Tor.com has posted the final story in David G.Hartwell’s Palencar Project. The story is from Gregory Benford: “The Sigma Structure Symphony” follows Ruth, a math-obsessed SETI worker in a future where humanity has made contact with alien life. When one of her co-workers meets an untimely end, she finds herself curious about the circumstances of his death…

Gregory Benford lives in Southern California, where he is a professor of physics at a the University of California at Irvine. He won the Campbell and Nebula Awards for his 1980 novel Timescape, and is the author of the Galactic Center novels. The illustration is by John Jude Palencar.

You can read the story online for free here: The Sigma Structure Symphony

The next story up in the Palencar Project is Gene Wolfe’s “Dormanna.”

As we reported last week, the Palencar Project is a five-story series curated by senior Tor Books editor David G. Hartwell. All five stories are based on a singular piece of art by John Jude Palencar and will be released for free on Tor.com every Wednesday in March.

You can read Wolfe’s story online for free here: Dormanna

Back in the day of pulp fiction magazines, editors would call in authors to write a story for the cover art they purchased each issue. In the spirit of that tradition, Tor Books senior editor David G. Hartwell invites you to enjoy a series of short stories inspired by a single illustration: The Palencar Project. Every Wednesday in March, Tor.com will be publishing five stories inspired by one John Jude Palencar painting.

The first story up is “New World Blues” by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Check back all month for upcoming tales by Gene Wolfe, James Morrow, Michael Swanwick, and Gregory Benford. If you can’t wait that long, then you can purchase the entire collection as an ebook for $2.99 through Barnes & Noble here: The Palencar Project

Darkfuse/Delirium Books has just released the first chapter of Lee Thompson’s serial web novel Collected Songs Of Sonnelion, a pivotal book in Thompson’s Division mythos. Thanks to this sponsorship, which is intended to help promote the Delirium Book Club, the novel is available free to the public.

Description: The Collected Songs of Sonnelion is being written now by author Lee Thompson. You will be reading each new chapter as soon as it is created. Each week, Lee will turn in a new chapter, which will be published online. You can expect new chapters to be posted weekly by Friday at noon EST.

Currently, there are no other editions planned beyond this free web novel, so please take advantage of reading it now, as it will only be available to read during the period that the novel is being written plus a few weeks after it has been completed. After that, it will be removed. This publishing experiment is meant to be read to coincide with the author’s creative process. You get to read all the new chapters as soon as the author writes them. So any new plot twists or character developments occur quickly from the author’s mind to your reading experience. DarkFuse editors will be performing read-throughs to clean up any simple typos or issues to improve your reading experience.

Please sign up for the DarkFuse newsletter to get updates or any notifications of delays (not that we expect any).

Here’s where you can read the first chapter: Collected Songs of Sonnelion

They have a double shot of new fiction over at the Winter 2012 Subterranean Magazine issue for you.

First up is Joe R. Lansdale, who has a most excellent new novel, Edge of Dark Water, due soon. His tale for Subterranean, “The Drunken Moon,” isn’t a long one, but shows off a deft poetic touch.

Next up is “Seeräuber” by Maria Dahvana Headley, a writer who was new to us just a few months ago. Maria’s debut novel, Queen of Kings, isn’t your usual vampire fare. None other than Peter Straub wrote “Queen of Kings is a miracle, a marvel. Nothing on earth could make me read a novel about Cleopatra, but this book reeled me in almost instantly and kept me in suspense, charmed, and astonished all the way to the amazing ending.”

You’ll also find:

• Fiction: Water Can’t Be Nervous by Jonathan Carroll
• Fiction: The Least of the Deathly Arts by Kat Howard
• Fiction: Treasure Island: A Lucifer Jones Story by Mike Resnick
• Fiction: Three Lilies And Three Leopards (And A Participation Ribbon In Science) by Tad Williams

It’s all online and it’s all free: Subterranean Winter 2012