Free fiction: Arthur Clarke's "Superiority", plus Eric Frank Russell, Murray Leinster, & Keith Laumer

4 old stories at Webscription, 3 of them among the most famous of science fiction: Keith Laumer's "Field Test" (download), Eric Frank Russell's "Allamagoosa" (download), Murray Leinster's "Exploration Team" (download), & Arthur Clarke's "Superiority" (download).

Two of these are among the very best of science fiction: "Superiority" & "Allamagoosa". Former is very hard to find online, & has so far been available only to US readers via Google Books. Later has been online a long time at scifi.com, but has been going on/off since they switched domain to syfy.com.

"Exploration Team" is the other very well known story.

[via Free Speculative Fiction Online]

Free fiction: Keith Laumer's "Retief!" (collection): 17 stories, including a novel

This is the first of a series of may be 3 or 4 posts. I seem to have bookmarked but not posted a lot of free fiction links during last the 3 weeks.

Free SF Reader links Keith Laumer's collection Retief! at Webscription (I haven't yet read any story):

1. "Aide Memoire"; download; If, July, 1962.
2. "The Brass God" aka "Retief, God-Speaker"; download; If, January 1965.
3. "The Castle of Light"; download; If, October 1964.
4. "Courier" aka "The Frozen Planet"; download; If, September 1961.
5. "Cultural Exchange"; download; If, September, 1962.
6. "Diplomat-at-Arms"; download; Fantastic, January 1960.
7. "Native Intelligence" aka "The Governor of Glave"; download; If, November, 1963.
8. "Palace Revolution" aka "Gambler's World"; download; If, November, 1961.
9. "Policy" aka "The Madman From Earth"; download; If, March, 1962.
10. "The Prince and the Pirate"; download; If, August, 1964.
11. "Protest Note" aka "The Desert and the Stars"; download; If, November, 1962.
12. "Protocol" aka "The Yllian Way"; download; If, January, 1962.
13. [novel] "Retief's War"; download; serialized in If, October-December 1965, and published in novel form by Doubleday in 1966.
14. "Saline Solution"; download; If, March, 1963.
15. "Sealed Orders" aka "Retief of Red-Tape Mountain"; download; If, February, 1962.
16. "Ultimatum" aka "Mightiest Qorn"; download; If, November, 1961.
17. "Wicker Wonderland" aka "The City That Grew in the Sea"; download; If, March, 1964.

Related: Stories of Keith Laumer.

67 online stories: Tor, Keith Laumer collection, & 2 Indian ezines (Indian Science Fiction & Fantasy, & The Scientific Indian)

I've not read any from the list below, & in fact hadn't even heard of any author except Laumer, Scalzi, & Stross. So no comments on quality.

Tor's much talked about new site is live in a blog format with a stories-only feed, plus two stories already: John Scalzi's "After the Coup", & Charles Stross' "Down on the Farm".
Bug: Clicking the link of items in stories-only feed gives 404 error! Not sure if this also happens with their master feed. So it's useful only to get notifications when new stories are up; then go hunt on their site!

Free SF Reader linked Keith Laumer's collection "The Lighter Side" a week back. 10 stories, all online.

"Indian Science Fiction & Fantasy" appears to be a relic of dot com era, & has been long dead. But its archives still contain 47 original stories in English - all by Indian authors.

"The Scientific Indian" is run by an Indian in England. It has a stories-only feed, infrequently gets new story updates, & currently has 8 stories in archives. All stories are by Indian authors.

Keith Laumer's "The Last Command" (short story, science fiction, thriller, free): A monster of a war machine is on the loose

Beats a Bond movie any day. In my book, at least. Gripping story. Note there is also an unrelated Arthur Clarke story of this title.

I'm wondering if Elizabeth Bear's "Tideline" that has been much in news this year because of award nominations takes its robot tank idea from this older story. But the two stories are very different, & Bear's version is way too soft compared to the machine here.

There was a Hollywood movie I cannot recollect the name of. Giant beasts, or insects, moving underground. Emerge at surface at will & terrorize everyone. A part of this story is may be a more plausible version of it.

Story summary.

A war fought with massive, powerful & competent nuclear-powered robotic combat machines. Eventually the war ends, some of the fighting units are decommissioned, along with most of these machines. Machines are incapacitated, disarmed, & buried deep underground in massive concrete bunkers.

70 years have passed. Everyone has forgotten about the war & the war machines' burial ground. A spaceport is coming up at the site of the burial ground. Months into the project, some blasting of the project has done something inadvertent: stirred "Lenny" aka a Bolo Mark XXVIII Combat Unit, once of Dinochrome Brigade, into life in its underground tomb! It's mostly dead, batteries gone, & very low reserve batteries. We are about to witness the ruin this near dead machine can wreck!

Machine doesn't know the war is over. It's trying to contact its comrades & commander - no luck. So it's now all alone, & must still do its war duty to the best of its ability!

Lot of horror above surface as it digs its way through the ground - sort of a small moving earthquake. Nothing is able to injure it - let alone stop it, not even the military bombing that comes later in the story. And it's headed towards a mall in the nearby city - thinking it is an Enemy deception!

Acting Brigade Commander of Lenny's unit, Lieutenant Sanders, is now an old man, & is seeing the drama on TV. He will finally stop the machine.

Collected in.

1. David Drake, Jim Baen, & Eric Flint (Ed)'s "The World Turned Upside Down".

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, January 1967.
Rating: A
Download full text.

Some online stories of Murray Leinster & Keith Laumer

I just became aware of online MP3 versions of Murry Leinster's "First Contact" (download) & "A Logic Named Joe" (download). They probably have been around a while, but I didn't know that.

"First Contact" is not only a first rate story, but one that is said to have introduced the word "first contact" into the language of sf in the sense of human/alien first contact; in fact, according to Wikipedia, Leinster's heirs unsuccessfully sued Paramount Pictures for use of these words in the title of the movie "Star Trek: First Contact".

According to Wikipedia, "A Logic Named Joe" 'contains one of the first descriptions of a computer ... in fiction. In the story, Leinster was decades ahead of his time in imagining the Internet. He envisioned logics in every home, linked through a distributed system of servers..., to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and commerce'. I haven't read this story.

And Free SF Reader linked the online collection of Keith Laumer stories titled "A Plague of Demons" (compiled by Eric Flint) today. It includes a full length novel, plus many shorter works. I've not read any of these stories. My experience with Laumer is restricted to "The Last Command" (my post on this fantastic story follows in a few minutes).