
@365 tomorrows: "Fly Trap" by Brian Varcas.
@The Daily Cabal: "Life Goals" by Jen Larsen.

Video
@The Internet Archive: Two episodes of the classic horror/suspense series, Lights Out.
Lights Out - Season 4, Episode 9 - 22nd October 1951 "The Deal." Streaming and in MPEG4 download.





And Lights Out - Season 3, Episode 22 - 22nd January 1951 "For release today." Streaming and in MPEG4 download.






Comics
At Golden Age Comic Book Stories: I'll Be Damned #2 and #3, highlighted by the SF/Horror shorts "Nest Egg" and "Pilgrim"

St Patrick's Day

A fairly quiet Thursday, but still some good stuff. See you sometime in the next couple of days.





Fiction
At The Absent Willow Review: Several new SF, Fantasy and Horror stories online.

Fiction:
"Gnawing at the Root" by Kevin Pinkham.
"Enki" by Richard Beland.
"Digital Embrace" by Joe Jablonski.
"Something to be Said for a Little Drama" by Naomi Bergner.
"Falling Upwards" by S.G. Rogers.
"All That Was Left" by Sylvia Hiven.
"Aria" by Chris Stevens.
"Letters to Chelsea" by Oscar Connell.
"Mickie’s Stars" by AJ Brown.
"The Cursed Man" by C.B. lovas.
"The Bridge" by Steven Avila.
"Pins and Needles" by Shannon Marcello.

And an interview with Michael Moorcock.


At Book View Cafe: "The Hermit and the Sidhe" by Judith Tarr.
"In which the last hermit in Ireland meets the last of the Sidhe, and gets rather more than he bargained for."

Online HERE.


At BestScienceFictionStories: a review and link to the recent SF story "In-fall" by Ted Kosmatka.
"Two men have a thought provoking discussion as their ship falls into a black hole."

The review and link are HERE.

Classic SF
At Marooned - Science Fiction & Fantasy books on Mars: "The Foreign Legion of Mars" by Frederic Arnold Kummer Jr. from Amazing Stories (May 1939).
"IT happened when I was just a youngster, holding down a trading station on Mars. I was a sergeant in the Alien Legion at the time. You remember the Legion. Scum of the cosmos, picked up in gutters throughout the Solar System, and supposed to keep the Martians in order while our traders stole the fillings out of their teeth."


In PDF download HERE.



Flash Fiction
@Daily Science Fiction: "Tuna Fish" by Andrew Kaye.
@Every Day Fiction: "The Next Ice Age" by Paul Friesen.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Help." by Jim Bronyaur.
@Flashes in the Dark:"Of Darkness and Memory"By Lori Titus.
@365 tomorrows: "Traveler" by Duncan Shields.

Video
At The Internet Archive: Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules (1962).

"Wandering strongman Maxxus comes upon two warring tribes, the Sun worshipers and the Moon worshipers. He saves the leader of the Sun tribe from a sea monster, then later on when the Moon tribe attacks and kidnaps the Sun tribe's women, they call upon Maxxus for help." - IMDb.


In low-res downloads HERE.


Gaming
At RPGNow: "Escape From Khosht" by Fabled Worlds.

"Everything had gone according to plan. The Eye of the Beast---a cut, polished diamond the size of a hill giant's fist rests in your hands. It is worth 200,000 gold pieces! Escape from Khosht is a solitaire adventure written by Andrew Greene, and illustrated by J. Freels for the Tunnels and Trolls game system."

In PDF Download HERE (free membership required).



Small, But Cool, Gaming Freebies
@Blog on the Borderlands: [New Monster] Demon Boar.
@Blog on the Borderlands: [New Magic Item] Ring of Darkness.
@Axe & Hammer: [Price Guide] Paying the Troops: Cavalry.
@Axe & Hammer: [Price Guide] Paying the Troops: Footmen.
@A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons and Dragons: [New Magic Item] Greysoul Shards.
@The Land of NOD: [Encounters] Mu-Pan - Encounter IV/V.
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Item] Conjuring Flute of Korabal.


Comics
At Savage Tales: Wulf the Barbarian #4: "Death-Night in the Darkling Forest!"

Atlas Comics' answer to Conan online HERE.


Also online are issues one, two, and three.


Noir/Suspense
At Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: Agatha nominees "So Much in Common" by Mary Jane Maffini.
"Luck was with her that day or Willa Bennington might never have encountered Cliff and Leann Capshaw at the Towne Center Gourmet"

Online HERE.

And "The Green Cross" by Elizabeth Zelvin.
"I had never thought to be a sailor, but my father knew the admiral."

Online HERE.

Audio
@CrimeWAV: Mark Coggins - The Immortal Game - Episode Five.
@SFFAudio: "The McWilliamses And The Burglar Alarm" by Mark Twain.

