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.