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

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Early in his promising career as a new writer of hard sf (and the promises have been more than kept), Larry Niven wrote this story of the first two men on Venus, though, since this was Venus as the latest planetary probes had shown it to be, so “on”… - BECALMED IN HELL by Larry Niven via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J2cHKk

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io WILL THE SPACE OCEAN HAVE GEMS? Let’s get Columbus out of the way first. But don’t worry, he’ll be back for a curtain call. via Pocket - WILL THE SPACE OCEAN HAVE GEMS by Hank Davis via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TDSAWZ

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Pete felt so bad about Tobur getting killed on his account, that Uncle Gunnar and Aunt Edith were afraid at first they’d have take him to a psychiatrist in Stellamont. But they finally talked him around. “It wasn’t your fault, Pete,” Uncle Gunnar sa… - The Green Thumb via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2J1L6sT

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io WE HAVE ALWAYS had our broken men, and I suppose we always shall. Nobody pays them any special heed. They are harmless, almost invisible, bits of wreckage that drift about until they sink from sight or the waves cast them ashore to lie among empty s… - Dereliction by Poul Anderson via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TxlE2D

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io “Why not?” he asked, suddenly wondering if this was going to be as much fun as he had thought. It had been a sort of disappointing trip from Sol, days and days locked inside the metal walls of the spaceship. via Pocket - The Acolytes via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TDT7rX

Lethe Press has been a consistent source of queer speculative fiction for more than a decade now, with an ever-expanding catalogue of writers from diverse and engaging backgrounds. In fact, some of…

When the seeds rained down from deep space, it may have been the first stage of an alien invasion—or something else entirely.

Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. 2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one l…

The Future is Female! is a historically-oriented anthology collecting sf written by women that spans from the early pulps to the cusp of the New Wave. All but one of the stories included were origi…

Galactic Derelict is another Andre Norton novel I almost-remember reading. I remember the opening, with a Norton Hero(TM) riding into a camp in the desert. I very vaguely remember that this iterati…

The language of the originators defines reality, every word warping the world to fit its meaning…

Being a Lady Astronaut means being twice as dedicated, and twice as good as everyone else. And sometimes, handling a test run that has turned deadly serious.

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Being a Lady Astronaut means being twice as dedicated, and twice as good as everyone else. And sometimes, handling a test run that has turned deadly serious. Mary Robinette Kowal visits an off-stage incident in her The Calculating Stars series. Sep.… Articulated Restraint | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EZTDbR

When I read Steel Magic, I wondered rather plaintively if Norton would (or could) give her girl character a less trammeled role in the next book. It’s true that Sara gets to be a cat, which is cool…

An excerpt from “Second Chances”, a chilling ghost story from Megan Lindholm.

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Lacking health insurance when he was diagnosed with cancer, Shawn Speakman asked friends in the science fiction and fantasy writing community to donate short stories he could use to counter mounting medical debt. via Pocket Read “Second Chances”, a Story from Megan Lindholm Featured in Unfettered III | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2tZMlyw

A powerful near future story about two people on a whale-processing rig: one a researcher, the other a worker—and the discovery they make by listening to whale song.

A woman in New York City finds herself doomed to perpetually celebrate her early-mid-life birthday, cycling through the same rote interactions with friends and searching for a way to escape the pat…

Everyone turns up for a car chase at the end of the world, and the cars won’t start. Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is a movie of exquisite direction, and I’m madly in love with…

Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divi…

The story of a freed slave and a robot professor, trying to figure out what it means to be in love while they watch old anime from the 21st century.

There is no single archetype of the female time traveler. She may be a young newlywed on her honeymoon, or a septuagenarian acting as a secret government weapon. She is black, or white, or from a f…