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Free anthology of quality sci-fi & fantasy
Detective thrillers, political satire, family drama, fables, fable deconstructions, the mysteries of debugging: there’s something in this anthology for every fan. Contains nine original stories and five original artworks.
We found awesome fiction, bought it, and released it online under a Creative Commons license. We learned a lot, so the appendix, “How To Do This And Why,” has submission/rejection statistics, our budget, and some behind-the-scenes musings on process, supply and demand.
Some excerpts from the stories that got us over four stars on GoodReads:
Day-to-day life with a sponge golem was pleasant.
-“Daisy” by Andrew Willett (audio version)
Anyone who’d ever seen the Martian Ambassador would recognize it, the way he wielded it like his staff of office.
I frowned at Seeth. “So how does the Ambassador’s staff wind up broken on a street in the Crops, when the Ambassador is dying peacefully in his hotel room?”
“I guess that’s what I need you to find out.”
-“The Ambassador’s Staff” by Sherry D. Ramsey
Sarita kept feeding her, one bite after another. “You were the one who insisted on breast-feeding. Joshua and I would have been fine using formula. They’ve duplicated the ingredients found in breast milk, you know. Perfected it two decades ago.”
“It’s not the same,” Kate insisted. “I can’t prove it, but I’m sure it isn’t.”
-“Jump Space” by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Xanathan Kurtler didn’t die because of greed. Not his own, anyway. It wasn’t greed that made him plant those trees.
-“Goldenseed” by Therese Arkenberg
The technically proficient could breach the best software security systems by deliberately inducing errors in the hardware. Couldn’t the rational induce faith in themselves the same way?
-“Single-Bit Error” by Ken Liu
The crack of leather that followed hurt more than my own whipping.
You might think we’d never be dumb enough to eat Jilly Jallys again.
-“Friar Garden, Mister Samuel, and the Jilly Jally Butter Mints” by Carole Lanham
Those and more, available as HTML, PDF or print-on-demand physical book. Plus mobile editions:
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Sue Lange again engages the mind as she entertains the senses through Uncategorized (publ: BookViewCafe.com), a collection of randomly genius short stories. Re-defining the aspect of “Theater of the Mind,” this progressive sci-fi author takes advantage of new multi-media tools that technology affords the modern reader. In this, her latest book, the short story meets old-time radio buckled up in a time machine and blasted into the future. In this thought-provoking collection, Lange grabs the reader with an “audio download” and segues into her eclectic set of short stories with the aggressive delivery of a beat poet and the timing of a stand-up comedian. Her Uncategorized readers are certain to be a good crowd, for they will find themselves laughing out loud and at the same time nodding in agreement. You can find Lange at her website.
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Zombies have invaded the U.S., but one political party is hoping to promote brotherly love. A young girl sells nice dreams for a nickel, but be sure to read the fine print. Gorillas teach kindergarten, or deliver unexpected refrigerators. Magical gypsies deliver predictions that have uncomfortable ways of coming true. People unhappy with their own lives can enjoy someone else’s past for a cheap price…but be careful of the sudden ending. In the land of the novel-writers, poets beware.
From zombies to space aliens to fortune-telling gypsies to ancient and magical statues, author Michael Kechula delivers 71 complete stories of speculative fiction. Kechula has become a leader in ‘flash fiction,’ super-short stories that contain characters, dialogue, and a complete plot, all within a very small number of words. In THE AREA 51 OPTION AND 70 MORE TALES OF SPECULATIVE FICTION, Kechula shows why he’s been so successful.
For its first month of availability (until October 18, 2009), this complete collection is available for only $1.00 directly from the publisher. After October 18, it’ll be available at its regular price of only $3.99. (Multiple eBook formats).
$3.99 (but only $1.00 until October 18)
187 pages
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Eva thought she could outrun the plagues, but she was wrong. The bio-hackers that ripped the world raw are targeting her hometown of Prague, and this time there may be no escaping it.
Now, hunted by police who think she’s a hacker herself, Eva must brave the rotting city streets to find her mother before it’s too late. But with a ruthless agent known as a “Healer” on the prowl, it may only be a matter of time before Eva becomes another victim of his blood-soaked carnage.
In this snowy, ash-strewn apocalypse, Eva’s greatest fear is this new threat may not be coincidence at all… it may be personal.
