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Posts Tagged ‘free fiction’

Today, I wrote a 200-word story (a double drabble?) inspired by modern politics, and those who are willing to sacrifice everything for power.

The muted roar of the crowd echoed through the green room. He gave himself a final check in the mirror and checked for consensus updates. 

:: Tie too tight, one response said. 

He loosened the half Windsor.

:: Hair too perfect, another said.

A quick head toss fixed that.

:: Walk more like a gorilla.

What the hell was he supposed to do with that kind of feedback? He expanded his stance, arms bent at the elbow, and strutted side to side.

His reflection sighed. 

:: Accept all changes?

The button flashed green on his behavioral adjustment interface.

He stared at the screen. He used to enjoy this job. Before they promised him power. All he had to do was agree to a chip in his head and external control of his every move.

Was it worth it?

The crowd cheered his campaign’s warmup act. What a difference from the old days, when sincerely held speeches were met with yawns. Now all he had to do was read three-word slogans from the crowd-sourced teleprompter.

His wife said she didn’t even know him anymore. 

Was it worth it?

He stared at the screen. 

:: Accept all changes?

:: Yes / No?

— J.R. (Never Going Into Politics) Johnson

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Oh hey, I think I missed sharing this collection of free stories from Reactor Magazine. I haven’t read all of these but Reactor tends to have very high-quality fiction, and all for free free free! Check it out, browse, and enjoy. 

Some of the Best from Reactor: 2024 Edition!

The 2024 edition of Some of the Best From Reactor is out today! This bundle features just some of our favorites from the thirty-five original stories published on Reactor in the past year.

Of course, you can always read the selected stories—and all other Reactor stories—for free whenever you’d like! To make it even easier to catch up, we’ve gathered all our stories from 2024 in one convenient post.

Because life’s too short to read bad stories.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

― Philip Pullman

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Voting for the Mayor Who Promised to Blow Up the City Doesn’t Mean I Approve of the Mayor Blowing Up the City

by Mike Drucker

It’s so easy to label people these days. From the way folks have been talking, you’d think everyone falls into two buckets: those who voted against the mayor who promised to blow up the city and those who voted for the mayor who promised to blow up the city. And now that the mayor, whom I voted for, is blowing up the city, as he promised, I’m one of many people who are being unfairly blamed for something I didn’t want. Okay? I didn’t want the mayor to blow up the city like he mentioned many times; I just wanted him to fix the old bowling alley like he promised in passing once.

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Photo by Paul Engel on Unsplash

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Perhaps you remember me mentioning the submission call for this year’s Grist climate collection. Folks submitted (1200 of them!), editors did their editing thing, and now we have a brand new collection of free climate stories for 2025!

Here’s the full collection, including twelve new stories with the goal of looking “beyond the current moment to picture what could be.”

Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest: The 2025 collection – Grist

Welcome to the 2025 Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors collection. For four years, this contest has celebrated stories that invite us to imagine the future we want — futures in which climate solutions flourish and we all thrive. These stories have never pretended the path will be easy — some of the most compelling Imagine stories showcase the struggle as well as the successes — but they all offer the promise that through the transformative power of radical imagining, we can envision a better world and work toward making it our reality.

Yes, please!

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Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

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A fun short story from Andrew Jensen in Stupefying Stories:

“Chapter 7”

The display of Screwdrivers I was admiring wasn’t the problem. The talking alien was.

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Photo by Jonathan Martin Pisfil on Unsplash

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Do you need a post-election pick-me-up? Are you a fan of free fiction? This new online novella by Jessie Mihalik might be just the thing!

The Sorcerer Next Door

When a mysterious, well dressed new neighbor moves in next door, a potion witch’s life is about to get a lot more interesting.

A cozy, romantic story for fall.

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Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

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Read an Excerpt From Nnedi Okorafor’s She Who Knows

When there is a call, there is often a response.

Najeeba knows.

She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village.

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Photo by Manav Jain on Unsplash

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This lovely story from Eleanor R. Wood on Flash Fiction Online is just what I needed to brighten my day.

I hope it cheers you too.

Fibonacci

One sample of DNA.

One chance to prove herself and silence her peers.

And if you’d like to know more about some of the science behind the story, check out these links.

Nautilus

What’s special about the shape of a Nautilus shell? Find out.

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Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

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Scott Lynch is the author of a favorite series, The Gentleman Bastard (start with The Lies of Locke Lamora). His writing is crisp, clear, and clever, but not what I’d call copious. So imagine how pleased I was when a notification popped up in my inbox, letting me know that he has a short story out. Even better, it’s part of a free multi-author newsletter dedicated to sharing science fiction and fantasy every Sunday: The Sunday Morning Transport.

Here’s the story. If you’d like more weekly fiction, subscribe at the link above.

Selected Scenes from the Ecologies of the Labyrinth by Scott Lynch

Akayla Sethrys’s boot hits the door just below the lock.

She’s been kicking these things in for eight or nine years now and she knows where to put her emphasis. She favors a pair of bespoke basilisk leather and steel sabatons for this purpose; today some additional luck is with her in the form of rotten wood. Jagged wet splinters fly as the broken door slams inward, peeling out of its frame. Another dungeon chamber breached.

“Onward!” cries Sethrys, crouched over her shield, blade up for quick thrusts past the rim.

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Photo by James Wood on Unsplash

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of animal crossings as one way we can be kind to the other creatures with which we share this world, I decided to resurface a post from last year:

We Are Mirrors | J.R. Johnson

I came from the stars to meet you. I was happy. Excited, even. First contact with your verdant world. Think of all that we could share with you.

“You” could have meant a lot of things. I started with one of the most populous. An insect.

Go forth, and be kind.

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Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash

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