Free Fiction - No Twerking Celebs

Another great Tuesday for free fiction.  More later today. [Art for "Deadly City" in audio fiction]






Fiction
• At AE: "An Operatic Tour of New Jersey, with Raptors" by Ada Hoffman.  Science Fiction.
      "The Apocalypse begins when Diego sings Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville in Dover, New Jersey. He doesn’t notice anything wrong until after the curtain call, when he steps out of the Baker Theater onto West Blackwell Street, struggling to balance the three bouquets of roses in his arms, and walks into a horde of running, screaming people, pursued by a Tyrannosaurus"

• At Author's Site: "Folk Lure" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Fantasy.
      "Drew, a private investigator, protects Karen. Lonely, sad, vulnerable Karen. So, when Karen decides to respond to a suspicious-sounding personal ad about a music audition, Drew tags along. What he observes puts his instincts on high alert. Drew fears the Folklorist plans to use her and toss her away. But the truth will prove far more surprising that Drew can ever imagine."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Matchmaker" by Sara Puls. Fantasy.
      "Don had been delivering mail to Ruthetta Bell's house for almost thirty years before she finally asked him inside. It was the day he'd been waiting for, but never had the courage to make happen. Now, though, it wasn't like he imagined. He'd waited too long."

• At HiLobrow: "Herland  - Part 7" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Speculative Fiction.
     "Being at last considered sufficiently tamed and trained to be trusted with scissors, we barbered ourselves as best we could. A close-trimmed beard is certainly more comfortable than a full one. Razors, naturally, they could not supply."

• At Lightspeed: "Brisneyland by Night"  by Angela Slatter. Fantasy.
       "'How many kids now?' I asked. 'Twenty-five we can identify for sure. But that’s out of a couple of hundred a week. Not all those are ours.' 'Don’t say ours, Bela. They’re nothing to do with me.' I looked out the window. My reflection stared back. Beyond that I watched the night speed past. I should have been at my next-door neighbour’s eighth birthday party, pretending I didn’t like children; I shouldn’t have been here."

• At The Colored Lens: "Bottle This" by J.J. Roth. Science Fiction.
       "Stir fry bubbled in a line of industrial pans that gave off clouds of oily-smelling steam. The jock’s plastic-wrapped hand dropped grey tofu lumps into the first pan and greenish chicken cubes into the next three. His other hand, ungloved and permanently dingy, sloshed a ladle of grainy, tan liquid across all the pans."

• At Lightspeed: "Face Value"  by Sean Williams. Science Fiction.
      "News of the disappearance of inventor Felix Frey spread through the Air with electric ease. It was exactly the kind of distraction I needed. There are only so many quaint old thefts and counterfeit scams I can pluck from policing archives while my girlfriend Billie works in her studio, adjusting facial nerves, muscles, and skin cells to fit her clients’ desires."

Flash Fiction

• At Strange Horizons: "St. Patrick and the Snakes" by Jane Yolen. Poem.
• At Strange Horizons: "August Poetry" by Jane Yolen,  Laura Madeline Wiseman, John W. Sexton, Andrew Brenza, and Lynette Mejía.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Quintari At The End" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Lightspeed: "Face Value"  by Sean Williams. Science Fiction.
      "News of the disappearance of inventor Felix Frey spread through the Air with electric ease. It was exactly the kind of distraction I needed. There are only so many quaint old thefts and counterfeit scams I can pluck from policing archives while my girlfriend Billie works in her studio, adjusting facial nerves, muscles, and skin cells to fit her clients’ desires."

• At 19 Nocturne Boulevard: "Deadly City" by Ivar Jorgenson. (Paul W. Fairman). Science Fiction.
     "You're all alone in a deserted city. You walk down an empty street, yearning for the sight of one living face—one moving figure. Then you see a man on a corner and you know your terror has only begun." Text here.

Other Genres
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Indian" by Melody Feldman.

I Know It's Only Free Fiction But I Like It, Like It, Yes, I Do

More good free fiction including, a classic by Philip Wylie, a poem by Jane Yolen, and audio stories by Mary Robinette Kowal and William Hope Hodgson.  Likely More to Come Tonight (including e-books). Until then, be sure to visit all six"Free SF Sites" linked in the right hand column.

