NEW FICTION: HOMEOSTASIS by Carlos Hernadez

Paul Raven @ 01-07-2009

It’s the first of July – time for your monthly dose of Futurismic fiction! This time, we’ve got a story that probably comes closer to the sort of thing we try to achieve with our blogging output than anything we’ve yet published. “Homeostasis” is a plainly-told story about real people adapting to a plausible piece of tomorrow’s life-saving medical technology; Carlos Hernandez understands that science fiction can pitch hard and still have a heart. Enjoy!

Homeostasis

by Carlos Hernandez

Eight seconds of footage, from a security camera so old it surrounds every object in the picture with rainbows. Man at a gas station robbing the attendant. Pantyhose flattening his nose. Waving a knife like a snakecharmer’s pungi.

Customer walks in. Good-looking guy, California hair, white as a country club. Has no idea; walks in texting. The robber runs over and slams the knife through the top of his head. In to the hilt.

On 4chan’s boards, someone posts an animated gif that infinitely loops the last two seconds. The word “pwnd” flashes at the end. Dozens of people respond with “lulz.” Continue reading “NEW FICTION: HOMEOSTASIS by Carlos Hernadez”


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Friday Free Fiction for 26th June – the end of an era

Paul Raven @ 26-06-2009

It’s Friday afternoon here in the UK, which can only mean one thing – it’s free fiction round-up time here at Futurismic!

But it should be noted that nothing is permanent in this universe – indeed, this is going to be the last ever Friday Free Fiction at Futurismic. Not because there’s any less good science fictional stuff to read on the internet – quite the opposite, in fact, as regular readers are doubtless well aware – but because it’s becoming increasingly hard for me to keep up with it all and paste it all together.

And when I can see someone else doing a far more complete job elsewhere (namely the doubtless pseudonymical Quasar Dragon over at SF Signal), I think it’s only fair to send them the kudos and the traffic they deserve. Getting back three or four hours of my working week is an added bonus, of course… ;)

So, in short: if you’ve been a loyal follower of Friday Free Fiction here at Futurismic, you should immediately subscribe to SF Signal’s RSS feed, assuming you’re not subscribed already. Their daily free fiction posts cover fantasy and horror as well as science fiction, so you can pick and choose from the best of the genre writing available on the intertubes. You’ll also get all the other SF Signal posts, which are great stuff for genre heads of every stripe, and it’ll cost you nothing at all. Makes sense, doesn’t it? So make with the clicky.

(I also recommend our regular tipsters to send future notifications to SF Signal for inclusion in their round-ups; I’m sure they’ll be just as grateful for your input as I’ve always been!)

But let’s just tie up this week’s batch before we sign off for the last time, eh?

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A big bunch from ManyBooks:

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And a load more from FeedBooks:

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Issue #90 of HUB Magazine features an extract from nerw Angry Robot-published novel Moxyland by Lauren Beukes

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Strange Horizons presents “Another End of the Empire” by Futurismic fictioneer Tim Pratt.

Tim’s also starting a free-to-read donation-supported serial novella:

Bone Shop is a serialized, donation-funded urban fantasy novella, available for anyone to read for free. New chapters will go up every Monday. The Bone Shop website is here, though there’s not a lot there at the moment. I’ll post the first chapter on June 29.

Times are tough in the Pratt household, so if you can part with a few dollars a week to help out a very talented writer in exchange for him giving away some of his work, please do so.

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Tor.com presents “The House That George Built” by Harry Turtledove

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The ongoing serialisation of Jason Stoddard’s Eternal Franchise continues with chapter 9.2

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Some dreamscape weirdness from Captain VanderMeer: “Three Dreams and a Fabrication

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Angry Robot Books has a sample extract from Chris Roberson’s Book Of Secrets (as well as from some UrbFant zombie/detective mash-up which didn’t much appeal to me, but which might flick your switches).

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Sumit Dam chips in with “The Heroism of Colonel Pussy

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And as mentioned above, here are those incomparably complete free fiction round-ups from SF Signal over the last week: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and today. That’s the way the professionals do it. :)

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And that’s that, ladies and gentlemen; thank you all for reading along and sending in your tip-offs. I’ve discovered a lot of new writers and webzines through doing these round-ups, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come yet – so keeping watching your feeds! Meanwhile, it’s fiction and futurism business as usual at Futurismic from here on in.

Have a great weekend. :)


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Friday Free Fiction for 19th June

Paul Raven @ 19-06-2009

Heads up, Friday people – time for your weekly wheelbarrow of free science fiction stories from the far-flung bends and spirals of the intertubes!

