Free Science Fiction and Fantasy For You to Read
I have serials, a novella, a short story and flash fiction up for you to read for free besides what is behind the paywall on Substack and on Ream Stories. Most of these link will be Substack links
I Took a Walk is a science fiction Novella almost a short story, that I wrote 30+ years ago that was submitted to a magazine and rejected. I just fixed some of the spelling, broke it into short episodes and published it a couple of years back. It is my early attempt at what might go wrong with technology that lets you walk through walls if you get in a rush and don’t take the precautions that you should.
I Have drafted a number of different stories set in my Kara universe, but only one of them, Renegade on Kara: The Great Basin(you can get it on the site under store), has been published so far. But this is the original story that began all that world building and drafting of different stories. Set more than 3,000 years from now, old age and war are both things of the ancient past. Mankind has colonized over a million worlds, though most do not have much population. FTL relies on jumping from our universe into another, then back into ours in a different place, so you can go anywhere in any galaxy just as fast as any other and for the same energy. There are only two other universes used for that, as all others have incompatible laws of physics with ours, and jumping to them will kill you. Then a fourth universe that humans can survive in is discovered. The laws of physics in that is almost incompatible with life but not quite. They are incompatible with most of our technology. It is an ancient and artificially created universe, consisting of a planet of infinite radius, and since none of the advance machines will work there, no robot probes are possible. They send in a group of social misfits, The Legion, that have been trying to keep the traditions of the military alive in a society that hates them in to see what it is like.
This is a dark, some would call it Grimdark, fantasy. Kerric is an immortal, To him, the only mortals that are useful to him have any value. The rest are just for his amusement. He has a streak of cruelty and a rage that no mortal can match. The world he comes from is split by a deadly magical barrier across its equator called the Black Sands. In the north, the land of magic, Chaos. In the south, a land without magic, Ruvia. Everyone knows that mages coming into Ruvia can’t do magic and start aging, so don’t come. But Kerric can do magic, and even without their magic his men have the reflexes that come from living in Chaos. A band of élite mercenaries are the perfect cover for such a group to be traveling around the land without magic.
This is an earlier draft of the book I have published under that name. It is another very dark fantasy, I actually drafted the book that is three books later than this first, then decided I had better just start at the beginning on how she got tied up as a servant of demons in the first place and turned that world building into the first two books. A draft of Book Two is on both Substack and Ream Stories behind paywalls, and I am doing another edit of it and fleshing out two additional chapters. That book will be published early next year. This is a very dark fantasy, the beginning victim to victimizer saga, a villain origin story. Most of Book One is her being victimized and exploited despite having magic. Some of it she brings on herself, but much of it is just from not being as cautious as she should, relying on others too much, and trying for shortcuts. She comes from an uncaring family, and gets an uncaring teacher, none of whom raise a hand to prevent her from being raped. That level of uncaring shapes her for the rest of her life as she never learns how to care for others.
This is a short story from 30+ years ago that I submitted a magazine for a Christmas edition and was rejected. and again I decided not to rewrite it, just publish after fixing a few things. No one can open a Santa Claus Machine to find out how it works, so a corporation hires an espionage expert who gets a surprise when he finally finds the right files.
Flash Fiction
I also have a selection Flash Fiction to choose from, not all of which are science fiction or fantasy. These are the Substack links but they are also on Ream under the title Flash as well as on this site and at Buy Me a Coffee. Many of these do not have happy ending.
I hope you find something here to your like and that you will share it to other people looking for free science fiction of fantasy.
James R Steinhaus