[Art for Drabblecast, linked below]




Fiction
• At Baen: "Seven Miles" by T.C. McCarthy. Science Fiction.
     "Come." He adjusted the incinerator straps, flicked off the safety, and angled his body so that he could squeeze out the narrow portal. Ludmilla followed, her tail between her legs. "It's clear, Ludy, another day of work. Up!" The sound of his voice made her tail go straight, wagging, and she moved to lead the way." Also available as part of the free e-book Free Stories 2013.

• At Baen: "The Lamplighter Legacy" by Patrick O'Sullivan. Science Fiction.
     "The astronaut gripped Ernesto's wrist. 'Look, kid, you want to put the phone down and look around?' He had to shout to be heard over the helicopter's deafening noise. 'This is a once in a lifetime experience.'"

• At HiLobrow: "The Devolutionist - part 18" by Homer Eon Flint. Occult. Science Fiction.
     "Mona leaped to the controls. She turned the craft about automatically and started toward Hafen. Then she glanced over the side. What she saw brought her heart to her throat." From Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1921.

• At Project Gutenberg: "Gladiator" by Philip Wylie. (1930) Science Fiction. [via Free Speculative Fiction Online]
     "The chief obstacle to Mrs. Danner's placid dominion of her hearth was Professor Danner's laboratory, which occupied a room on the first floor of the house. It was the one impregnable redoubt in her domestic stronghold. Neither threat nor entreaty would drive him and what she termed his 'stinking, unchristian, unhealthy dinguses' from that room."

Now Posted: Aphelion Issue 174, Volume 17 June 2013. Science Fiction. Fantasy.

• "The Plague Merchants" by Kurt Heinrich Hyatt
     "A beer-swilling android and an attractive, uptight virologist try to save the Kloakan people."
• "Forever" by Kat Dysart
        "Kira wanted to get past that door hidden beneath the cellar more than anything.
• "Dimensional Shift" by E.S. Strout
        "Lt. Lori Colquitt disappeared into the unknown, but in the end, she found herself."
• "Soul Mates" by D.C. Plump
        "Two fallen angels fight vampires in a dark, urban fantasy with weapons and their love for each other."
• "The Demon Whitefish" by Jordan Moureau
       "The fate of the village rested in the fisherman's widow and a nobleman's servant."
• "The Pool" by Lester Curtis
      "A fable of sorts, exploring who we really are."
• "Escape of the Fire Demon" by Mike Phillips
      "Summoning a demon turns out to be a burning problem for an inexperienced wizard."
• "Heaven Falls" by Craig Wesson
     "Zach survived the war in the trenches by hearing the girl in the tower sing and dreaming of the princess from the sky."
• "The Seventh Folding of Willow Sprite" by Marjorie Kaye
      "The internet can do a lot: bring people together, find us love, and just maybe scare the heck out of us."
• "No Further" by Matthew Acheson
     "The dead were coming and all that was left of the Legion would face them, once and for all."• "Good Night, Timmy" by Rick Grehan
     "Timmy can’t talk, and he does not have any friends. However, that is about to change, thanks to an extra-terrestrial artifact."

Flash Fiction
• At Chilling Tales For Dark Nights: "Faces" by Christina Cross. Horror. Audio.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Dark, Beautiful Force" by Jessica May Lin. Superhero.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Like Fallen Pieces of an Old Picket Fence" by Van Hall. Horror.
• At Nature: "Buzz Off" by John Grant. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Party for Two" by Kevin Richards. Science Fiction.
At Goblin Fruit: Fantasy Poems.

• April by Nita Sembrowich
• Sheshnaag by Shweta Narayan
• Lexicon by Kristin Gulotta
• The Hooligan by C.S.E. Cooney
• Tea With Witches by Kate Chadbourne
• Zucchini by Penny Stirling
• Save Our Soulsickened by Adriana Tosun
• Caul by Jane Yolen
• The Ferryman by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
• Sunk by Yumi Dineen Shiroma
• If Wurrunna Had Seen the Mardi Gras by Michele Bannister

At Aphelion: Poetry.

• After I Traded My Voice Box by April Salzano
• Bullet Train by Richard Tornello
• I Dream of Rings by A. J. Huffman
• Lawthorn Cemetery by Jay Hill
• Practical Joke by Robin B. Lipinski
• The Fires by Dominic Lennard
• The Uncertainty of the Certainties by Mark Edgemon
• Party of Four by Rob Wynne and Jeffrey Williams

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Swallow" by Mateo Hellion. Horror.
      "In the dark corners of the earth, there are certain objects that carry curses with them.  They come in many forms.  In this particular story, an old chest is the object of interest.  When certain words are inscribed on this chest and then recited in its presence, strange things happen.  And when the chest happens ..." Also in MP3 download Here (scroll down to the 16th).

