Free SF, Fantasy and Horror Fiction: Zombie Groundhog Edition
Okay, so no zombie groundhogs. Yet. We actually lost our local groundhog just before the big day. Not sure if she’s coming back as a zombie, to be honest.
What’s Special About Today’s Free Fiction?
- HelloHorror #4.17 – Winter 2016
- Terraform has interactive fiction: “Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism”
- PodCastle Full Cast Reading: #400 –“Night at the Opera”
Written
- @AE – The Canadian Science Fiction Review: “If You See Him on the Road” by KJ Kabza [Science Fiction]
- @Apex Magazine:
- “Bones of the World” by Jennifer Hykes [Fantasy]
- “Kutraya’s Skies” by Lesley Conner [Science Fiction]
- “Razorback” by Ursula Vernon [Fantasy]
- “Soursop” by Chikodili Emelumadu [Science Fiction]
- “The Beast at the End of Time” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew [Science Fiction]
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies #191 – January 21, 2016 [Fantasy Magazine – also available as eBook]
- “Blessed are Those Who Have Seen and Do Not Believe” by D.K. Thompson [also available in audio]
- “In Skander, for a Boy” by Chaz Brenchley
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies #192 – February 04, 2016 [Fantasy Magazine – also available as eBook]
- “The Three Dancers of Gizari” by Tamara Vardomskaya [also available in audio]
- “Told By An Idiot” by K.J. Parker
- @The Colored Lens:
- “Along Dominion Road” by Dale L. Sproule [Dystopian]
- “The Body Collectors” by J.A. Becker [Science Fiction]
- “When Whales Fall” by Darcie Little Badger [Speculative Fiction]
- @Escape Pod:
- #517 –“Budo” by Tade Thompson [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
- #518 –“Brain Worms and White Whales” by Jen Finelli [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
- #519 –“Artemis Rising: In Their Image” by Abra Staffin-Wiebe [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
- @GigaNotoSaurus: “The Scrape of Tooth and Bone” by Ada Hoffmann [Science Fiction – also available as an eBook]
- HelloHorror #4.17 – Winter 2016 [Horror Magazine]
- @Lightspeed Magazine:
- “Beyond the Heliopause” by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
- “Charlotte Incorporated” by Rachael K. Jones [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
- “La Lune T’attend” by Peter S. Beagle [Fantasy]
- “Maiden, Hunter, Beast” by Kat Howard [Fantasy – also available in audio]
- “Monstrous Embrace” by Rachel Swirsky [Fantasy]
- “The Dark Age” by Jason Gurley [Science Fiction]
- @Mad Scientist Journal:
- “On Conveying Private Material and Persons in the Solar System” by Leenna Naidoo [Science Fiction]
- “Promethea” by Maureen Bowden [Science Fiction]
- “The Assessment” by Farah Ghuznavi [Science Fiction]
- @Mythic Delirium: “Burdens” by Samantha Henderson [Fantasy]
- @Nightmare Magazine:
- “No Other Men in Mitchell” by Rose Hartley [Horror – also available in audio]
- “There’s a Hole in the City” by Richard Bowes [Horror]
- “Vulcanization” by Nisi Shawl [Horror – also available in audio]
- @Omni Reboot:
- “Analog Tale For A Digital Age” by Bruce Sterling [Science Fiction]
- “Forecast: 2085” by Marlena Chertock [Science Fiction]
- “The Transit” by David Williams [Science Fiction]
- @Terraform:
- “Headcold” by Warren Ellis [Science Fiction]
- “The End of Big Data” by James Bridle [Science Fiction]
- “Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism” by Porpentine Charity Heartscape [Interactive Science Fiction]
Written – Serialized
- @Weird Fiction Review: The Lost Machine by Richard A. Kirk: [Weird Novel – Serialized]
Audio
- @Beneath Ceaseless Skies Podcast:
- #165 –“Blessed are Those Who Have Seen and Do Not Believe” by D.K. Thompson [Fantasy]
- #166 –“The Three Dancers of Gizari” by Tamara Vardomskaya
- Drabblecast #376 – “A Last Kiss for Lazarus Winters (A Saint Darwin’s Spiritual)” by D.K.Thompson [Dark Fantasy]
- The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine #179 – “Wrong Ingredients” by B.D. Anklevich [Fantasy]
- @Escape Pod:
- #517 –“Budo” by Tade Thompson [Science Fiction]
- #518 –“Brain Worms and White Whales” by Jen Finelli [Science Fiction]
