Roll up, roll up – get your free fiction right here!

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A short selection this week from ManyBooks.net:

• “Watch the Sky” by James H. Schmitz
• “Faithfully Yours” by Lou Tabakow
• “Blind Man’s Lantern” by Allen Kim Lang

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In connection to Manybooks.net, I received an email from the intriguingly-named Argonautica:

“I’ve been reading and reviewing the free fiction released at Project Gutenberg and Manybooks.net (Futurismic’s Free Friday Fiction turned me on to it!) at Free Speculative Fiction.

I became frustrated when I couldn’t find out any information about the (often forgotten) stories online, and consequently had a difficult time picking out stories to read, so I’ve been reviewing them and providing a synopsis as a guide for readers. I only have time to catch maybe 2/3 of them, and I don’t claim my reviews are great literature, but I figure something is better than nothing.

Anyway, I hope you find the site useful.”

Sounds like an interesting resource – thanks, Argonautica!

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Issue 12 of Apex Digest has been posted and features fiction from Sara King and Jason Sizemore, interviews with Jeremy Shipp, Sara King, and David Wong, and a handful of reviews.

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You probably already know about Tor‘s free ebooks mailing list, as it has been blogged by many sites more eminent than Futurismic, plus dugg, slashdotted and all the rest.

You might not have heard about the sweepstake to win an Asus EEE that you get entered into by signing up, though – I’ll let Scalzi explain the details, as it’s one of his books going out next week.

Apparently the prize is only on offer to US residents – the rest of us just have to settle for totally free DRM-clean PDF versions of some bestselling science fiction novels every week.

I don’t feel too cheated, myself – but if someone wants to send me an Asus EEE anyway, that would be very kind. 🙂

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An email arrived from Jetse de Vries, one of the Interzone Fiction Editors. He’s a writer in his own right, too, and Hub Magazine have just republished his story “Transcendence Express” as part of their most recent free downloadable issue.

Hub Magazine will email you their weekly PDF zine, if you like – go sign up on their website.

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I had a brief email from Shira Lipkin to say that she occasionally posts short fiction pieces on her LJ. How often, and what sort, she didn’t mention – so you’ll just have to go and see for yourself!

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A new arrival in the sidebar listings of other places that provide free fiction is Dog Versus Sandwich, which tags itself as “a webbed zine”. It looks pretty new, but they seem to be publishing stuff at a pretty fast clip. Go see what you think!

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Free science fiction comics action! The endearingly irascible Warren Ellis launches Freakangels today.

Freakangels is a completely free web-published comic written by Ellis and (beautifully) drawn by Paul Duffield.

As if a free comic written by Warren Ellis wasn’t inducement enough, here’s three more reasons to go take a look:

• it’s set in a flooded near-future London;
• it stars a tough but pretty girl who wears fishnet stockings;
• the girl in fishnets FLYS A STEAM-POWERED GYROCOPTER.

That last bit is what the marketing people call the USP, I believe. Works for me – here’s episode 1.

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Before we delve into the weekly flash fiction selection, I should take the time to point out another new addition to the sidebar of justice – 365 Tomorrows publishes a sub-600 word science fiction story every single day, and has been doing so for a couple of years now.

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And here we have the Friday Flash Fictioneers!

For your delectation and delight this week, we give you:

• “Tinman” by Neil Beynon
• “Fresh Meat” by Gareth L Powell
• “Vorpal” by Greg O’Byrne
• “Mercurial Nights” by Gareth D Jones
• “Sun” by Shaun C Green
• “Silver Eagle” by Justin Pickard
• and “Gabriel and Jezebel” by yours truly.

Jay Lake‘s in convention mode, so he gets a free pass! But here’s his piece from last week: “Feghoot in Uruk“

And finally, Dr Ian Hocking has another little slice available in the form of “Stone Sun” – but again with the random timing. I think I’ll email him and get him on board with the schedule …

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That’s your lot for this week. Do remember we’re always looking for your tip-offs and blatant self-plugging efforts; the Staff page is temporarily devoid of email addresses (in an attempt to cool down the Futurismic servers from an overload of Russian \/14gr/\ spam), but we’re going to have a neat little contact form set up in a few days time.

Until then, happy reading!