Stupefying Stories, Week 2
Continuing saga of FREE fiction from some of the best indie authors!
Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
If you missed last week’s fiction, or any of the stories this week, fret not, here’s the roundup with a one-line review for each story.
I’m telling you, if you don’t have ten minutes of time during breakfast, on break at work, before bed, on the loo, or any time at all, you are REALLY missing out.
Main Event
Here we are at the end of week two (well, Japan Time anyway) of Stupefying Stories’ glorious eight week run of free fiction. Here’s the round up!
Monday 7/10/23
"Red Boxes," by Matthew Castleman
What would you do if your AR vision started acting up, sending you strange ads and messages? “Red” this one twice. ;) Creepy near-future scifi.
Tuesday 7/11/23
"Strange Tractors," by Gustavo Bondoni
Oh, so you wanna harvest heavy metals on a planet of molten lava? Lava death if one of those irrational fears I have, and I don’t even live near a volcano. Sweated the whole read through.
Wednesday, 7/12/23
“Omiwatari,” by Patricia Miller
Pure magic. I loved this story. Perfect blend of far-future scifi, Japanese superstition, and mythology. Hats off to Ms. Miller.
Omiwatari for the Japanese language aficionados out there is 御神渡り. More info at Wikipedia.
Thursday, 7/13/23
“Shades of Journeys, Past and to Come,” by Jenna Hanchey
Short, bittersweet, magical. What is the “cost” of FTL startravel after fuel, time and memories have all been taken into account? Flash fiction.
Friday, 7/14/23
“The Vagaries of Losing and Finding,” by Travis Burnham
FANTASTIC world building! Excellent techo-fantasy short featuring societies living atop mechanical, flying dragons. Just read it. No description can do this short justice.
All links go live at 7AM US Central Time on the scheduled day of publication. All information provided by Mr. Bruce Bethke.
I hate to be a broken record, but I cannot stress enough that your support is super important. The “cost of a coffee” as they say, (how many coffees do most authors brag about drinking/needing to get their words on?) and you can help Mr. Bethke, one of science fiction’s most influential authors, continue his mission to honor his wife and his life in fiction. Or hell, don’t do it for him, do it for the authors HE PAYS to publish their work.
If you like the stories we’re publishing, subscribe today. We do Stupefying Stories out of pure love for genre fiction, but in publishing as in tennis, love means nothing. To keep Stupefying Stories going at this level we need to raise at least $500 USD monthly, and rather than doing so with pledge breaks or crowd-funding campaigns, we’d rather have subscribers. If just 100 people commit to just $5 monthly, we can keep going at this level indefinitely. If we raise more, we will pay our authors more.
Will continue to feature a roundup of new fiction each week!
We never meet without parting
Next issue... As promised, coming within the next couple of days, interview with Pallas author, Lisa Kuznak!
Until then!
Made in DNA
Thank you so much for the kind review. My father served in Japan and filled my head with stories while I was growing up. When I joined the US Navy, my primary goal was to get stationed in Japan, and I got to spend 18 months living there. Loved it! Miss it still…
I’ll be sure to pass your site along!
I'll be digging in today -- awesome roundup.