• At DrabbleCast:  "Doubleheader XIII" Fantasy.
     "Locked In" and "Clockwork Chickadee" by Mary Robinette Kowal.
     "Samuel sat on the balcony, enjoying the fading light of day. When the ventilator pushed air into his lungs, he savored the salt brine from the sea. He pretended that he had control over breath, but it was much a fantasy as adjusting his wheelchair."

• At PodCastle: "The Copperroof War" by Megan Arkenberg. Fantasy.
     "It began in the south wing, near the long cold Hall of Empires and the chambers of the Duke of Cloud. Helene, the Duchess, woke at midnight to the metal sound of marching in the corridor, and farther away, the hollow ring of drums."

• At SFFaudio: "The Voice In The Night" by William Hope Hodgson. Horror.
     " With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck.  The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forrard in their den;  while Will — my friend, and the master of our little craft — was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin."

Other Genres

• Fiction at Project Gutenberg: The Folk-Tales of the Magyars by Various. 1889. Mythology.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Forever Berries" by Oonah V Joslin.

Part Two

A ton of great freebies for part two of today's links. More later if possible. (Photo for Selected Shorts in audio fiction below)










Fiction
• At AE: "First Date" by David Tallerman. Science Fiction.
     "How many nights has Johnny walked by the House of Mirrors? How many times has he glanced at its drab plastic facade and wondered? He was never scared to come, but they take the rules seriously in the House, it’s all legit, and if your biomet says you’re under twenty-one they won’t so much as look at you. So Johnny waited — not with patience, but with determination stubborn as faith. And now it’s time. Tonight he can do more than look."

• At Author's Site: "Craters" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science Fiction.
     "What they don’t tell you when you sign up is that the work takes a certain amount of trust. The driver, head covered by a half-assed turban, smiles a little too much, and when he yes-ma’ams you and no ma’ams you, you can be lulled into thinking he actually works for you."

• At The Colored Lens: "Blessings by the Shade" by S. L. Nickerson. Alternative History. Mythic Fantasy.
     "They still tell stories about the day I was born, of how a lilac comet streaked across the stars and the volcano ceased spitting fires to the heavens. They call it omens but I call it a conspiracy of convenience. This is what made me High Priestess, because I am blessed."

• At Cosmos: "Angels Call in Strange Disguise" by Christopher K. Miller.
     "The clown’s presence means that you are, in all probability, going to die tonight. There’s not much your sailfone hasn’t told you. They don’t send these clowns to just anyone."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Tying of Tongues" by Kristi DeMeester. 
     "When the hooded woman came to our village, her bloodied skirts trailing behind her, the old mothers whispered behind chapped hands, and the animals found their holes and hid."

• At L5R: "The Sparrow’s Fate - Part 1" by Robert Denton. Fantasy.
     "When Moshi Rukia awoke on the third and final day of her visit to the Suzume Hills, she looked out her window to find the valley covered in a thick layer of snow. She knew winter came quickly in the valley, she just didn’t know it would be this quickly."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sense of the Circle" by Angélica Gorodischer. Science Fiction.
      "Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito."

• At Lightspeed: "The Dream Detective" by Lisa Tuttle. Fantasy.
      "In the beginning, I was not attracted to her at all. Quite the opposite. I don’t know if it was intentional on her part, and honestly, I’m not the sort of dick who always judges women on how hot they are, but if there’s any situation in which a person’s attractiveness matters, I think everybody would agree it’s a blind date."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "The Love of Beauty" by K.J. Bishop.
     "Near the middle of the night, Seaming dithered in front of the brick arch – formerly a minor gate in the old city wall and now a decoration in a lane. If there existed a main entrance to the Ravels, it was that arch. It stood only half a furlong from the glitz of Cake Street, but the short distance marked a change of register from the demimonde to the underworld proper."

