"Maison tournante aérienne", Albert Robida, 1883

'Maison tournante aérienne', Albert Robida, 1883

Welcome to the second Libertas in Silico. This series briefly reviews recent free online science fiction and fantasy stories. I’ve got a particular interest in overtly speculative pieces, but personal genre preferences aside, this week’s Top Pick stands as testament to my belief that great stories will out — even to partisans such as myself.

Got a dissenting view (or any view) of your own on these stories? Leave a comment; I’d love to hear from you.

After all, comment is free… and so are these stories.
 

 
TOP PICK!

PodCastle: This week’s story, “Grand Guignol”, by Andy Duncan, is the macabre and utterly beautiful story of a actual 1920s Parisien theatre which specialised in realistic, gory productions with plots gleaned from the exploits of madmen. It was originally published in Weird Tales. This story is astonishingly good: to my mind, “Grand Guignol” is the one of the very best to emerge from either PodCastle or Escape Pod. I found a kind of sublimity in the experience of listening to this tale, not least thanks to the marvellous, numb-lipped timbre of the voice of narrator Frank Key.

This is not fantasy, horror, or even speculative fiction, but I was glad of it. I actually realised, part way through, that I was dreading the eventual fantastic twist. Thankfully, it never came. I listened a second, enraptured time to enjoy “Grand Guignol” in the absence of that anxiety. Whatever your fictional persuasions, listen to this story.
 

 
‘Zines:

  • Subterranean Magazine: Novelette “Mirror of Fiery Brightness”, by Chris Roberson, is thickly layered with an alternative history of the Americas and stuffed with many a riddle for the amateur geographer or geopolitics enthusiast. I found the plot rewarding in the end (if a mite predictable) but it didn’t have me entirely convinced along the way.
  • Weird Tales: the complete July/August issue as a PDF! I might try to cover some of the stories in forthcoming posts.

 

 
E-Books:

 

 
Podcasts:

  • Well Told Tales: The serialised podnovel/podplay I Killed Awesome Man, written and produced by Finn Colgan, is made of awesome! Its pulpy goodness goes down pretty smooth, though the episode 1 cameo by Mur Lafferty did stick in my teeth, which is a shame because it would have worked well if not for the intrusive and repeated references to her recent podcast-to-print novel (Colgan’s idea, not Lafferty’s, according to comments on the post). Seems they sorted that one out, though, because episodes 2 and 3 were just great fun. Voices by Norm Sherman, Steve Anderson and others all hit the right notes. Episode 4 is due 30 October, and each is only 10-15 minutes long so you’ve got more than enough time to catch up.
  • Clonepod: “Old Folk’s Home”, by John Kratman, read by Bruce McDonald. If stuff happening in space thrills you, you’ll get your fill. For me, the title says it all.
  • The Drabblecast: Main feature “Half-Sneeze Johnny”, by Kurt Kirchmeier, has a gritty style and a the kind of twist that only seems obvious after the fact — the only kind of twist that most stories can still hope to pull off, I guess. I have a soft spot for stories about people who are reluctant to sneeze in public.
  • Weird Tales: J.M. McDermott launches Weird Tales new “One-Minute Weird Tales” series with the short-short-short story-as-slideshow, “The Botanist’s Wife”. The kind of story I like to read again, backwards.

 

 
And finally… I’m not yet sure what Hooting Yard is, exactly (other than a website and podcast from the exemplary Frank Key), but it’s some kind of wonderful.
 

Back to No. 1 Libertas in Silico, No. 2 (No. 3 soon)

 
Creative Commons LicenseThis work by Benjamin Carnys is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.