...And a Happy, Sepia-toned Holidays to You!

   Yes, it's cold outside (or at least it should be). Yes, it's dark when you go to work and when you come home. Yes, it makes you want to just curl up on the couch and watch entire seasons of Supernatural, Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad until you feel you're about the most useless human being on the face of the earth...wow, that didn't quite end up like I expected it to. Sorry, you're not useless...I mean, you ended up here didn't you?

  What I meant to say was, you're going to be inside anyway, so at least try to enjoy it. And when you get so sick of your loved ones that you want to wrap your hands around their throats and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze, why not escape into something other than the latest HBO mini-series? Wait, what am I saying, if you're reduced to reading this, you've probably watched just about all the television you can stomach.

   Well, here comes the pitch. There's a lot of free fiction out there, and some of it is very, very good. But if you're anything like me, it's not a lack of will that keeps you from reading, but a lack of time. Here's some ways to scratch your genre itch without spending too much time or money.

• Daily Science Fiction: publishes a story every single damn day of the year, delivered right to your inbox. The topic run the gamut from traditional science fiction to outright fantasy and everything in between. In my experience, the stories tend to be character driven and relatively short (enough that you can devour one over breakfast, or lunch and still not be late for work). Also, it'll give you a good taste of a lot of flavors of genre fiction in small, easy to manage bites.
• Escape, Castle, and Psuedo-pod: Who has time to read? Not you, that's for goddam sure. In fact, you probably stopped reading just--no time to explain, right? Here then, one small bite: Audio Fiction Download, for free. Listen to it at work, in the car, wherever the hell else you want. Again, for free.
• Innsmouth Magazine and Lovecraft eZine: Both publish horror in the Lovecraftian vein (both Mythos and Weird Tales), and have (again, in my experience) a pretty damn good selection of stories for semi-pro zines. So, if you're the type of person who likes to draw the blinds closed and let the darkness press in from all around while you scare the shit out of yourself, well, you could do a lot worse than these two magazines. The Lovecraft eZine also does podcasts, so again, listen to the stories while you drive, or while you file, or while you update databases.

  So there you go. If that isn't enough to at least take the edge off...well, there's always another season of Trueblood or Law and Order:SVU, right?