Free Magazines, Fiction, Audio Fiction, and Gaming.

A ton of free fiction, audio, and gaming items today!





Fiction
Magazines
Issue #55 of Clarkesworld is now online with,

Fiction
"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu.
"For longer than anyone could remember, the village of Yiwei had worn, in its orchards and under its eaves, clay-colored globes of paper that hissed and fizzed with wasps."

"Matchmaker" by Erin M. Hartshorn.
"Miss Berazazz could've been Jewish, sure. The first kurz had converted only a few years after the kurz and humans had encountered each other out in space. Everyone learned of the Acceptance in Hebrew school, even if no kurz attended synagogue locally."
Non-Fiction
"Linguistics for the World-Builder" by Brit Mandelo
"Same Story with a 21st Century Sensibility: A Conversation with John Scalzi" by Jeremy L. C. Jones

Podcast
Audio Fiction: "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu, read by Kate Baker

Cover Art
"Post-apolacalyptic Fisherman" by Georgi Markov.

[h/t SF Signal]


Issue number three of Lovecraft eZine is online with,

"Introduction to Issue #3" by Mike Davis

"Cockroaches" by Amanda Underwood.
"I shivered as darkness crept predator quiet between the bark, watching us, waiting for us."

"A Meeting on the Trail To Hot Iron" by Joseph S. Pulver.
"Bart looked down on the man. Looked like a man. One not from these parts mind you. His robes looked foreign, Egyptian. I’d seen pharaohs in books. He was wearing robes like a pharaoh. Wearing diamonds and rubies too. A lot of them."

"Things We Are Not" by Brandon H. Bell.
"After my third day in the City a crow alighted next to me on the park bench where I slept, squawking of a wonder at the city aquarium. Its feathers beaded with moisture, its beak dripped blood."

"Descent Into Shadow and Light" by W.H. Pugmire.
"I awakened in my windowless tower, to the smell of ancient books and the worms with which they were infested, and swept the pale winged things from where they had nestled in my coiled hair."

"The Slickens" by Jeremy Russell.
"Then they started to dig them out, but the Department of Environment Quality declared ours not to be ‘fluvially active’ and it was allowed to sit there like a noxious tumor on the farmland. "

"The Town of Autumn: Chapter 1" by Mike Davis.
"As I sit at my desk, there is a bottle of whiskey to the left of my computer, and a gun to the right."



Issue number eight of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is now online with

"Demon Song" by A. R. Williams.
"Supernatural samurai slices some serious adventure. (Sorry, A. R. — we couldn’t resist!) Seriously, good readers, check this one out: a vengeful samurai learns a lesson from the grave . . . but just whose grave is it?"

"The Dome of Florence part I" by Richard Marsden.
"Way back in HFQ Issue 1, Richard Marsden’s MAN OF MOLDANIA was the first story we accepted — and he continues his firsts with us by delivering our first novella, this coming to you in an historical fantasy in two parts. With architecture, alchemy, and papal wizards, who could have guessed the Inquisition would be so fun!"

"The Baroness Drefelin" by David Pilling.
"Another fine offering from a writer previously published at HFQ, this one bringing some much overdo levity to our fictions. When it comes to unrequited love, we reckon there are many more bad ways than good to, um, bear the jilt. We like the way the hero in this tale goes about it. "

As well as art by Garrett Hanna and poetry by David Sklar, Keith Kennedy, and Jason M. Waltz.

Single Stories
@Fantasy Magazine: "Choose Your Own Adventure" by Kat Howard.
"Are you brave enough to begin? If so, turn to page 1. If not, remain safe. Close the book and return it to the shelf. No one will think any less of you. " In online text and MP3 audio formats. (and don't miss the author's interview here and an article "Choosing Your Own Adventure" by Molly Tanzer.)


@Daily Science Fiction: "Words on a Page" by Allison Starkweather.
"He flinches at the touch of sharp, cool metal against his shoulder. Only once and then he stills, holding himself motionless for her. She begins slowly, dragging the nib over his skin, leaving tracks that chill him as the ink dries."

@The Canadian Science Fiction Review: "Matthias Comes Home From the War" by Bev Vincent.
"After he returns from his tour of duty, Matthias notices differences everywhere he looks. Some barely discernible, but others too insidious to ignore. So much has changed, it seems impossible that it has been just two years."

@Subterranean Press: "Water to Wine" by Mary Robinette Kowal.
"Water sprayed out from beneath the wine barrel, carrying the faint stink of sulfur with it. I suppose it’s crazy to have a fondness for the smell of rotten eggs, but that means cleanliness in the wine industry. I shut off the hose and wrestled the barrel off the ancient Gamma-Jet, rolling it to the racks outside the cellar door so it could drain in the sun."

