Give Me Speculative Fiction, I'll Take Anything. Now Quiet While I Read My Good Free Fiction

  The free fiction week's off to a good start with fiction, flash fiction, audio fiction, and other genres from some fantastic sites. Huzzah!  I'll be back later with more, and be certain to check out the latest free fiction post from Regan Wolfrom at SF Signal for additional links.  [Art from "Turnip Girl" in fiction below]









 Fiction
 • At Black Gate: "Stand at Dubun-Geb" by Ryan Harvey. Fantasy.
       "Under a downpour of rain the slate faces of the Dubun-Geb Mountains were dreadful, and they stirred memories in the warriors clustered at their feet of campfire tales of the secrets lurking among the crags. In the days of the Hegemony, the Shapers had carved fortresses in the Dubun-Geb where they worked the magic of the Art on stone and metal. The Shapers had vanished, but no place stained with their sorceries forgot them."

 • At Mad Scientist Journal: "Diary of a Turnip Girl" by Finale Doshi-Velez. Science Fiction.
      "'You crossed me with a bunch of turnips.' Teens with glossy hair and perfect teeth smiled at me from the racks of fashion magazines. I blew at a few strands of my own wiry frizz. Stupid turnip hair. 'Radhika’s mom always buys her the silky pear shampoo.'"

• At Short-Story.me: "Tammy Lynn's Burden" by Rachel Villalobos. Horror.
     "She wished she didn't live way out in the outskirts of town. In the middle of a half dead corn field with the nearest neighbor two miles away. She continued on at the slow pace, taking her time. Even as the 100 degree weather baked her brain, she would not hurry to reach the dirty little trailer sooner than she had to, Tammy Lynn refused to call it home. It was a prison, a cage, a place she dreaded returning to. Inside the trailer was the burden that would be chained to her for the rest of her life."

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Uh... Guys?" by Luc Reid. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Junkyard Funeral" by Aiza Mohd. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Lucky" by Gabriel E. Zentner. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows:  "Deafening Silence" by Adam Levey. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "Extracts from the Parahistorical Literature Review, Volume 1 (Fall 2026") by Benjamin Blattberg. Science Fiction Audio.

Audio Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Bones are White #10: Passenger, Part 2" by Scott Sigler.
     "A recon team just crash-landed on Vee-Seven just before SAM fire tore into their troop carrier. Duck is dead. Chesque and Nguyen are MIA. Jennings has lost a leg and is screaming for help. Sgt. Marcus Crowley tries to keep the survivors together. Can Cheryl and Psycho stay alive long enough to help him complete the mission? "

• At Beam Me Up: "Episode #377" 
    Featuring Kevin Phyland’s "Long Shot" - "The line for betting on Melbourne Cup Day was ridiculously long. All hoping to bring home a long shot." and part one of Dean Giles "Dave"- "The room was dimly lit by a single window set high on the once white-tiled walls, now faded to a putrid yellow. The unwashed concrete floor bore no furniture apart from the plastic stool where Simon sat, and his Grandfather’s wooden rocking-chair opposite him."

• At Clarkesworld: "One Flesh" by Mark Bourne & Elizabeth Bourne, read by Kate Baker. Science Fiction,
        "Jupiter’s immense horizon appears flat as a flitter, stretching beyond the reach of vision. Cloud banks the size of continents drift in what might be sky. Organic molecules paint them in autumn colors: oranges and browns and peach and gold. Behind the clouds, the rising sun shines like a silver coin"

• At Radio Drama Revival: "Paradox" by Jack Feldstein. Fantasy.
    "Inspired by The Little Prince, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz [. . . ] Paradox is a modern fairy tale that has fun and whimsy and absurdity but also adult and philosophical concepts."

• At SFFaudio: "The Red Room" by H. G. Wells, read by Simon Vance.  
     "I can assure you," said I, "that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me." And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand.