• At The WiFiles: "God’s Great Acrimony" by D. C. Golightly. Speculative Fiction.
     "I will always savor the taste of blood. Even though I starve myself of its nourishment for strictly selfish reasons I can’t help but crave the bitter embrace of its crimson flavor."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Skipping Stones" by Devin Miller.
• At Every Day Fiction: "A Day Before All of Those Nights" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Fantasy. 
• At Quantum Muse: "The Collider" by Harris Tobias.
• At Strange Horizons: "Origin" by Heather Sommer. Speculative Poem. Audio.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Extremophile" by Aaron Koelker. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The End of the Extinction" by Isla Kay. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Ascensual" by Daniel Martin Fairbairn. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #24" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction. Football.
   No description.

• At Beam Me Up: "Part 4 of Know How Can Do" by Michael Blumlein.
    "Of course we'll wait. How silly of me to think otherwise. Science begins wit h observation, and Sheila Downey is a scientist. We'll watch and wait together, al l three of us, the woman who made me what I am, the worm that isn't there, and me."

• At Clarkesworld: "86, 87, 88, 89" by Genevieve Valentine.
    "You are part of a vital effort to recover evidence of terrorist activity preceding the Raids, and on a larger scale, to preserve the heritage of a historic neighborhood of New York City."

• At Cthulhu: "House on the Borderland, parts 20 and 21" by William Hope Hodgson.  Horror.
     No description

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 08 - The Beasts of Tarzan" Adventure.
     "Tarzan has fallen into Rokoff’s trap. Pursuing the Russian, Tarzan has left his comrades behind to forge ahead. He comes to a tribe of cannibals who report that Rokoff is a day ahead of them"

• At LibriVox: "Jewels of Gwahlur" by Robert E. Howard. Fantasy.
     "Conan The Barbarian is after fabulous treasure in this exciting story. But he finds himself in more difficulties than he had counted on. Crafty and powerful human opponents seek to skin him alive, bestial mutations seek to rip his arms off, denizens of the deep want to devour him whole and scantily clad dusky beauties try to waylay him at every step."

• At Lightspeed: "The Sense of the Circle" by Angélica Gorodischer. Science Fiction.
     Described Above.

• At Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: "Lost Waters" by Kreg Steppe.
     "Daniel Pleasant, agent of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, is assigned to the United States of America to track down some missing items from the Archives. Pleasant is partnered up with a clankerton from the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical (O.S.M.) Elijah Paxton, and together the two set off to track the missing Archive items, their power rumoured to be able to bend time and space itself."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "Adventure’s Heart" by Albert Dorrington. Adventure.
      "A curiously carved throne of sandalwood stood at the far end of the chamber, its highly polished sides glinting with innumerable pearls inset. Above the throne gleamed a naked skull." - First published in Top-Notch, May 1, 1922.

• At Slected Shorts: "Expect the Unexpected"
     "Guest host Neil Gaiman presents tales with surprises. Jane Yolen’s “The Babysitter” is a contemporary Gothic with a twist; James Thurber’s classic “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” introduces a milquetoast with attitude; Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” anticipated our media driven lives; and Thurber’s “The Wood Duck” seems to have nine lives."

• At Toasted Cake: "Don't Look Down" by Anatoly Belilovsky.
     "A whistling in my ears: wind. It's called wind. I'm flying, flying in the wind, under the blue that's called the sky, toward the brown that's called the ground. I feel it push my hands, my legs, my face. I feel a weight against my back."


Other Genres

• Audio at The Way of the Buffalo: "The Chase" by Ken Liu. Surreal. Flash.
• Audio at Crime City Central: "Oedipus Shrugged" by Copper Smith.
• Audio at Every Day Fiction: "Twist Twist Shake" by E.M.Pearson. Suspense. Flash.
• Fiction at The New Yorker: "The Judge’s Will" by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Love Is All Around" by Raine.

Yolen, Rambo, Tidhar, and Other Great Free Fiction

 There's plenty of great free fiction this afternoon, with stories by prominent genre writers (Jane Yolen, Lavie Tidhar, Cat Rambo, etc.).  There are two free e-zines (Mirror Dance and Crime Factory), great audio fiction, and flash fiction!  More to come this weekend.



[Art from Mirror Dance, linked below]



 
Fiction
• At Anotherealm:  "Restorist" by William Huggins.
     "I was tending my forest when he leapt from his ship. I saw it falling and on fire. His leap was the bravest thing I have ever witnessed—he leapt from one certain death to another. Even with trees to break his fall he never should have survived."

