Morning Freebies

Good morning! A few great freebies - more to come!

(Art for "No Breather in the World But Thee" in fiction and audio fiction)





Fiction
• At Nightmare Magazine: "No Breather in the World But Thee" by Jeff VanderMeer. Horror.
     "The cook didn’t like that the eyes of the dead fish shifted to stare at him as he cut their heads off. The cook’s assistant, who was also his lover, didn’t like that he woke to find just a sack of bloody bones on the bed beside him. 'It’s starting again,' he gasped, just moments before a huge, black, birdlike creature carried him off, screaming."

Ebooks
At Free eBooks Daily:

• Blood Harvest by Michael Weinberger. Fantasy.
• Cat's Paw by L.A. Taylor. Fantasy, Mystery.
• Vampire Takeover by Jez Strider. Vampire Dystopia.
• Black Diamond by Jennifer Loiske. YA Fantasy.
• Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis. YA Science Fiction.
• Limbo's Child by Jonah Hewitt. YA Fantasy.
• All the Paths of Shadow by Frank Tuttle. Fantasy.
• Firecracker by Charles R. Verhey. Science Fiction Fantasy. 
• Love of Shadows by Zoe Brooks. Fantasy.
• Baby by J.K. Accinni. Science Fiction.
• NorthWest by JH Glaze. SciFi Horror.
• Telepaths and Traitors by K.J. Blaine. Science Fiction Space Opera.

Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Man and the River" by Therese Pieczynski. 
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Police Interrogation" by Townsend Wright. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Nightmare Magazine: "No Breather in the World But Thee" by Jeff VanderMeer. Horror.
      Described above.

• At PodCastle: "Virtue’s Ghosts" by Amanda M. Olson. Fantasy.
      "For two weeks after she moved into our house, no one could convince me that Aunt Victoria was not a ghost. With soundless steps, she drifted from room to room in a dress the same blue-gray color as the pendant around her neck'

• At StarShipSofa: "The Golden Age of Story" by Robert Reed.
     "Each vignette is a separate episode outlining the spread of a designer drug, the effects of which include elevated reasoning and memory, high creativity, and pathological confabulation." - Primary Sources.


Other Genres

• Audio at CrimeWAV: "Mahogany & Monogamy" by Jed Ayres.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "The Real Mom" by Von Rupert

Friday Freebies - Part One

A  few very good freebies from yesterday, more to come later today!






Fiction
• Now Posted: Beneath Ceaseless Skies #116.

"A Family for Drakes" by Margaret Ronald. Fantasy.
     “The boy who owned them had another pair,” she lied. Maybe he had; she hadn’t checked under his mother’s body. Probably she should have; she’d made the long trek out and back after spotting the two huddled bodies... but pulling the little boots off cold feet had taken longer than she’d thought it would, and she’d been shivering too hard to search for more. “Bron, where’s our blanket?”
"Bakemono, or The Thing That Changes" by A.B. Treadwell. Fantasy.      "The Emperor of Japan punched through the soft belly of Russia on the day of my birth. My father’s men were the iron girding the fist. He showed me how it was on a rotting melon. The flesh caved in, and seeds spilled out."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Hope, Shattered" by Brian R. McDowell.
      "Her knees were bent, and her feet rested at the edge of the mattress. Perspiration dripped from her brow and soaked the synthetic brunette hair matted on her cheek. The liquid fell in a steady stream from the android's temples instead of beading in a glow, but it was a common flaw in manufactured pores."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Nymph of Limantour" by J. J. Roth. Fantasy.
• At Nature: "Canopy of Skulls" by Beth Cato.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Ghost In The Machine" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Self Defense" by Patricia Stewart. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Bakemono, or The Thing That Changes" by A.B. Treadwell. Fantasy.
      Described above

• At Escape Pod: "Finished" by Robert Reed. Science Fiction.
      "What did I plan? Very little, in truth. An evening walk accompanied by the scent of flowers and dampened earth, the lingering heat of the day taken as a reassurance, ancient and holy. I was genuinely happy, as usual. Like a hundred other contented walkers, I wandered through the linear woods, past lovers’ groves and pocket-sized sanctuaries and ornamental ponds jammed full of golden orfes and platinum lungfish."

• At Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Episode 03 - The Beasts of Tarzan. Adventure.
     "Tarzan has fallen prey to the wiles of Nicholas Rokoff. Trapped in a steamer at sea, Tarzan knows only that his son also is in the clutches of the arch-fiend. He does not yet know that Jane has also been captured."

• At PodCastle: "Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift"by Cat Rambo and Ben Burgis. Fantasy.
     "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."

Other Genres

• Audio at The New Yorker: “Girl” and “Wingless” by Jamaica Kincaid.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Scott Is" by Steve Calvert.

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"