“A gripping, scary viruscore tale.”
— io9.com
“MCM is one of the most unique voices working in SciFi today.”
— Martin Gero, Producer, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe
(6 votes, average: 6.00 out of 10)
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.tech is a free e-book of poetry about technology, artificial intelligence, video games, and computers. Several of the poems are actually composed in programming languages and can actually be run.
The poems discuss a digital mindscape, telling a story of how technology affects many aspects of our lives, both in fantasy and reality.
The book is published free on scribd. A stylized audio version of one of the poems, building can be found on my blog. building is about how assembling a computer and bringing it to life resembles an act of mystic creation.
(1 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)
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Nano Wars is a techno-thriller of a world unknowingly gripped in conflict by the emergence of dark uses of nano technology and the amazing nano based devices and weaponry it brought with it, a new era of hybrid soldiers and warfare. Nano Technology had been introduced into society with much fanfare, specifically in the medical field and had generated new levels of investments in medical companies utilizing such technology based procedures. However, as the nano based procedures were made available, their costs proved to be too costly for the masses. This caused a tremendous tremor in nano companies as they scrambled to reinvent themselves or close operations. This tremor caused a severe crack in morality, out of which was born a new form of espionage and warfare. Any force armed with this technology is invisible to their enemy, able to kill hundreds, thousands, in seconds and can penetrate any facility at will. The problem, this technology was introduced by the wrong side and it is DATIS’s job to recreate itself, fast. DATIS is scrambling to meet this challenge by creating a new hybrid army molded out of new soldier classifications and weapons, but time is short and the world is hanging in the balance.
(1 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)
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In an alternate present the minds of teen offenders are uploaded into computers for rehabilitation—a form of virtual wilderness therapy. Zach is a homo cognoscens, one of the new humans who can navigate the Fulgrid. Though still a high school student, he is indentured to the Fulgur Corporation as a counsellor. Laura is a homo sapiens. Their story is part odyssey, part tragedy, part riff on the nature of consciousness.
The novel is being serialised in weekly instalments, a chapter each Friday. Podcasts (audiobook) are also available, read by the Welsh actor Ioan Hefin.
(9 votes, average: 7.67 out of 10)
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Set three thousand years in the future, at a time when spaceships travel between the worlds with the help of “webbers.”
Human worlds are organised in two empires – the “Old Empire” and the “New Empire” – and each of the two emperors is immortal. The two emperors have each signed an oath to respect the interests of the guild of Webbers which is seen as central to keeping the peace between the worlds.
In place of a single commanding officer, ships are run by a trirumvirate or “Three.” At the start of the book, the patrol ship Bhattya needs a new first officer. Commanda Rallya and her two colleages who make up Bhattya’s “Three” decide to offer the post to Rafe, a brilliant webber who looks twenty five, and believes himself to be thirty, but has had his memory erased on defecting from the New Empire to the old one.
As the Bhattya gets caught up in events which appear to threaten the stability of the galaxy it becomes very clear that there is something very unusual about Rafe. He is every bit as talented as Rallaya and her colleages had hoped, but his background seems to be very mysterious – and hint at an age rather greater than the 25 which his physical condition suggests or the 30 which he admits to. And whatever his past is, both of the two emperors are taking a close personal interest in him. Who or what is Rafe – and why is he so important ?
I really liked this book and am surprised that it didn’t become a bestseller. Good for a try if you want to read a science fiction book which is a bit different from the usual run.
By Marshall Lord, Amazon.com
(2 votes, average: 9.50 out of 10)
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Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The “New Pretties” are then free to play and party, while the younger “Uglies” look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable — and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society — the Rusties — visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) –Patty Campbell, Amazon.com Review.
(1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
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Ghost is possibly the best bounty hunter in the universe and he always gets the job done. At least, that’s the reputation that he rides on. When the DAP employ him to track down and capture a rogue Magicker that’s running across the galaxy killing anyone that gets in his way, Ghost realises that this is a job that could cost him his reputation. It’s also a job that could cost him his sanity.
This is the first Ghost Of The Black novella from RealmShift and MageSign author Alan Baxter. Further novellas in the series are forthcoming.
