Futurismic

It’s a weekday, and it’s the first of the month, which means that there’s a brand new original science fiction story here on Futurismic for you to read!

Alex Wilson’s “Dry Frugal With Death Rays” is a superb slice of dark satire, so I’d like to suggest you start there before getting to grips with our usual round-up of free fiction elsewhere in the intertubes.

All done? OK, here we go…

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Just two titles from Manybooks.net:

• “Security” by Ernest M Kenyon
• Mars Girl by Jeff Garrity

And nothing at all from FeedBooks this week… I guess many of the volunteers who transcribe these stories are now burdened with summertime duties involving younglings. Hey, everyone needs a holiday, right?

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John “Electric Velocipede” Klima is climbing onto the Friday freebies bandwagon over at Tor.com:

Welcome to what will be a regular Friday feature from me. I am going to post a Weekend Getaway every Friday. This will be a link to a piece of short fiction that’s available online for free. I’ll discuss the piece(s) and give you links. Then you feel free to play in the comments and provide your thoughts on the work.

Here are the stories:

• “The Chiaroscurist” by Hal Duncan
• “The Way He Does It” by Jeffrey Ford

You’ll need to visit the Tor site to catch the discussion, of course, but I’ve provided the direct links to the stories for those who want to get straight to the action.

That post is from last week, by the way – a downside of being UK-based is that my Friday is finishing just as most of the States is digging into the second cup of coffee, so sometimes things get posted too late for me to add.

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While we’re talking about Hal Duncan, the man himself reports that there’s “a wee fairy story of mine called “The Behold of the Eye“” available in the latest issue of Lone Star Stories.

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More Shadow Unit DVD extras: “Two-Handed Grip“, and the tenth part of Vigil (which has no title I can accurately discern).

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Apex Online’s latest fiction contribution is “In the Seams” by Andrew C Porter:

There isn’t much time. If I am going to tell this story, I’m going to tell it now. It’s late, I know, but the dogs are spooked and that means it’s on the way. The skin on my face is peeling. The backs of my hands are raw meat. If I hadn’t found Annie’s old tape recorder, then I wouldn’t have been able to document the facts.

And from the same publisher, a free horror fiction chapbook to download in PDF form:

Does love anger you? Have you ever been frustrated by your attempts to woo another? Then Webs of Discord by Jason Sizemore might be for you.

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Futurismic’s own Edward Willett has been too busy to post much here of late, but he has made one of his stories available on his own site:

“The Wind” was originally published in Dark Wisdom: The Magazine of Dark Fiction, Issue 11 (which, judging by their website, looks to have been the last print edition they’re publishing… )

That’s a shame. But hey, the internet is forever, AMIRITE?

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New additions at Subterranean Online:

• “Like Father” by John Farris
• “Big Man: a Fable” by Joe R. Lansdale

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Transcriptase is a new website of genre fiction stories and poems that has been set up in reaction to recent incidents on a site that shall remain nameless; all the stories on Transcriptase were formerly hosted on the unnamed site, and their authors chose to withdraw them and republish elsewhere.

Eugie Foster, editor of The Fix Online, is one of the writers in question – I recommend reading her explanation of events if you’ve managed to miss the drama, and even if you haven’t missed it.

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Here’s a note from Tycho Garen:

A couple of weeks ago I started a new blog called Critical Futures, sort of a serialized fiction blog of my own work; it’s all free, CC licensed, and there’s a new post 5 days of the week… and I wanted to give you a heads up about it.

Consider it delivered!

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If you read outside of science fiction and into fantasy, you may be interested to know that Black Gate Magazine is making PDFs of its latest issue available for free to see if people like the idea of the digital format. Go see what you think.

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Before we move on to our regular flash spot, I’ll just re-announce the Weird Tales Spam Flash Fiction Writing contest:

You’ve seen the latest wave of spam — you know, the faux outrageous news headlines: “Osama trains goats for tactical bombing.” “Laika the Russian space dog returns to Earth.” “Children admit to being little shits: Video.” Isn’t it a shame the headline is all we get? So here at Weird Tales we’re inviting YOU to turn this spam into… um… spam-ade!

Get writing!

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If you want a good varied bunch of examples of what can be done with flash fiction, look no further than the output of the Friday Flash Fictioneers:

• Phred Serenissima tells of “The Man of Script“, while
• Greg O’Byrne tells of “The Last Prince Of Atlantis“. Then
• Gareth L Powell makes note of “The Things He Remembered on His Death Bed” and
• Neil Beynon deplores the “Talking Apes“. At least
• Shaun C Green is feeling more positive as he looks toward “Our Bright Horizon“.

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Non-fiction bonus: from 9th August, you can receive daily entries from George Orwell’s diaries via the interweb magic of RSS – go sign up now!

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That’s your lot, folks hope you enjoy. Keep sending us your tips and plugs – deadline is 1800GMT every Friday. Have a good weekend!