- #519 –“Artemis Rising: In Their Image” by Abra Staffin-Wiebe [Science Fiction]
- @Far Fetched Fables:
- @Lightspeed Magazine:
- “Beyond the Heliopause” by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown [Science Fiction]
- “Charlotte Incorporated” by Rachael K. Jones [Science Fiction]
- “Maiden, Hunter, Beast” by Kat Howard [Fantasy]
- @Nightmare Magazine:
- “No Other Men in Mitchell” by Rose Hartley [Horror]
- “Vulcanization” by Nisi Shawl [Horror]
- @PodCastle:
- #399 –“The Authenticator” by Greg van Eekhout [Fantasy]
- #400 –“Night at the Opera” by Martha Wells [Fantasy]
- #401 –“Artemis Rising: The Color of Regret” by Carrie Patel [Fantasy]
- @Pseudopod:
- #473 –“Sack Race To The River” by Chris Kuriata [Horror]
- #474 –“Mr. Hill’s Death” by S.L. Gilbow [Horror]
- #475 –“The Toad Witch” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson [Horror]
- #476 –“Artermis Rising: Black Hearts” by Shannon Peavey [Horror]
- @Tales To Terrify:
Audio – Radio Dramas
- @Relic Radio: Dimension X –“Untitled Story” [Science Fiction Radio Drama – from 1951]
Free eBooks – Science Fiction
Cipher (The Shadow Ravens #1) by Aileen Erin
Alone and on the run, Cipher doesn’t talk about her secrets, her powers, or the people chasing her. She can’t let anyone get that close. At least, she shouldn’t.
Knight is working undercover for the bad guys. He’s done things that have marked his soul, but it’ll all be worth it if he can save the girl who means everything to him—the girl who saved his life by putting herself in danger. It’s been twelve years, but Knight knows she’s still alive, and he’s made it his mission to find her and keep her safe.
When Knight finally catches up to Cipher, electricity sparks. He’s crazy gorgeous, stupid brilliant, and begging to lift the burden from Cipher’s shoulders. Can she really trust him with her secrets? With her life?
[Science Fiction Romance Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
Into the Dark (Alexis Carew #1) by J.A. Sutherland
At fifteen, Alexis Carew has to face an age old problem – she’s a girl, and only a boy can inherit the family’s vast holdings. Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other women.
[Military Science Fiction Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy #1) by Erik Hanberg
Byron Shaw can track and find anyone on Earth. Except the people who tried to kill him.
By 2081, privacy no longer exists. The Lattice enables anyone to re-live any moment of your life. People can experience past and present events—or see into the mind of anyone, living or dead.
Most people love it. Some want to destroy it.
[Science Fiction Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
@GigaNotoSaurus: The Scrape of Tooth and Bone by Ada Hoffmann
[Science Fiction Novelette – EPUB, MOBI – GigaNotoSaurus]
Sink: Old Man’s Tale by Perrin Briar
A sinkhole is a natural phenomenon. It can happen anywhere, anytime. It drinks lakes dry, consumes jungles, and even demolishes entire mountains. You may have seen one in your street. But these things aren’t lost. They’ve simply been moved. Things are forgotten on the surface all the time. Beneath the crust, they’re always remembered.
It’s just another day for unscrupulous developer Graham Turner when he breaks into an old man’s home to steal his property deeds. But when he’s sucked through a sinkhole into a forgotten world deep beneath the earth’s surface, Graham and the old man must rely on each other if they are to survive and escape this dangerous new world and return to the surface.
SINK. A forgotten world. A lost world. But not for long.
[Science Fiction Novel – Amazon]
Free eBooks – Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian
Coyote (After The Fires Went Out #1) by Regan Wolfrom
First came the comet. Then came the fires. Now we fight to save what’s left.
Baptiste, stranded 500 miles from his wife and daughter, at the northern edge of civilization, has made a vow to protect a teenage girl from the chaos that surrounds them. But as food and fuel runs out, and even friends prove they can’t be trusted, Baptiste realizes that this promise won’t be easy to keep.
