Futurismic re-opens to fiction submissions!

Paul Raven @ 05-04-2008

Yes indeed - you enquired, cajoled and begged, and the day has finally arrived - Futurismic is open to fiction submissions once again!

Chris East, our hard-working Fiction Editor, is a busy man - and with the submissions coming in he’s going to be even more busy than usual. So please be considerate: read the entirety of the Guidelines page thoroughly - twice - and check your story is a good fit before clicking through to the submissions webform (linked from the Guidelines page).

That way you save Chris time and save yourself from a rejection you didn’t need to get, right? Right!

Also, a few words on file formatting. Three words, actually, or rather two words and an acronym:

RTF files only!

The webform shouldn’t let you upload anything else; if you manage to subvert the process, your submission will just be deleted anyway, so just convert in your favourite word processor package first.

And finally - we will ONLY accept fiction submissions through the webform. All attempted submissions by regular email, comment fields, Twitter, psychic projection, good old-fashioned snail-mail or any other channels WILL BE IGNORED AND DELETED/DESTROYED UNREAD AND UNREPLIED TO.

OK, with all that out of the way, get to work! Do you think you can beat Leonard Richardson’s 37-deep comments thread? Because that’s the caliber of work we’re looking for - and we’re looking forward to your submissions!


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Advertise with Futurismic

Paul Raven @ 03-03-2008

Much as we’d like to be able to run Futurismic as a completely ad-free site, that’s not something we can do if we want to pay the authors of our fiction pieces and keep the servers running.

But the last thing we wanted to do was throw loads of crappy AdSense ads at you; we wanted some control over who can advertise here and what they can sell in the process.

So, if you look in the sidebar, you’ll see we have ad spaces being run by Project Wonderful. Originally a network devoted to webcomics, PW has branched out into a user-friendly ad market for all sorts of sites.

It’s very important to us that you, Futurismic’s readers, don’t find anything we run on the site offensive or intrusive. So please, if you see an ad that you feel is inappropriate, please contact us and let us know right away!

And don’t forget that you can always click straight through to Project Wonderful and rent some Futurismic real-estate yourselves! :)


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Futurismic gets a face-lift!

Paul Raven @ 24-02-2008

I figured it was high time Futurismic got re-themed, and here are the results - RSS readers, click on through and take a look!

I got the theme developed by running a design contest at SitePoint - there are some really smart designers and coders over there, and I was presented so many great layouts that I wished I could have had them all!

But that wasn’t an option, and this theme by Bart Suykerbuyk edged ahead of the others by hitting just the right notes of look and feel. The runner-up from Muhammad Alfian Ahmad was also great in a very different way - it was a hard choice to make.

So here it is - have a poke around, an feel free to leave admiring comments below, but also please let us know if you find any bugs, glitches or problems of other types. I’d especially like feedback from Futurismic readers using the more obscure browser types.

Enjoy!


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Fiction submissions

Paul Raven @ 17-02-2008

The form below should only be used for submitting stories for consideration by Futurismic’s fiction editor; be sure you’ve read the fiction guidelines beforehand.

Please fill in all fields of the form below. The only attachment file-type permitted is Rich Text File (RTF).

Incomplete submissions, or submissions of other file types will be deleted unopened and not responded to.

Verify

Script by Dagon Design

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Contact

Paul Raven @ 17-02-2008

Hi there! If you want to contact the Futurismic editorial team, please use the form below to do so.

However, if you’re interested in submitting a short story, please read the Guidelines page first and use the separate form linked to from there.

FICTION SUBMISSIONS SENT FROM THE FORM BELOW WILL BE DELETED UNOPENED AND UNREPLIED TO.

Verify

Script by Dagon Design

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Get Your Futurismic Stories Ready

Christopher East @ 12-02-2008

As Paul recently announced, Futurismic fiction is making a comeback soon. After long hiatus, this March will see the return of monthly short stories here at the site!

I’m sure there are plenty of hungry science fiction writers out there curious about whether we’re going to be reading again soon. We do still have some stories in stock, but also intend to start looking for new material come April 1st. (And that’s no prank!)

