Fictional Worlds

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io  “Granma?” Sarah said, running into the cluttered living room. “Ronnie says Old Man Klunder isn’t real! Tell him he’s real! Tell him, Gran!” Virginia Hanning removed her glasses and set down her sewing as the children charged into the room. via Pock… - Starry, Starry Night — John Ringo via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NT53ko

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io In the midst of writing my first Imaro stories back in the early 1970s, I made an ambitious effort to write a novel about the warrior’s mother, Katisa. via Pocket - KATISA via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EZAFBT

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io I guess it’s fitting, in an ironic way, that the shortest story in this volume is another one about Pomphis. Like “The Blacksmith and the Bambuti,” this tale takes place in the time before Pomphis met Imaro. via Pocket - POMPHIS AND THE POOR MAN via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NV54Ev

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Other than Imaro and Dossouye, Pomphis is my favorite character. At the time Imaro first began taking shape in my imagination, Pomphis was there, too. The idea of an outsized warrior like Imaro teaming up with a pygmy intrigued me. via Pocket - THE BLACKSMITH AND THE BAMBUTI via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2F0ufTi

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io IN THE DARKNESS of space two ships fought against a dozen. via Pocket - Orphans by Christopher Stasheff via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NV533p

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io THE MERCHANTMAN JABBED at the marauder with a spear of light—but the smaller ship leaped aside, almost seeming to disappear and reappear. The huge Terran vessel jabbed again, this time with its rear cannon, but the tiny marauder danced away, mocking… - Pirates by Christopher Stasheff via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EZ6QBu

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Back | NextContents “THEY BROUGHT THEIR slaves with them, eh?” “Yes, sir—from a dozen different species, at least.” Major Dromio laid a stack of reconnaissance pictures on the desk in front of Admiral Vancouver. “Our Khalia have been busy boys. via … - Civilians by Christopher Stasheff via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NV50of

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The Ritter Karl von Obersberg scraped some of the horse dung off his feet as he entered the village inn. Not that it would make much difference—the common room looked no better than the stable where he'd put his horses. via Pocket - CONSTANT NEVER via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EZAzKx

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Mentor smiled slightly, almost seeming to enjoy the godling's discomfort. After a pause that was several seconds longer than needed, he nodded. Again Mentor nodded. Then he spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "You are young. We all were once… - OLD GODS AND NEW via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NV4YwD

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Tek arose out of the sand of the nearly endless desert that is the furthest boundary of form for Valhalla and Olympus. The exact location, paradoxically, was near one edge of the infinite ethereal plane. Such concerns of physics and geography were b… - BIRTH via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2F0qsoV

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io In the desert the Leader waited. He followed the laws of Allah, but he had seen the power of the desert spirits. Once more he was there to ask their aid. This made him very uncomfortable, but he had no choice. His nation was destitute. via Pocket - HEROES via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NUSRPW

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Shang-Ti rested in his great golden throne. His eyes were closed, his breath came and went like the ocean's tide, but he did not sleep. via Pocket - GORDON'S QUEST by Christopher Stasheff via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EZAwyl

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io “AWWWK! Frag the lieutenant! Frag the lieutenant! Arawwk!” The bird’s noise pierced the steamy midday air. In the tense silence that followed, Charlie Poindexter knew he was in trouble. “Quiet, Archy! Quiet!” he whispered. via Pocket

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io SANGER was the commando’s point man this morning. Twenty meters beyond the abandoned farmhouse, he walked into a Gerin killzone. Coils in each helmet cooled the trooper’s head and approximately half his blood supply, the next -best thing to total en…

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io THE KZIN LABELED “Gopher” used his ample time to think. Mostly he thought about the monkeys around him—their strange habits, their honorless deeds, their impenetrable contradictions. via Pocket

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io ONE YEAR after liberation music played in Munchen, upbeat melodies with a resounding sadness. Musicians with old instruments from the old world—mandolins, dulcimers, zithers—performed to knots of people on corners and across the stoops of the former…

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io WHEN COLONEL TOWNE entered her office, Captain Billings rose and saluted. Towne didn’t seem intimidated as she returned the salute. “At ease, captain.” Billings relaxed. Standing at attention always worried him that he might come across as aggressiv… - SINGER-OF-TRUTH via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TDaDwC

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io THE TRADING POST was located on the satellite of a remote dwarf star. It was well defended with a Jotok garrison. That was a condition which those who the humans would one day call Puppeteers had imposed when it had been built several centuries befo… - SALES PITCH via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J4BP3p

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Back | NextContents “RUN, HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, run!” screamed Faun, waking English from his straw pallet in the stables, where the horses were snorting and squealing and kicking their stall boards. For a moment longer, English’s mind insisted he was … - The Collaborator by Janet Morris via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TEKzRF

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io THEY MET AS total strangers. The meeting brought one fame, the other infamy. The outcome was the loss of countless lives. This is the tale of how it started. via Pocket - The Two That It Took by John Brunner via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J1HUxr

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Pinlighting is a hell of a way to earn a living. Underhill was furious as he closed the door behind himself. It didn't make much sense to wear a uniform and look like a soldier if people didn't appreciate what you did. via Pocket - The Game of Rat and Dragon by Cordwainer Smith via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TLDEGE

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io "Issiot! Ffool! Lushsh!" hissed the cat and bit Spar somewhere. via Pocket - Ship of Shadows by Fritz Leiber via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J4Ji2o

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Bill Wheeler was, as it happened, looking out of the window of his bachelor apartment on the fifth floor on the corner of 83rd Street and Central Park West when the spaceship from Somewhere landed. via Pocket - Mouse by Fredric Brown via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TyuGfN

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io BRANT EMERSON floated in the dark, attached by a tether to his fighter, Banshee III. He had been working for hours with an arc welder just aft of the command module and needed a break. via Pocket - ODD MAN OUT BY DAVID A. CHERRY via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J4TV55

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io AIRBOYS had it easy, Russ thought. He did not have much time to think this, because he and their ship, the Asskicker II, were falling pretty nearly straight down onto the Ganymede ice fields. Philosophy would have to come later. If ever. But atmosph… - DREAD MOON BY GREGORY BENFORD via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TFO0rb

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io When one of your oldest friends invites you to watch a football game with him, it’s usually a very pleasant gesture. via Pocket - Coach by Mike Resnick via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Cohh03

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The immersive view of the rugged mountainside vanished as a white wave of snow and ice swept over them, experienced real time by thousands of spectator-participants worldwide—armchair mountaineers, tourists, schoolchildren. And Francesca. via Pocket - The Next Best Thing to Being There by Kevin J. Anderson via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Uwagkv

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io It had been a very near thing. Alexander Jones spent several minutes enjoying the simple pleasure of still being alive. Then he looked around. via Pocket - THE SHERIFF OF CANYON GULCH via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2C80Lkz

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The first robot in the world came walking over green hills with sunlight aflash off his polished metal hide. via Pocket - Quixote and the Windmill via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2UpWoIM

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io “What?” Bardie Makem looked up from the Jefferson militiaman who had bled to death. She wondered why the corps-mech couldn’t read its own monitors. Except that it was supposed to return any remains. Families always preferred to know their relatives … - A Sleeping Humpty Dumpty Beauty by Anne McCaffrey via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TDTa77