[Post-Apocalyptic Novel – First of Series – Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords]
Free eBooks – Steampunk
Killing at the Carnival (Cassie Pengear Mysteries #1) by L. A. Nisula
Cassie Pengear thought a visit to the carnival would be fun: see some shows, eat some sweets, help her landlady’s nephew decide if the cowboy was real or an actor. But then the cowboy shot the volunteer, and he didn’t get up. Now Cassie has a ten-year-old boy insisting the cowboy isn’t a killer and a landlady insisting she help solve the killing at the carnival.
[Steampunk Mystery Novella – First of Series – Amazon]
Free eBooks – Fantasy
Alignment: The Silent City (The Alignment Trilogy #1) by H.G. Suren
Five friends wake up to discover they are left alone on earth–the rest of humanity is gone.
Empty streets are littered with stalled-out cars, buses, and motorcycles. A sunless and moonless sky is covered with an enormous barrier that prevents any view of the heavens.
And silence, pervasive and absolute, reigns. Nothing stirs. The air is oppressive and there is no wind, not even the softest breeze.
As far as the five friends can tell, there isn’t another living thing on earth other than them, neither animal nor plant. What happened to life on earth while they slept? Or is it that something happened to them? Are they still on earth, or have they somehow been transported elsewhere? If so, where? Heaven? Hell? Another planet? Or are they pawns in a sophisticated computer game? Or is it all just their imagination?
Aram believes they aren’t dead. He believes if there is a way into the Silent World, then there must be a way out. He convinces his friends to stay focused and put up a worthy fight to find their way back to the reality they once knew. He can’t give up, because somewhere out there, beyond the frightening new world, his new-born son is waiting for his Daddy’s return.
[Dark Apocalyptic Fantasy Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
The Darkslayer: Wrath of the Royals (#1 of 6) by Craig Halloran
Bish is the land of constant strife and turmoil. The rise and fall of the blazing suns make the days long and the people disagreeable. Its barren Outlands are as comforting as a bed of thorns as there is little sanctuary to be found in the sweltering forests or the dank caves below the ground. Its caviling cities are overrun with death, greed and corruption, but few complain. It is a place where tempers flare and alliances last as long as a tankard of ale. It is a place where the women are as beautiful as they are scarred and deranged. A place where good doesn’t thrive, it endures. It is the land of fight or die.
[Dark Epic Fantasy Novel – Amazon]
Faelorehn (The Otherworld Series #1) by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson
I never heard him come after me and even as I climbed the slope and stumbled onto our shaded back lawn, I didn’t look back. It was like the day the gnomes chased me all over again, but this time I was not escaping some horrible little creatures, I was fleeing from an incredibly good-looking guy who could very well understand me completely. I was either saving myself from that serial killer I always imagined lived down in the swamp, or I had finally gone over the deep end . . .
[Fairy Tale Novel – First of Series – Amazon]
The Girl In Between by Laekan Zea Kemp
Bryn Reyes is a real life sleeping beauty. Afflicted with Klein-Levin Syndrome, she suffers episodes of prolonged sleep that steal weeks, and sometimes even months, from her life. But unlike most KLS patients, she doesn’t spend each episode in a catatonic state or wake up with no recollection of the time she’s missed. Instead, Bryn spends half her life in an alternate reality made up of her memories. For Bryn, the past is a place, until one day a boy she’s never met before washes up on the illusory beach of her dreams with no memory of who he is.
But the appearance of this strange boy isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Bryn’s symptoms are worsening, her body weakening as she’s plagued by hallucinations even while awake. Her only hope of finding a cure is to undergo experimental treatment created by a German specialist. But when Dr. Banz reveals that he knows more about her strange symptoms than he originally let on, Bryn learns that the boy in her head might actually be the key to understanding what’s happening to her, and worse, that if she doesn’t find out his identity before it’s too late, they both may not survive.
[Young / New Adult Fantasy Novel – Amazon]
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: #191 – January 21, 2016
[Fantasy Magazine – MOBI, EPUB, PDF – Beneath Ceaseless Skies]
@Beneath Ceaseless Skies: #192 – February 04, 2016
[Fantasy Magazine – MOBI, EPUB, PDF – Beneath Ceaseless Skies]
Free eBooks – Horror
“The End of the Trail” by Louis Rakovich
A barren land of salt and snow; a castle where underground paths twist and turn in endless circles and a reclusive king has not shown his face in years; a forest where few things are what they seem. An unnamed hero must navigate through these places as he takes on the task of tracking down a supposed witch, in a story that blends dream and reality, rumor and truth, danger and hope.
[Horror Short Story – Amazon]