If you’re interested in submitting, please review our guidelines, and if you really want to get on my good side, this essay I wrote a while back, to get an idea of the kind of stuff we’d like to see. I think they’re pretty self explanatory documents, but you’d be amazed how many off-target submissions we receive. Save yourself, and us, some time by reading the guidelines!

Again, we’re not open yet–but we will be soon. So get those new stories ready; we look forward to seeing your work!


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Fiction returns to Futurismic in March!

Paul Raven @ 11-02-2008

Yes indeed - we’ve been promising it for ages, and now we’re going to make good on that promise.

Futurismic will start publishing fiction again in March 2008!

Monday 3rd March, to be precise - and on the first weekday of each month after that, as well. Between now and then there will be a few other changes taking place, and after the fiction you’ll see the return of our non-fiction columns as well.

Those of you reading now who’ve stuck with us through the last year or so without fiction, you have my sincere gratitude - we’re going to make sure that Futurismic comes back as good as before, if not better.

Those of you who’ve started reading relatively recently, I hope you’ll find that Futurismic’s fiction output gives you more reason to come back regularly. We pick stories that match the sort of content we blog about - so if you find the daily topics interesting, there’s good odds you’ll enjoy the fiction too.

There will be more news and more developments to come in the next few weeks; as the new editor-in-chief here at Futurismic, I’m really excited about the prospects ahead of us, and I hope you will be as well.

Stick around - it’s going to be a great trip. :)


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Back in black! Futurismic rides again

Paul Raven @ 25-01-2008

Just goes to show that you can’t keep a good blog down! I’ve Just uploaded the database to Futurismic’s new host,and everything seems to be working fine - not to mention running far faster than the old installation.

If you notice anything untoward in the operation or appearance of the site, I hope you’ll let us know. In the meantime, back to business! :)


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Futurismic hosting hiccups

Paul Raven @ 18-01-2008

Hello, boys and girls. You may or may not have noticed that Futurismic had a bit of downtime today.

Our hosting company informs us that this is due to the site hogging CPU resources - which means there’s either a lot more of you reading than we thought, that something’s broken, or that someone somewhere is playing a game we Brits refer to as “silly buggers”.

However, until we can accurately determine the source of the problem, we need to take measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So if you notice anything odd or untoward here in the next week or so, please bear with us.

It may be that we’re forced to deactivate the comments at some point, but this will not be a permanent change by any means.

And please also rest assured we’re working hard on a long term solution to the problems, which we hope to be able to make an announcement about very soon.

Thanks for reading!


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Apologies for our absence

Paul Raven @ 01-11-2007

Apologies if you visited here over the last 24 hours or so, and wondered why we’d gone into the mortgage business. There were some pretty drastic technical issues server-side with our hosting company, but thankfully they seem to be fixed now.

We know there are a few posts to repair from the last week or so, but we’re sure you’ll bear with us in the meantime as we tidy up the mess. To be honest, we’re just damned thankful we weren’t hacked, as we initially thought we were …

The moral of this story, folks? TAKE BACKUPS. REGULARLY.

We now return you to our scheduled programming … :)


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wh00t! Futurismic makes the cut at PC Magazine’s Top 100

Paul Raven @ 15-10-2007

PC Magazine masthead logo

I hope you’ll all excuse us a moment of self-congratulation - the Futurismic team have just discovered that we made made it into PC Magazine’s 100 Favorite Blogs list! Here’s what they had to say about us:

"This forward-thinking blog divides its focus among news and opinions on current cutting-edge science and technology, its impact on culture and people, and extrapolations on how all this will affect our future. Futurismic also features enjoyable "speculative fiction"—sci-fi stories. It’s a feast for those who love to think about the future in all its manifestations."

Well, we do try!

We’re alongside some real heavyweights in that list - sites like BoingBoing and Gawker - and to be included is a great vindication of all the work that goes into making Futurismic what it is. And so, on behalf of the whole team, I’d like to say thanks to the PC Magazine writers - we hope we continue to make the grade, and we’ll even forgive you for accusing us of publishing "sci-fi"! ;)

And to any new readers who’ve arrived here after reading that article, welcome! We hope you like what you find, and we hope you’ll stick around for more.