(3 votes, average: 8.67 out of 10)
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In this serialized adventure, John Smith is introduced as an amnesiac on the battlefields of France during the Great War. Quickly realizing that he is more than he seems, John travels through a mysterious portal to a parallel Earth, one locked in an ice age. Still coming to grips with his strange abilities, John meets friend and foe alike as he explores this new world.
This is a compilation of the first five parts and is free as part of a summer promotion at Smashwords.
Warning: Don’t read this if you are looking for something written at an 8th grade level. This story is written purposefully in an archaic and more flowery style than is common these days. It’s an adventure, but a descriptive one.
A good book with a very interesting story. I really enjoyed it and found only one small flaw. A few times the author uses language that seems too formal. It seems as though the author is used to writing and reading masters level material and the wording doesn’t fit with the story sometimes. But maybe thats just me reacting to the use of the word “Irregardless” which is a word I hate with a passion. LOL
– Rivo
A Smashwords top 5 download!
(1 votes, average: 10.00 out of 10)
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The seven billion people of the Clarke Belt Cities are desperately seeking ways to return to their homes on the ground, after being stranded in Geostationary Earth Orbit by the cutting down of their centrifugally-supported space escalator by which they had temporarily migrated to cities built up there, to live in while the Earth’s ecosystem was being cleansed and jump-started back to a long-term viable condition again. Now, how can they get back down? “It’s Down To Earth” is a science fiction novel in a series by Jim Cline about efforts to rejuvenate the planet by gaining high efficiency electrical lift access to high earth orbital space resources of constant solar energy, total recycling of toxic materials, high level rocket launch facilities, and plenty of room to live; all made possible by building various space access hoop structures electro-dynamically supported by kinetic energy stored circulating within themselves.
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I don’t expect you to believe this story, but it is the truth. My name is Alexander Ashton….
Mysteriously Transported to the artificial world of Ecos, Earth man Alexander Ashton struggles to understand the society of his new friends, the humanoid Amatharians. As he does so, he finds himself falling in love with their princess and being thrust into a millennium-long war with their mortal foes the reptilian Zoasians. As Alexander crosses the endless landscape of a fantastic hollow world to rescue the woman he loves but does not know, he encounters alien life forms and strange cultures, bizarre monsters and ancient ruins that point to the mystery of the artificial world.
She drew her long sword and I followed suit. We nodded respectfully to one another. Then with a skill and speed born of battle, Vena Remontar charged at me, bringing her blade down directly toward my face. I raised my own to block the stroke, and just as quickly she swung two more blows. The only thing I could do was take the offensive, so as I blocked the third blow, I swung my weapon on around in a great arc toward her side. The woman was off balance from her attack, so the only way she could block the arc of weapon, was to turn her back on me, and swing her blade outward to meet mine. I expected that this would offer me a chance to attack her back, but it didn’t. As soon as she had done so, she tucked and rolled forward, spinning as she rose to face me. This was a brilliant maneuver and would have put several yards between us, but I wasn’t ready to let up. Using my gravity-enhanced strength, I jumped forward, almost landing on top of her. Vena Remontar thrust quickly several times. I blocked those attacks and countered.
Princess of Amathar is a sword-swinging novel of high adventure in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
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The newest novel set in the Star Rigger Universe, ETERNITY’S END features the search for the legendary ghost rigger ship Impris and her crew, whose fate is entwined with interstellar piracy, quantum defects in spacetime, galactic coverup conspiracies, and deep-cyber romance.
“It’s onward with [a] one-man Light Brigade, straight into the jaws of doom and destiny. He finds true love, cognitive dissonance, divisions among the enemy, ambitious schemes, another mission–this one deeper than anyone has ever gone before into the substrata of the Flux–and a final resolution that leaves the reader both breathless and satisfied.” –Analog
“A galactic epic that’s much more than space opera, filled with both drama and bold ideas. Who would have thought a futuristic pirate story could be so original and smart?” –David Brin, author of The Uplift War
I was pulled into *Eternity’s End* by the notion of a Flying Dutchman spaceship, and found so much more than I expected. I just loved this book. The Flux and the Flux interface fascinate me. Carver pulls off the admirable feat of making something illusory, subjective, and “virtual” feel utterly real and yet profoundly unknowable–he vividly describes what is essentially indescribable. The frisson of the unknown grows persistently more eerie the deeper the characters go. I loved the Narseil, and the process of getting to know them through Legroeder’s eyes (and especially the mild estrangement from human culture that I felt at one point, making me realize how immersed we’d gotten in Narseil culture). I enjoyed the heck out of the pirates and the cyber enhancements. The opening chase scene is only the beginning of a wild roller-coaster ride–you get a breath to look around now and then and ponder some intriguing new information, and then the author throws the next twist at you and you’re off again. There are “silent running” scenes with all the tense appeal of the best submarine adventures, and exhilarating dogfights, and character interactions fraught with intense and complex psychology. This is topnotch space adventure and an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but it works on many deeper levels, too. I am dying to read a sequel. Please write one, Jeffrey Carver!
