The days are getting longer and brighter; it’ll be summer before we know what’s hit us. But at least the weekly rituals of life are there to keep us in some cyclic tradition of normalcy – rituals like rounding up big batches of free science fiction stories every Friday!

And as it’s a new month, there’s lots of new stuff from our fellow webzines, so get clicking…

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A triptych at Manybooks:

• “The Crystal Crypt” by Philip K Dick
• “The God in the Box” by Sewell Peaslee Wright
• A Winter Amid the Ice and Other Thrilling Stories by Jules Verne

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And a bunch from Feedbooks:

• “Inside John Barth” by William W Stuart
• “Beyond the Door” by Philip K Dick
• “Year of the Big Thaw” by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• “Texas Week” by Albert Hernhuter
• “Lost in the Future” by John Victor Peterson
• “Solar Stiff” by Chas A Stopher

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New for May at Clarkesworld:

• “From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog9” by Nnedi Okorafor
• “The Devonshire Arms” by Alex Dally MacFarlane

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New stuff from Apex Online:

• “Hideki and the Gnomes” by Mark Lee Pearson
• “Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens” by Peter M Ball
• “When the Thorns are the Tips of Trees” by Jason Sanford
• “Gone Fishin’” by John R Platt

And as an added bonus, Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup is being made available as a free PDF download for the remainder of May.

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Subterranean Online presents:

• “Conquistador de la Noche” by Carrie Vaughn
• “Crimes and Glory” by Paul McAuley
• “Under the Honey” by Liz Williams

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Here’s episode 2.03 of Shadow Unit: “Sin Eater”

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Jason Stoddard presents chapter 6.2 of Eternal Franchise

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Tor.com presents “Last Son of Tomorrow” by Greg Van Eekhout

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Strange Horizons presents “The Rising Waters” by Benjamin Crowell

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COSMOS Magazine presents “Delivering Tomorrow, Today” by Robert Friedman

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HUB Magazine #85 includes “Old Clothes” by Chris Cyr

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A message from Chris Odhner:

My brother is publishing a new free short story *every day* for the next year.

Thanks, Chris!

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A message from from Jake Freivald:

The latest edition of Flash Fiction Online is up. Two of our three new flashes are SF: “Jack Rabbit” by Isaac Espriu and “Billions of Stars” by KJ Kabza.

Cheers, Jake!

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And thanks as always to SF Signal, without whose ubiquitous free-fictional panopticon we would have missed the following:

• There’s a bunch of new additions to the Suvudu free library:
  • Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian
  • Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham
  • Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock
• Fusion Fragment presents “For the Love of Ceelie” by Matthew Sanborn Smith
• The New Yorker presents “The Slows” by Gail Hareven
• The New Yorker has also published the JG Ballard story “The Autobiography of J.G.B.“
• The Nautilus Engine‘s May 2009 issue includes fiction from Fabio Fernandes, LL Wise, Daniel Stiles, KM Rockwood, Violet Hilton, Jason L Corner, JD Riso, Mimi Vaquer, and Heath Lowrance
• Episode #22 of Contagious by Scott Sigler is available for download in PDF and MP3 formats.
• The latest issue of Aphelion includes fiction by T Richard Williams, Jon Wesick, Joel Realubit, Roderick D Turner, Terry Larson, E S Strout, Ed Barol, Joseph T Christopher, Mary Kiorden Hayden, Tyler Hardin, Philip Roberts, Ken Kraus, and Dan Edelman

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And finally Sumit Dam steps in with some Friday Flash: “The Reunion”

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And that’s your lot! Don’t forget to drop us a line about anything you think warrants inclusion in a future Friday Free Fiction; in the meantime, have a great weekend!