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Into the Futurismic

Stephen Years @ 17-09-2007

Greetings Futurismic readers. My name is Stephen Years and I’m one of the new contributors to the Futurismic blog. I’m a high-tech management professional and entrepreneur in California’s Silicon Valley. My current business endeavor is a start-up company that is focused on energy efficiency in data centers.

As a blogger I’m very interested in the intersection of technology, market-forces and culture - and how each changes and modifies the other in a bizarre, continuous feedback loop. As an example, I’m fascinated how the cost of energy is forcing the market to invest in alternative energy sources - and how those new energy sources, once employed significantly, will impact the geopolitical structure. What cultural forces will be unleashed in a Middle East deprived of its primary source of revenue?

I would like to thank Futurismic for this opportunity and I hope you will find my posts enlightening, entertaining and challenging.


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My first Futurismic post: it’s all about me! Me! Me!

Edward Willett @ 17-09-2007

A photo of Edward Willett First posts are fraught with danger–"you never get a second chance to make a first impression," and all that–but at least in this instance the nerve-wracking decision of what to post about has been taken out of my hands: I’m supposed to introduce myself. (Which also removes the fear of blabbing on about something I know nothing about, I suppose: bonus!)

So. I’m Edward Willett, one of your new Futurismic bloggers. My interest in science fiction goes back to childhood, thanks to the corrupting influence of my two older brothers, and my interest in science stems very much from my interest in SF. I was born in New Mexico, but moved to Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada from Texas when I was eight. I studied journalism and art at Harding University in Arkansas, then returned to Weyburn, where I was a newspaper reporter/photographer/columnist/editor/cartoonist (it was a smallish paper) for eight years, before chucking it all in and becoming communications officer for the Saskatchewan Science Centre here in Regina, where I now live.

In 1993 I dumped the workaday life to become a fulltime freelance writer. I’m the author of more than 30 books. First came computer books, then I branched into children’s nonfiction, which I continue to write, on topics that have run the gamut from Ebola Virus to the Iran-Iraq War to biographies of Jimi Hendrix, Orson Scott Card, Janis Joplin and J.R.R. Tolkien (coming soon: Johnny Cash and Andy Warhol!). I’ve also written adult non-fiction, including Genetics Demystified for McGraw-Hill.

Somewhere along the way I sold a few young adult science fiction and fantasy novels to small publishers. In 2005 I sold my first adult science fiction novel, Lost in Translation, to Five Star, and in 2006 DAW Books put it out in mass-market paperback. I have a new science fiction novel, Marseguro, coming out from DAW in February.

I’m the administrative assistant for SF Canada, the association of professional speculative fiction writers of Canada, and maintain the SF Canada news blog. My own personal blog is here.

I write a weekly newspaper science column, which I also podcast. I’m married to a telecommunications engineer and have one daughter. (Oh, and on the side, I’m a professional actor and singer, so if I sneak in a few references to SFnal musical theatre productions, you’ll know why.)

Whew! I’m glad that’s out of the way. That’s way more than enough about me. Now I can think about my first real post…


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Adventures In A Futurismic World

Tomas Martin @ 17-09-2007

Greetings. My name is Tomas L. Martin, one of the new faces here at Futurismic. I’m a writer and physics student from Bristol, England. I’ve been writing book reviews for SFCrowsnest for years now and if I link to a book I’ve been enjoying, I’ll probably include a link to my review. My short story ‘A Shogun’s Welcome’ featured in Aberrant Dreams #7 and a semi-sequel, ‘The Shogun and The Scientist’ will be out in the anthology The Awakening this January.

Anyone interested in reading my fictional work today could do worse than read miawithoutoil, my fictional blog for the World Without Oil project, in which every day of May this year documented a week of a global oil crisis.

On this blog I hope to produce many posts that will pique the interest of readers. In this strange world, I’m especially interested in some of the major changes happening before our eyes so expect a few entries on climate change, alternative energy and peak oil as well as any other cool stuff I come across on my web travels.