@Suvudu: "The Second Kalandar's Tale" by Francis Marion Soty, from the March/April issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine [via SF Signal]
"A story of the encounters between Hassain Mohammed al-Shehr, a Prince of Arabia, and theIfrit Jirjaris bin Rajmus, in A Thousand Nights and A Night"


Serial Fiction
@Kat and Mouse: Guns for Hire: "Payback - Part Three" by Abner Senires.
"The headless body slumped back against the BMW's front grill, splashing blood and brains across the hood and windshield."

Classic SF
"Human Error" by Raymond F Jones, from If: Worlds of Science Fiction (April 1956)
"The government was spending a billion dollars to convince the human race that men ought to be ashamed to be men—instead of errorless, cybernetics machines. But they forgot that an errorless man is a dead man...."

In ebook downloads at Munseys and Project Gutenberg.


"Security Risk" by Ed M. Clinton, Jr. From If: Worlds of Science Fiction (Feb. 1958.)
"It was a touchable touching an untouchable. Both scientist and general were doing their own version of right...."

In ebook downloads at Project Gutenberg and Manybooks. [h/t Triplanetary].


@Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance!: "Judas Ram" by Sam Merwin Jr. From Galaxy Science Fiction (Dec. 1950).
"The house was furnished with all luxeries, including women. If it only had a lease that could be broken --" In JPEG scans.


Flash Fiction



@Flashes in the Dark: "Behind the Gaze" by Katie Prince.
@Flashes in the Dark: "What Lies ‘Neath Lake Leona" by Rosemary Youngblood.
@Flashes in the Dark: "Willpower" by Paul Kardos.
@365 tomorrows: "Communal Thought" by Patrick Condon.
@365 tomorrows: "The Light of other Universes" by Jeremy Wickins.
@365 tomorrows: "Milk Dipped Eyes" by Richard Chins.
@The New Flesh: "Frankincence, Gold & Myrrh" by Joseph M. Bouthiette, Jr.
@Every Day Fiction: "Up the Stairs" by John Lander.
@Mindflights: "Mirror, Mirror!" by Eleni Konstantine.


Audio Fiction





@Beam Me Up: Episode #255 featuring "Ghosts in My Head" by Cory Doctorow and a Libravox recording of C. H. Thames’ "Prison of a Billion Years."

@Cthulhu: "The Coastal Circuit" by D.S. Carmon.
"a great bit of mythos story telling."

@LibriVox: Tom Swift in Captivity by Victor Appleton, read by Tom Weiss.
Classic but very dated children's adventure.


Serial Audio:
@The author's website: The Starter Episode #8 by Scott Sigler.
"Quentin's efforts to take full control of the Krakens run into obstacles from an unexpected source. He finally gets to try out his receivers as the Krakens prepare for opening day."

@The Drama Pod: Journey to the Centre of the Earth Part Eight by The Drama Pod.
Part eight of Jules Verne's classic novel.

@Triplanetary: The classic radio serial The Adventures of Superman is being replayed at triplanetary. Now up to The Atom Man (parts 5-8) - Parts 1-4 are here.
"Superman will finally face a worthy adversary. First he must race to stop the mad scientist Der Teufel from completing his evil scheme to create an Atom Man, a kryptonite powered supervillain."

Gaming
@DriveThruRPG: Game Geek #16. A free 53 page PDF download featuring many Pathfinder items, comics, and fiction "She-Wolf" by Megan Robertson. [free membership required]


And Quid Novi? Perilous Penguin Edition an 8 page PDF of Pathfinder material. [free membership required]




@Mongoose Publishing: In a free PDF download Signs & Portents #91. Highlights include,

RuneQuest: A complete Gloranthan adventure that sees the players duelling with agents of Chaos, A cult designed around swordplay, and A range of shrubs, trees and other plants that will both benefit and hinder your players.

Traveller: A series of plot hooks that will get your players working for charity. They won't want to talk about it though..., and A complete adventure that will set the players against the latest entertainment craze.

Lone Wolf: The final part of the City of Lof.


@The Land of NOD: Monsters of Mu-Pan I - five monsters for the Mu-Pan setting (easily compatible with early edition D&D and retro-clones)




Small But Cool Gaming Items
@The Land of NOD: [encounter] "Mu-Pan - Encounter XVII"
@1d8: [Online Gaming Tool] "Fantasy Business Name Generator" [via Gothridge Manor which expands on two sample names here]
@1d8: [New Monster] Cadaver Dog.
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Item] Cage Arrows.
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Magic Item] Elixir of Halfheartedness.
@Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets: [New Spell] Rain of Birds.
@Blog on the Borderlands: [New Magic Item] Sandals of the Four Winds.
@Sea of Stars: [New Magic Items] Aphodite’s Anklet, Bellona’s Horn and Sword, and Cloacina’s Amulet.