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… π
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:
- “Foundling on Venus” by Dorothy and John De Courcy
- “The Hoofer” by Walter M Miller
- “G-r-r-r…!” by Roger Arcot
- Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 – an entire Golden Age pulp classic, 80,000 words of it!
- “Happy Ending” by Frederic Brown
- “The Hammer of Thor” by Charles Willard Diffin
- “The Great Dome of Mercury” by Arthur Leo Zagat
- “Reel Life Films” by Sam Merwin
- “Made in Tanganyika” by Carl Richard Jacobi
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And a load more from FeedBooks:
- βKeep Outβ by Frederic Brown
- βNo Pets Allowedβ by Monette A Cummings
- βOperation Lorelieβ by William P Salton
- βAcid Bathβ by Vaseleos Garson
- βThe Mathematiciansβ by Arthur Feldman
- βCogito, Ergo Sumβ by John Foster West
- “Mutineer” by Robert J Shea
- “Arm of the Law” by Harry Harrison
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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. π
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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. π
3-4 hours into your life per week is a good trade-off for something probably only a few dozen people really read anyway. Good move.
The link to “The Mathematicians” is broken.
I completely understand where your coming from but, I hope that if you find a bit more free time, you’ll reconsider. Many of the free stories out there deserve more attention than we can give them at QuasarDragon and SF Signal.
Thanks for the kind words and the recommendation and the love. [Tears well up in the eyes, gears up for a big man-hug].
Seriously, part of me hopes you’ll reconsider as well. Sure, there was overlap, but there was also unique stuff as well. And the other part of me completely understands as well. There was some redundancy and time is at a premium these days. Thankfully, Dave is there doing an absolutely wonderful job at this at SF Signal. All kudos go to him — he is truly the master.
John
SF Signal