Free SF, Fantasy and Horror Fiction for 9/12/2013
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What’s special about today’s free fiction?
- Fireside Fiction has a science fiction story from Elizabeth Bear
Before she turned into a dragon, Kathy Cutter was Comanche Zariphes’ best friend.
You might say Comanche Zariphes was Kathy Cutter’s only friend.
That wasn’t because nobody wanted to be friends with Kathy Cutter. It was because Kathy Cutter didn’t want to be friends with anybody else.
Kathy Cutter’s hair was blonde and her eyes were green. Her face was a perfect geneshaped oval and she had a discreet little interface button that gleamed like mother of pearl behind her left ear. She was smart enough but not too smart. She wore cute tailored clothes from the fancy boutique.
Comanche Zariphes’ mom eshopped at ConsignMart and everybody knew it.
Kathy Cutter’s dad was a pediatrician and her mom was an architect. They lived in a big house with trees and grass so green it looked fake and a swing in the yard. They had a personal car, not just a sharecar. They ate fresh food and somebody else cooked it for them, and they were all rightminded to perfect happiness and stability. Supposedly.
– “Form and Void”
- Tor has novelettes from Dale Bailey, Jonathan L. Howard, and Mary Robinette Kowal
He lay restless in the dark, a boy on the precipice of manhood or a man freshly plunged over the other side, he couldn’t say which and maybe it didn’t matter. Change troubled him: a snake shedding its skin, a locust shucking its husk. He was fifteen years old. The crops withered in the fields that summer and savage winds scoured the land, rocking the old house to its rafters. His father’s father had laid its foundations and cultivated the rich prairie in the first great wave of homesteaders to sweep westward, and it had come to the boy’s father in his turn. Someday, he supposed, it would fall to him, motherless and alone, the only son of an only son.
– “A Rumor of Angels” by Dale Bailey
- HiLobrow is starting a new serialization: The Zayat Kiss by Sax Rohmer
His eyes were too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I got out the whiskey and siphon, saying:
“You have taken your leave early?”
“I am not on leave,” he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. “I am on duty.”
“On duty!” I exclaimed. “What, are you moved to London, or something?”
“I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn’t rest with me where I am to-day, nor where I shall be to-morrow.”
There was something ominous in the words, and putting down my glass, I faced round and looked him squarely in the eyes.
“Out with it!” I said. “What is it all about?”
Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his left shirt sleeve he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an inch or so around.
Written
- @DargonZine: “Shadows of Dargon” by James Neale [Shared World Fantasy]
- @Fireside Fiction: “Form and Void” by Elizabeth Bear [Science Fiction]
- @Nightmare: “Alone, Together” by Robert Kirkman [Post-Apocalyptic Horror]
- @Tor:
- “A Rumor of Angels” by Dale Bailey [Fantasy]
- “The Death of Me” by Jonathan L. Howard [Fantasy]
- “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal [Science Fiction]
Written – Flash
- @365 tomorrows: “Jigsaw” by Jae Miles [Science Fiction Flash]
- @Daily Science Fiction: “The Vanishing Girl” by Michael T. Banker [Fantasy Flash]
- @Yesteryear: “Sailing with Eardrop Fish” by Mark Slade [Fantasy Flash]
Written – Serialized
- @Dargonzine: Ol Tamboch Narhin by Dafydd Cyhoeddwr – Thread 5: The Rigors of War [Shared World Fantasy]
- @HiLobrow: The Zayat Kiss by Sax Rohmer – Part 1 of 6 [Science Fiction – from 1912]
- @Author’s Site: The Greenland Diaries by Patrick Marsh – Day 84 – Part 2 [Post Apocalyptic]
Audio
- Beware the Hairy Mango #189 – “Bottom Out” by Matthew Sanborn Smith [A Man. A Plan. Mango.]
- @Clarkesworld: “The Promise of Space” by James Patrick Kelly [Science Fiction]
- @Nightmare: “Alone, Together” by Robert Kirkman [Horror]
- PodCastle #277 – “A Hollow Play” by Amal El-Mohtar [Fantasy]
- StarShipSofa #304 – “Outbound from Put-In Bay” by M Bennardo [Science Fiction]
Free eBooks (at time of listing)
- Science Fiction:
- The End – Visions of Apocalypse, Edited by N. E. White
[Apocalyptic Anthology – Amazon | B&N | Smashwords] - The Truth Beyond the Sky (The Epic of Aravinda) by Andrew M. Crusoe
[Science Fiction Novel – Amazon] - >> A Pile of Free Post-Apocalyptic eBooks Listed at The Post Apocalyptic Link Roundup
- The End – Visions of Apocalypse, Edited by N. E. White
- Fantasy:
- Bone Dust & Beginnings (Alexa’s Travels) by Angela White
[Epic / Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Novella – First of Series – Amazon | Smashwords] - Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner
[Paranormal Comedy Novel – Amazon] - Dragon Fire by Pedro L. Alvarez
[YA Fantasy Novel – Amazon] - The List Unseen (The Chronicles of Lumineia) by Ben Hale
[Epic Fantasy Novel – Prequel to Series – Amazon] - Natural Selection (Forces of Nature 1) by Elizabeth Sharp
[YA Paranormal Fantasy Novel – First of Series – Amazon | B&N | Smashwords] - The Nine Keys of Magic (Volume One of the Chronicles of the Myrkron) by Timothy Woods
[Epic Fantasy Novel – First of Series – Amazon] - Sentinel (The Sentinel Trilogy 1) by Joshua Winning
[YA Fantasy Novel – First of Series – Amazon] - @Barnes & Noble: Those Who Dwell in the Thorns by Nicolette Andrews
[Historical Fantasy Novella – B&N | Smashwords] - “War-Bringer” (Twinborn Trilogy Prequel) by J.S. Morin
[Sword & Sorcery Short Story – Prequel to Series – Amazon | B&N | Smashwords) - Within the Realm (The Gifted Realm 1) by Jillian Neal
[New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
- Bone Dust & Beginnings (Alexa’s Travels) by Angela White
- Horror:
- The Devil’s Dead and More Tales by Marius Renos Dicomites
[Horror Collection – Amazon | B&N | Smashwords] - @Barnes & Noble: “The Painter” by K.Z. Freeman
[Horror Short Story] (B&N | Smashwords) - The Zombie Wilson Diaries by Timothy W. Long
[Zombie Novel – Amazon]
- The Devil’s Dead and More Tales by Marius Renos Dicomites
Excerpts
- Excerpts from The Dead Run: A Novel by Adam Mansbach: [Zombies]
- @Harper Voyager (via Scribd): Prologue and Chapters 1-3
- @io9: Chapter 4
- @Gollancz: Excerpts from On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds: [Science Fiction]
- @Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist: Excerpt from Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams [Urban Fantasy]
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