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Taking my first baby steps

Jeremy Eades @ 16-09-2007

Hello all!  My name’s Jeremy Eades and I’ll be one of the new Futurismic bloggers.  Originally from the Midwestern US, I’ve pulled up roots and am currently teaching English in Japan.  Besides travelling, cycling and long walks on the beach, I’m a voracious reader - a difficult and expensive proposition in a non English-speaking country.  I’ve also got a pipe dream of becoming an influential and powerful writer with an army of minions fans, but I think you have to write before you can become a writer.

In any case, I’ll be bringing you the latest in cool stuff the pulp sci-fi writers of the 50s only dreamed of, and other science fiction-y goodness.


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Fresh blood - Futurismic staff update

Paul Raven @ 16-09-2007

Well, I received a lot more applicants for blogging positions here at Futurismic than I expected to, which was immensely flattering - even though it was hard work to pick between them all, because they were all of great quality. Thanks to everyone who showed an interest - and apologies to those who didn’t make the cut!

But the editorial choices have been made, and the next few days should involve some new faces cropping up at Futurismic - four new bloggers, eager to share the cool and interesting stuff they come across in their daily web adventures! I’m sure you’ll be welcoming to them all, and I hope you (and they) enjoy the refreshing influx of new voices!

As always, thanks for reading - you’re the people who really make Futurismic what it is, and we’re looking forward to making it bigger and better than ever before.


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Futurismic needs YOU!

Paul Raven @ 12-09-2007

Futuristic City - digital art image by P1X3L

OK, ladies and gents - Futurismic is looking for a few good bloggers.

What we need from you is enthusiasm for the sort of topics we cover here (science fictional near-future phenomena and technogeekery with a slant toward the plausible), a commitment to doing at least one post per weekday (or more if you like), and some sort of writing experience, be it as a blogger or anything else.

What can we offer you in return? The chance for your writing to reach a wider audience, and to share your enthusiasm for science fiction literature and the ideas it deals with. What we can’t offer you is money - the only people who have ever made money from Futurismic are the authors of the short stories we publish, because that’s what the site is all about. The Futurismic team do it for the love - no matter how much our families and loved ones may rue us for it sometimes!

Still interested? Good! Drop me (Paul Raven) an email to the address hyperlinked in my name on the staff page. Put ‘Futurismic blogger enquiry’ in the title so as not to get caught in my spam traps, and send me the following:

  • A short paragraph about yourself and your relationship to science fiction
  • Links to your own blog, or other writing of yours available online
  • A couple of samples of the sort of post you’d contribute to Futurismic - we’re happy for you to have your own voice, indeed we’d prefer you to, but we like to keep things fairly short and snappy. If you follow the site regularly, you should know what I mean.

I’ll read them through, and get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Looking forward to hearing from you! [Awesome Futuristic City image borrowed from P1X3L]


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Staff

Paul Raven @ 07-07-2007

Futurismic is brought to you by …


Editor-in-chief and Publisher

Paul Raven

Paul Graham Raven is a dishevelled British museum library assistant, but that’s just the day job; out of work hours, he mostly reads and writes (though never enough of the latter).

He writes book and music reviews for a ridiculous number of outlets, both print and web; he’s Reviews Editor of Interzone, the UK’s longest running science fiction magazine; he runs an independent music reviews site named The Dreaded Press, and maintains his own blog, Velcro City Tourist Board.

He also writes poetry that gets eloquent and apologetic rejection slips, and intends to actually finish some short stories of his own one of these days. In the meantime, he’s climbing the ladder of the aspiring freelance … and running this here webzine, too.

Fiction Editor

Christopher East

Christopher East is a writer, editor, critic, bassist, and indoor enthusiast who lives in Los Angeles. His short stories have appeared in a number of science fiction and fantasy magazines, including Interzone, Talebones, and The Third Alternative. A former reviewer for Tangent Online, he now serves as Futurismic’s fiction editor.