Comics
@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance: "Screenplay For Murder" from Crime Illustrated. #. 2.
@The Horrors of it All: "The Rose!" from Spellbound #16.
@ Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine:"A Short Step to Oblivion" from Suspense Detective #1

St. Patrick's Day
In honor of the day, a short fantasy poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

"The Stolen Child"

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Online Goodies - Flash Gordon

Welcome back to another day of freeness. While the e-fiction category is a bit small today, other categories make up the slack. The comics section is well stocked, as is the gaming section, non-RPG gamers might still enjoy the Agora boardgame, and the irregular category is here today. Also, I'm very happy to anounce the Flash Fiction category, a whole category dedicated to my personal hero Flash Gordon!

What? That's not what Flash Fiction means? Well flaming febelcarbs, what am I going to say about it? Well, whatever it is, it's here.



E-Fiction
"The Enormous Room" by H. L. Gold and Robert Wilson Krepps, from Amazing Stories Oct.-Nov. 1953.

"The orange-blue rolling stock hit the bottom, slammed around a turn and shot upward again, the wind of its passage whistling boisterously. But by then there were none to hear the wind, to feel the gust of it in watered eyes or open shouting mouths. The cars were empty."

At Munseys HERE and Project Gutenberg HERE.


Serial Fiction
At Paizo.com, chapter two of "The Walkers from the Crypt" by Howard Andrew Jones.
"Elyana was eager to keep moving; she meant to lose the Galtans only after she'd led them deeper into the woods, but she hadn't reckoned on them pressing so close. Perhaps the sight of their quarry fleeing before them on the plain had excited them, for they were now crashing through the brush a few bowshots behind with almost reckless intensity."

Online HERE.


Audio Fiction
At StarShipSofa, episode #179 featuring "The Sandal-Bride" by Genevieve Valentine, an interview with John Joseph Adams, and More.

Streaming and in MP3 download HERE.



At the Internet Archive, A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., dramatized by John Reed, and produced at WHA by Carl Schmidt and Marv Nunn.
"Set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself."

In ogg and MP3 download HERE.


Flash Fiction "He'll save with a mighty hand (he'll save with a mighty hand); He'll save with a mighty hand (he'll save us); Every man every woman every child; With a mighty Flash a-ah"

@Daily Science Fiction, "I is for Inertia" by Tim Pratt, Jenn Reese, Heather Shaw, Greg van Eekhout
@Every Day Fiction, "Will Work For Food" by James C.G. Shirk
@Flashes in the Dark, "The Priest and His Demon-Hunting Dog" by C.D. Goble
@Flashes in the Dark, "Second-Hand Soul" by Lori Titus.
@365 tomorrows, "The Mantinai" by Edd Vick


Gaming
At A Character for Every Game, "Stag Centaurs" a monster for Labyrinth Lord (or early D&D editions).

"Although imbued with even more natural armament than normal centaurs, stag centaurs are at least as non-aggressive as their typical kin."


Online HERE.




At Cheapass Games, four free games to download, including Agora "the ever-changing Ancient Greek Marketplace. It's a wide-open space filled with chaos and commerce. And it's what you're afraid of when you have agoraphobia."

In PDF downloads HERE [via freewargamesrules]


At Sham's Grog 'n Blog, "One-Hundred NPC Personalities" a nice little "on-the-fly random determination of NPC personality types/traits." Good for pretty much any RPG.

Online HERE.




At A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons and Dragons, a pair of D&D compatible spells "Shining Tear of Time" and "Snapping Clockwork Teeth"


Online HERE or follow the thread for more spells here.



Comics
At Diversions of the Groovy Kind, a creepy, werewolf tale "A Change of Identity"



Online HERE.




At Four-Color Shadows, a rare, made for comics Brick Bradford tale fron 1967. Bradford was a "second string version of Flash Gordon."


Online HERE.





At The Comic Book Catacombs, The prehistoric adventures of Tor in “Isle of Fire” (May 1954)




Online HERE.



At The Horrors of It All, "House for Sale" and "The Burning Flame" a pair of horror tales from Mystic #8 (May 1952).



Online HERE.





Noir/Suspence
At CrimeWAV, The Immortal Game by Mark Coggins is being serialized in audio format.

"It's a true find, a well-written and sophisticated addition to the heralded San Francisco private-detective story…a panoramic tour de force" and selected it as a book of the year."


In MP3 downloads, Parts ONE, TWO, THREE, and FOUR. (likely R rated)





At 19 Nocturne Boulevard, "A Jury of Her Peers" (adapted from a play and short story by Susan Glaspell, published in 1917).

"In the horse and buggy days, a sheriff probes the motive behind a man's murder. "

Audio drama in MP3 download HERE.



At the author's website, "Discovery" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November, 2008.

"Pita Cardenas has taken the case of her life. The only attorney in small Rio Gordo, she has decided to fight the biggest railroad company in the state to get compensation for the widow of a man who may have raced a train. He’s guilty—or is he?"

Online HERE until 14 March 2011.



At the Internet Archive, The Shadow of Silk Lennox (1935).

"A crooked nightclub owner (Lon Chaney Jr.), pretending to go straight, is forced to kill a henchman when the latter tries to run off with the gang's latest haul."

In ogg, MPEG4, and DivX downloads HERE.