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A big batch from ManyBooks this time out:

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But just the one from FeedBooks:

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HUB Magazine presents “Storm CHASER” by Craig Pirrell

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There’s only the one DVD extra from Shadow Unit, but that should be “Sufficient“. Arf!

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Chris Roberson is back in the free-fic saddle with “Annus Mirabilis

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Still coming steady from Fort Stoddard, Eternal Franchise is up to chapter 9.1

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A R Yngve sez:

My homepage has been updated with chapter 6 of my unsold novel The Time Idiot (the ongoing serial). This is a short, funny novel about a dumb man who has gained power far beyond his ability to handle it responsibly — in this case, the power to alter history. (You can call it a metaphor, if you’re into metaphors.)

Cheers, A R!

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Via BoingBoing (and pretty much the rest of the genre sub-web) comes the word that Catherynne M Valente is posting one chapter a week from her superbly-titled YA fantasy novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Also mentioned at BoingBoing is a similar effort by a chap called Jonathan, who says “I’ve set myself the target of putting a free short story online every week, and to keep doing just that for a year. [...] more than that, I am making these stories available under a Creative Commons Share-alike Licence, hoping that others will take the stories to places that even I can’t imagine.” Well, good on him; go take a look, why don’tcha?

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Once again, SF Signal have a hugely comprehensive post of free fiction for each day of the past week, so go follow those. They also pointed out that Hachette – the people behind SF publisher Orbit Books – have made The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers available to read online, albeit from a rather fiddly Flash interface that crashes my browser (64-bit Kubuntu doesn’t handle these things well, sadly).

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And last but not least, a few short pieces from the ever-reliable Sumit Dam: “The Queen Is Dead” and “Manna“.

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That should keep you out of trouble while the boss finishes off his extended Friday lunch meeting, right? Right – and don’t forget you can drop us a note with any suggestions for next week’s collection. In the mean time, have a great weekend!


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Friday Free Fiction for 12th June

Paul Raven @ 12-06-2009

It’s Friday once again, which can only mean one thing – a big bunch of free science fiction stories to read on the intertubes!

Thanks to the wonders of Fusion-Modulated Temporal Blogging Technology (better known as “pre-scheduled posting”), I’ll actually be half-way up the country from my home by the time you read this, having compiled it beforehand… so if there’s anything I’ve missed, please accept my apologies, and my assurances that it’ll be rounded up for next week’s collection. That said, there’s plenty here to keep your eyeballs busy as it is…

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Here’s a whole shed-load from FeedBooks:

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Strange Horizons presents what is surely a candidate for Longest Titled Short Story Ever: “A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc; or, A Lullaby” by Helen Keeble, part the first and part the second

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Subterranean Online presents a new excursion into Jack Vance’s Dying Earth: “Sylgarmo’s Proclamation” by Lucius Shepard

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Here’s the latest instalment of Jason Stoddard’s Eternal Franchise; we’re up to chapter 8.4

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Shadow Unit Season 2 continues with Episode 2.04: “Getaway

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News from the courageous Jay Lake:

My short story “People of Leaf and Branch” is live at Fantasy magazine.

There’s also a sample from Jay’s new novel Green at Tor.com.

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Speaking of Tor.com, their latest full-sized piece of original fiction is “The City Quiet as Death” by Steven Utley and Michael Bishop

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Here’s fragment 38 of Jayme Lynn Blaschke’s Memory

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The ever-prolific Lee Gimenez writes to inform us that his story “September 12th” is up at Aphelion.

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Last but certainly not least, over at SF Signal they’re continuing their nefarious and underhand quest to make me look like the lazy mountebank I surely am by collating daily (daily!) free fiction round-ups. So go and wreak revenge on my behalf by clicking through and hopefully overloading their servers or something. That’ll show ‘em. ;)

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Oh, you want more? OK, so here’s a non-fiction bonus for you: in case you’ve not seen it already, the new edition of H+ Magazine is available to buy, read online in a fancy Flash interface or download as a free PDF. Can’t say they don’t give you options, them transhumanist types…

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And that’s your lot. Don’t forget to send smoke signals if you want to head us off at the pass with something you think we might otherwise miss in next week’s selection! But otherwise, have yourselves as good a weekend as you can.


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The bludgeoning of Gepetto: how “free” culture killed creative careers

C Sven Johnson @ 10-06-2009

The free content culture of the internet is democratising art and music, and is leading us to a digital playground where everyone can make some money out of their creations, right? Well, that’s not how it worked out in Sven Johnson’s Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect - Sven Johnson

Continue reading “The bludgeoning of Gepetto: how “free” culture killed creative careers”


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