Steven H Silver’s tale of the strange astral adventures of Hoggar the Cremator, “The Cremator’s Tale,” surged to the top of our fiction charts in March.

Second on the list was Jason E. Thummel’s fast-paced story of a skilled swordsman caught up in a web of treachery in a decadent city, “The Duelist.”

Joe Bonadonna’s sword & sorcery tale, “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” a perennial favorite, claimed the #3 spot.

Martha Wells’s complete novel, the Nebula-nominee The Death of the Necromancer, came in fourth, and Michael Shea’s novelette of Lovecraftian horror, “Tsathoggua,” rounded out the Top Five.

Also making the list were exciting stories by C.S.E. Cooney, Peter Cakebread, Janet Morris and Chris Morris, E.E. Knight, Aaron Bradford Starr, Mark Rigney, John C. Hocking, Jon Sprunk, Harry Connolly, Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe, John R. Fultz, Dave Gross, Jamie McEwan, Mike Allen, and Ryan Harvey.

If you haven’t sampled the free adventure fantasy stories offered through our Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Here are the Top Twenty most-read stories in March.

1. “The Cremator’s Tale” by Steven H Silver
2. “The Duelist,” by Jason E. Thummel
3. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
4. The Death of the Necromancer, a complete novel by Martha Wells
5. “Tsathoggua,” by Michael Shea
6. “Godmother Lizard” by C.S.E. Cooney
7. An excerpt from The Alchemists Revenge by Peter Cakebread
8. An excerpt from The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
9. “The Terror in the Vale,” by E.E. Knight
10. “The Sealord’s Successor,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
11. The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney
12. “Vestments of Pestilence,” by John C. Hocking
13. An excerpt from Blood and Iron, by Jon Sprunk
14. “The Whoremaster of Pald,” by Harry Connolly
15. An excerpt from Sword Sisters, by Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe
16. “The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz
17. An excerpt from Pathfinder Tales: King of Chaos, by Dave Gross
18. “Falling Castles,” by Jamie McEwan
19. An excerpt from The Black Fire Concerto, by Mike Allen
20. “The Sorrowless Thief,” by Ryan Harvey

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including new stories by Howard Andrew Jones, Peadar Ó Guilín, Judith Berman, David Evan Harris, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Gregory Bierly, Vera Nazarian, Vaughn Heppner, and many others, is here.

The top fiction from February is here.