The Mysterious Artist

Brian Wanamaker


The bloggers

Tobias S. Buckell

Tobias S. Buckell is a Caribbean born SF/F writer who currently lives in Ohio. His first novel was published by Tor books in 2006. He keeps a website and blog at www.tobiasbuckell.com.

Edward Willett

Edward Willett is a writer of nonfiction, science fiction and fantasy for both children and young adults. His most recent SF novel, Lost in Translation, was published in paperback by DAW Books in 2006, and his new SF novel Marseguro will be out from DAW in February, 2008. He also writes a newspaper science column and is a professional singer and actor. His website is www.edwardwillett.com and he has a personal blog, Hassenpfeffer.

Jeremy Eades

Jeremy Eades is a budding psycholinguist and world traveller. Currently alighted in Japan for the past few years, he eventually hopes to escape the seductive clutches of the rising sun and write the next Great American Novel. One of these days he’ll actually write a story. Until then, the curious can be sated at his blog, Wilco Tango Foxtrot.

Stephen Years

Stephen Years is a high tech entrepreneur and management professional in California’s Silicon Valley. Stephen’s primary interests lie in the intersection of technology, market forces and culture. Currently he is busy launching a new company focused on server power efficiency.

Previously Stephen was Technology Strategist at Sun Microsystems, and a consultant at KPMG Consulting, LLC (now known as BearingPoint, Inc.). Stephen is a fan of all genres of music, can often be found in Second Life as Soundmaster Clanger, and is busy preparing for the singularity.

Tomas L. Martin

Tomas L. Martin is a writer and physics student from Swansea, Wales. He has reviewed for SFCrowsnest for a number of years and his story “A Shogun’s Welcome”was published in Aberrant Dreams #7. A sequel, ‘The Shogun and the Scientist’ is out in the anthology ‘The Awakening’ in January 2008 and his journal miawithoutoil was a key contribution to the World Without Oil project. He is in the final year of a masters in physics at Bristol University and is co-coordinator of the 2008 UK National Student Film Festival.

Jeremy Lyon

Jeremy Lyon is Futurismic’s founder, and now spends his days designing interfaces for Palm. At night he writes fiction that has been rejected from some of the finest publications in the world.


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Guidelines

Paul Raven @ 03-07-2007

FUTURISMIC FICTION GUIDELINES

OVERVIEW

Futurismic seeks contemporary, near future science fiction for online publication.  We’re looking for innovative, exciting stories that use the tools of speculative fiction to examine contemporary issues and take a look at what’s just around the corner.

Whether by established professionals or promising newcomers, we would like to see the very best in today’s SF, with an emphasis on work that truly connects with and illuminates the fast-paced, fascinating times we live in.

Stories should be compelling and well written, with a strong emphasis on characters confronting or embracing imminent cultural, social, technological, and scientific changes.

PLEASE NOTE: Near-future, Earth-based science fiction is our primary focus!

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

• Mundane SF
• Post-cyberpunk SF
• Satirical/gonzo futurism
• Realistic near future hard SF

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR:

• Fantasy
• Horror
• Space opera
• Off-world SF
• Distant futures
• Aliens
• Time Travel
• Alternate History

(Stories submitted from the above-listed tropes or subgenres will likely be rejected out of hand.)

LENGTH

We will consider works of any length up to 15,000 words. Note that stories of 2,000 words or less tend to be a very tough sell to us.

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Our submissions webform is open!

All submissions will need to come as Rich Text Files (RTF) - no other formats will be accepted.

Attempted fiction submissions by any other method or channel will be deleted unopened and not responded to!

PAYMENT

Payment is a flat rate of US$200.00 per story, on acceptance, for first electronic rights (for publication on the world wide web) and nonexclusive audio performance rights (for podcasting).

READING PERIODS AND RESPONSE TIMES

We are open for submissions year-round - although we may close the webform periodically to let the editors recharge their batteries!

Response times tend to fall between 2-5 weeks of receipt of your story. Stories that we are strongly considering tend to take longer than that.

If you haven’t heard back after 5 weeks, feel free to query.