Other Genres

• Audio at Crime City Central: "In the Name of the Father" by Alan Baxter
• Audio at Forgotten Classics: "A Daughter of Rameses" by Lord Dunsany.
• Fiction at WMG Publishing: "Stomping Mad" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Mystery.
• Fiction at Short-Story.me: "What's that noise?" by Carol Michaels. Mystery.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Un-Conspiracy Theory" by Chloe Banks.

Freebies to start the weekend.

More good freebies. There are quite a few very good audio fiction stories today, as well as very good fiction, flash fiction, and more.  Back soonish.




Fiction
At Cosmos: "Anterior View" by Brenda Kalt. Science Fiction.
      "The display was impressive, but the box was heavy – full of data leaves, potentially a full view. Of something."

At Daily Science Fiction:  "Phone Booth" by Holli Mintzer. Science Fiction.
      "There aren't a lot of zeppelins these days to anchor at them, just like there aren't many ships in the harbor, but the masts are still there: two or three big freight elevators apiece, caged in a lattice of iron struts and steel cable."

At Project Gutenberg:  The Scarlet Plague by Jack London.  Science Fiction. 1912/1915.
      "is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912." Wikipedia.

At Tor.com:  "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain. 1888. Horror.
      "The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break."

Reviewed at Variety SF: "Tumithak of the Corridors" by Charles R Tanner. Science Fiction. 1932.
      "It is only within the last few years that archeological science has reached a point where we may begin to appreciate the astonishing advances in science that our ancestors had achieved before the Great Invasion"

Flash
At 365 tomorrows: "Fallen" by Steve Smith. Science Fiction.
At Weirdyear: "Skull Collection" by Rob Bliss.

Audio
At Cast of Wonders: "The Great Game, Part 5 – The Dark Continent" by James Vachowski. YA.
      "Light a lamp, child, and be quick about it. The day is fading, and my eyes are not what they once were. Ah, that’s the rub. This room closes in when night falls."

At Classic Tales Podcast: Carmilla part 4 of 4 by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.
      "The General’s story comes to its horrifying conclusion, and the mystery of Carmilla is finally unearthed" Also parts one, two, and three.

At Escape Pod:  "Lion Dance" by Vylar Kaftan. Science Fiction.
      "Matt was loud–even a flu mask didn’t muffle his bellowing.  I swear, even though every restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown had been closed since February, tourists still cruised the streets.  Even a pandemic couldn’t stop them completely."

At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs:  Episode 25 - Tarzan of the Apes. Adventure.
      "Tarzan has fled into the jungle upon discovering that Jane Porter has departed his cabin. Paul D’Arnot remains there. Considering D’Arnot’s helplessness in the jungle, Tarzan reconsiders and starts back for the cabin."

At LibriVox: Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany. Flash Dark Fantasy.
      Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead."

At LibriVox: Tales of Folk and Fairies by Katharine Pyle. Children's Fantasy.
     "Once upon a time there was a poor widow who had only one son, and he was so dear to her that no one could have been dearer. All the same she was obliged to send him out into the world to seek his fortune, for they were so very poor that as long as he stayed at home they were like to starve."

At Pseudopod: "Pumpkinhead" by Rajan Khanna. Horror.
     "He was my employer, but more than that, he was a celebrity, and a close personal friend of the queen. In fact, if it weren’t for his imminent need, she would be the one about to carve this pumpkin for him. He was basically part of the royal family."

At Tales to Terrify: "304 Adolph Hiltler Strasse" by Lavie Tidha.
     "They called him by his real name, which was Hanzi, but they knew who he really was and he knew then that it was over; the knowledge washed him in lethargy, and a sense of futility made him open his hands as if in a shrug, his fat fingers opening limply, sweat dampening his palms."


Old Time Radio
At Relic Radio: "Carmilla" by Columbia Workshop. Horror. 1940.

Other Genres
Audio at Ellery Queen: “Safe and Loft” by John Lutz. Mystery.
Flash at Every Day Stories:  "Uncle Fida’s Eid" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Humor.
Flash at Spinetingler: "Pool and Ice Cream" by Peter Anderson.
Text at Project Gutenberg: The Siege of Norwich Castle by Matilda Maria Blake. Historical Fiction. Medieval. 1983.