– gofalus, Amazon.com
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Mike Smith’s life was crap, living all alone, years after his wife had died and his children had grown up and moved away. Then he saw the commercial for the Daffodil. Far more than other robots, the Daffodil could become anything and everything he wanted it to be. Mike’s life is about to change.
From the author of “Princess of Amathar comes the tale of the year 2032, when robots are common… not to mention, cute.
Folding back the two flaps of the box lid, Mike looked down to find it filled with packing peanuts. Brushing some of them out of the way, he almost immediately found a patch of smooth white skin. It was remarkably real looking—pearlescent on the surface and kind of peachy pink beneath, but not a single blemish or mole or hair upon it. Mike brushed more packing peanuts out onto the floor and uncovered more skin, and then plastic with black hair inside. Finally, setting the knife on the coffee table, he tipped the box over, dumping the contents into the center of the floor. White packing went everywhere. The Daffodil rolled out and came to rest on its side, facing away from him. It was curled up tightly into a ball.
At first, Mike thought he must have ordered the wrong robot. Curled up as it was, it looked like a child. He just stared at it for a moment; at its naked back and buttocks and its black hair wrapped up in plastic. Finally he kicked around through the packing peanuts. There didn’t seem to be a manual—just a single sheet of paper marked “Quick Setup”. He picked it up and looked at it. There were two pictures and no words. The first picture showed line drawing of the back of a human-looking neck, except that the neck had three round holes in it and below them a button. The second picture showed the button being pushed by a line-drawn finger. Next to the button and the finger were the numerals 1, 2, 3. Bending down, Mike lifted up the plastic wrapped hair and examined the Daffodil’s neck. There were the three holes and there was the button. He pressed it and counted aloud “one, two, three”. Then he let go.
(6 votes, average: 6.83 out of 10)
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A young woman appears at an observatory warning of a catastrophic meteor shower coming in four years. Will anyone believe her? Of course not, especially not if she insisted she was from a distant solar system. But the U.S. government has evidence that she really is, and pursues her with all the resources it has. Terrified and on the run, she must find a way to have her warning taken seriously or die along with millions of others. Making some unusual friends while evading her hunters, she puts together an audacious plan to force people to pay attention. But even if it were to work, will anyone believe the truth about her?
Is it really? The Fifth Kind is supposed to denote communication with an alien. The Barbie doll who plays the lead in this screenplay waiting to happen is not actually an alien being. She is a human from another planet, and she does one helluva job at communicating! Remember the wonderful magic you felt the first time you saw Spielberg’s Close Encounters? Literary author Al Past makes us feel that way again. You will fall in love with an alien all over again, just like you did when you met E.T. The author of Distant Cousin takes you to one of those places we all seek when we encounter a delightful, memorable novel like this one. Mr. Past shows us the majestic beauty of the mountains near Alpine, TX, and he takes us for an exciting ride to other locales both inside and outside the U.S., but those are merely logistical issues that complement the plot. The real story is found in that magical, mysterious place within our hearts.
Romance fans will enjoy this book as much as SciFi bugs. The storyline never encourages you to get out the hankies or bores you with technical mumbo-jumbo. It just blasts along the highway of your first big love affair. Like that affair, you may find a few bumps in the road in the form of grammatical typos, but I assure you they will never give you a flat tire! The characters and plotlines are all first-rate. There isn’t a single wasted page or a single slow spot that you just have to wade through to get back to the good part. You will love the lead characters so much that you will be casting in your head for the Spielberg movie long before the end. Don’t worry about there never being a sequel: it’s already out. This is quite a book. When do we get to see the movie?
– Floyd M. Orr, Amazon.com
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