• At Aurora Wolf: "The Amulet" by Heidi Wainer. Fantasy.
     "Jayla opened the latch and stepped into the dark cottage. She had lived in the witch’s house her entire life but this was the first time it felt eerie. The thought made her chuckle; being inside the witch’s house only felt scary after the death of the witch."

• At Buzzy Mag: "Threads of Pearl, Writhing" by Gwendolyn Clare.
     "They tell you it won’t hurt—that part is the lie. It does. But afterward, you won’t feel any pain at all. Ever again. They believe the lie because they can’t remember what “hurt” means."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Crabapple" by Lavie Tidhar.
       "Youssou dreamed that he was flying. There was no gravity in that place. Dimensions stretched and shifted. A ring in space, kilometers long, spinning. Only the center remained free of gravity."

• At Giganotosaurus: "Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift" by Cat Rambo and Ben Burgis.
       "They said the Marielitas were escoria – scum. The abuelitas muttered it to each other, and the young girls coming home from school clustered together like butterflies, looking thrilled and worried whenever the wind whistled at them. The newspapers said Miami was under siege, that Castro had loosed the worst from the Cuban prisons and madhouses."

• At Tor.com: "The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown" by Jane Yolen. Fantasy.
      "Why, they are quite barbaric,” the queen said to her prime minister, making small talk since she wasn’t actually certain where Zululand was. Somewhere in deepest, darkest Africa. That much at least she was certain. She would have to get out the atlas. Again. She had several of Albert’s old atlases, and the latest American one, a Swinton."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Annie" by Jehanne Jean-Charles.
      "We’d been married a year when Jacques took me to see the house he’d inherited. It wasn’t far from Paris, but no sooner had we left the highway than we found ourselves strangers in a strange land. Jacques couldn’t quite recall the way. He’d come only once, by train, and we passed through tiny villages whose denizens gave odd answers to our questions."

• At Weird Fiction Review: "Remembrance is Something Like a House" by Will Ludwigsen.
     "Every day for three decades, the abandoned house strains against its galling anchors, hoping to pull free. It has waited thirty years for its pipes and pilings to finally decay so it can leave for Florida to find the Macek family."

• Now Posted: The Spring 2013 Issue of Mirror Dance. Fantasy.
        Fiction by Sarah L. Byrne, Chloe Ackerman, Sandi Leibowitz, C. E. Hyun, Brooke Wonders, and Cordelia Harrison. - Poetry by Helen Ogden, Anna Sykora, S. Brackett Robertson, and Shelly Bryant

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction:  "It All Started With a Kiss" by Robert J. Santa. Fantasy.
• At Flashes in the Dark: "Starvation" by Turlough Delaney . Horror.
• At KasmaSF: "Three Roads to Jerusalem" by Anatoly Belilovsky
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Unwelcome" by Desmond Hussey. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Escape Pod: "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick. Science Fiction.
     "Martha kept her eyes forward, concentrated on walking. Jupiter to one shoulder, Daedalus’s plume to the other. Nothing to it. Just trudge, drag, trudge, drag. Piece of cake."

• At LibriVox: The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (2nd version). Science Fantasy.
     "In this third installment of the adventures of John Carter on Mars, our hero labors under sentence of death (for having returned from the land of the dead)"

• At Pseudopod: "The Trinket" by P.G. Bell. Horror.
     "They burned Gederus in the yard outside the barracks. Dawn had brought the first break in rain for ten days and the men, still cold and filthy from the construction work, cast anxious glances at the black weight of cloud that threatened to stamp out and drown the struggling flames. Those closest to the pyre stole a guilty pleasure from its warmth."

• At Tales to Terrify: Episode #60. Horror.
     "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class" by Nicole Cushing.
           No description found
      "The Kindness of Strangers" by Ray Banks.
            No description found 

Other Genres

• Audio at American Radio Theater: "The Pawn Shop" by Kay Lutz. Humor.
• Audio at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Man Who Knew Too Much. (part 4 of 8) by G.K. Chesterton.
• Audio at Decoder Ring Theater: "Red Panda Adventures (91) - The Lab Rats" Noir. Superhero. Humor.
• Audio at Journey Into: "Lieutenant Hornblower: Court of Inquiry" by C.S. Forester" Adventure. OTR.
• Now Posted: Crime Factory Issue 12.