Greetings! Apologies in advance may be in order; I’m out of town at the moment (on a course about sf literary criticism, as it happens), and so I’ve had to collate as much of this week’s Friday Free Fiction as possible on Thursday afternoon, so there may be some blinding omissions if I haven’t had the time and resources to sit down with an internet connection since then.

Anything I’ve missed will end up in next week’s collection, but feel free to share any exciting discoveries in the comments. Now, let’s see what we’ve got …

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Here’s a bunch from ManyBooks.net:

• This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch
• The Fire People by Raymond King Cummings
• With Airship and Submarine by Harry Collingwood
• The Gods Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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A fist-full from FeedBooks:

• “The Diamond Lens” by Fitz James O’Brien
• “The Lost Room” by Fitz James O’Brien
• “Control Group” by Roger D Aycock
• “Traders Risk” by Roger D Aycock

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I think this has been available for some time, but I don’t remember linking it before, so here’s a short story from Gwyneth Jones‘ Bold As Love universe – “Big Cat”

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Just because Shadow Unit‘s first season is over doesn’t mean everything has gone silent over there. On the contrary – summertime is “DVD extras” season, one piece every second Sunday. First up is “Vigil“, penned by Elizabeth Bear.

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Scalzi had a tip-off to part of this haul, but it was Gary Gibson who pointed out that Lewis Shiner is cheerfully uploading every piece of fiction he’s ever written to be read for free at his website.

There’s a lot there already … and but you can subscribe via RSS if you want to keep on top of new material. And you can find out why he’s doing it in his Fiction Liberation Front manifesto – right on, Comrade Shiner!

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Via io9 we discover that:

“In The Garden Of Iden, Kage Baker‘s fantastic novel about time-traveling cyborgs who work for the 24th century Company, is available as a free download. Five-year-old Mendoza is about to be tortured to death as a Jew in the Spanish Inquisition, when she’s rescued by the Company and turned into a time-traveling operative — but her first assignment is to the 16th century, uncomfortably close to her own time. It’s available in PDF, HTML, or Mobi formats.”

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If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t have time (or net access) enough to pick up this week’s contributions from the Friday Flash Fictioneers, but I’m sure they’ll provide links to their pieces in the comments. If not, I’ll mash them in with next week’s round-up.

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Well, that’s all from me this time. Keep your plugs and tip-offs coming, and I hope you all have as stimulating a weekend as I’ll to be having!