OTHER NOTES

  • No reprints, please.
  • No simultaneous submissions, please.
  • No multiple submissions–please submit only one story at a time. This really helps us keep the response times reasonable.
  • Please do not resubmit stories that we have already rejected during previous reading periods, unless we have specifically requested a rewrite.

QUESTIONS?

Questions about these guidelines or queries about submitted manuscripts are welcome; just send an e-mail to the address included with your automated response. We will respond to queries as promptly as possible.

We look forward to seeing your work. Good luck!

Christopher East, Fiction Editor
Paul Raven, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief


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About

Paul Raven @ 03-07-2007

You have questions? We have answers!

What is Futurismic?

Futurismic is a website for people interested in the future and the effects of science and technology on the present.

Futurismic comes in three parts:

  • The blog consists of short introductions to content that exists elsewhere on the web, usually (though not exclusively) with some sort of science fiction angle.
  • The columns section covers the same ground in more detail, allowing for hyperbole, punditry, humour, or whatever else the writer chooses to deploy.

Both blog and column entries might cover scientific advances; new technology and technological products; news about technology companies; descriptions of people impacted by technology; emergent cultural or social phenomena; or political issues that couldn’t exist in the absence of any of the above.

In addition to its core focus, content may delve into tangential issues at the whim of its contributors. Such tangents are made for particularly amusing or interesting content, or for news about the professional activities of its contributors. Or because the contributor thought you might find it interesting.

  • The fiction section contains innovative, exciting new stories that use the tools of speculative fiction to examine contemporary issues and take a look at what’s just around the corner.

Futurismic’s fiction section, in other words, is an extrapolative complement to our blog entries and columns. Or is it the other way around?

Who’s behind Futurismic?

The Staff page has the answers you seek!

We’re always interested in potential non-fiction contributors: if you’re an excellent writer with a keen interest in what tomorrow will bring, drop us a line!

Do you pay for writing?

Bloggers and essayists are not paid. They do it for the love. Or the glory. Sometimes both.

We buy science fiction short stories at a flat rate of US$200.00 for first electronic rights and nonexclusive audio performance rights. We are currently closed to submissions, but expect to reopen imminently.

We publish one story per month.

What kind of fiction are you interested in?

We’re looking for the very best in current science fiction, with an emphasis on work that truly connects with and illuminates the fast-paced, fascinating time we live in. We accept stories of any length up to 15,000 words. We are not interested in reprints or simultaneous submissions.

Please read the Futurismic fiction submission guidelines carefully and make sure your story matches our requirements.

What are your response times like?

We work as fast as we can, but we’d ask you to bear in mind that all of Futurismic’s staff have day-jobs as well! We intend to reply to all submissions within three months of receipt.

How do I submit fiction to Futurismic?

There’s a link to the online submissions form on the guidelines page, which we heartily recommend reading first. Please note that the only file format in which we will accept fiction is .RTF (Rich Text File).

Who pays for all of this?

Much like any other site that makes a mission of delivering quality content at no end cost to the user (that’s you, by the way), Futurismic will be relying on adverts to generate the money to pay our authors and prop up the server it lives on. We will be doing our level best to make sure those ads are not offensive, inappropriate or (worst of all, in our opinion) patronising.

If you have any queries or complaints about the adverts (or anything else, for that matter), please drop us a line via the Contact page.

Legal Stuff

All content on Futurismic remains the property of the person who wrote it, with the exception of quotations or excerpts or images from linked works which we republish under the terms of Fair Use. In such cases we make every effort to credit the original source of the material; please get in touch if you feel any content on Futurismic is infringing on your copyright. We believe content should be free and that promoting the content of others is not just fair but beneficial; however, if you want to lock up your content just let us know and we’ll remove/de-link it. It’s yours, after all; you can be as irrationally protective of it as you like.

Please note that the ownership of content extends to comments supplied by readers; while Futurismic staff will delete or redact comments deemed broadly offensive (or blatantly self-promotional and irrelevant), we will endeavour to leave all others - no matter how staggeringly uninformed or bizarre the opinions held within.

So please feel free to comment - but be prepared to stand by your own words. :)


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