All posts by Paul Raven

1337 in 2012 – a free story by Jason “Strange & Happy” Stoddard

If you need something to stop you hitting refresh on the Financial Times frontpage as the stock markets do their best impression of the North face of Everest, maybe you should try reading “1337 in 2012”, a story that Jason Stoddard has just thrown up for free on his website.

It’s about financial meltdowns and elections, so it’s more than a little topical. Plus it’ll give you the chance to see how Stoddard walks the Positive-sf walk after hearing him talk the talk

Here’s the opening few paragraphs:

“I want to know how she did it,” Alexandra Jetter said, almost pushing Gary McCabe down the narrow hallway with her refilled-from-the-lunchroom-for-a-week grande Starbucks. Not a single thank-you for calling him in at midnight.

“Doing it wasn’t hard,” Gary told her.

Alexandra snapped around to look at him, baring yellow teeth. “You didn’t vote for her, did you?”

“Of course not.” Though it had been really, really hard to vote for their pet candidate who promised the Bureau more funding, more growth, good times for everyone again, go back to buying Starbucks every day, hallelujah.

“Then how’d she do it?”

“She ran it like a campaign.”

“Of course it’s a campaign!”

“Not that kind of campaign.“

A snort. “She rigged it.”

Gary just shrugged.

Go read!

Friday Free Fiction for 3rd October

It’s Friday, and this week the free fiction cup runneth over…

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Just one (very short) story from Manybooks:

  • Cully” by Jack Egan

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Feedbooks have yet another Futurismic re-release: “Maquech” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

And a bunch of other stuff:

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Here’s another couple of free chapters from The Quiet War by Paul McAuley; chapter 4 parts one and two, and chapter 5.

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Via SF Signal, Elizabeth Bear is in on the free excerpts game, too. Here are chapters one, two, and three of All the Windwracked Stars.

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It’s new issue time at Subterranean Online:

Chris Roberson kicks off the Fall 2008 issue of Subterranean Online with part one of a long novelette set in the world of his Celestial Empire, in which the future space race doesn’t go quite as anyone intended. “Mirror of Fiery Brightness” is action filled, the result of strange conjectures, and imbued with humanity, as are most of Chris’ entries in this future history.

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This week’s offering from Strange Horizons: “Kimberley Ann Duray Is Not Afraid” by Leah Bobet.

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From the charmingly affable Paul Cornell (yeah, that guy who writes Doctor Who scripts; he does other stuff too, y’know):

I was very pleased to have a story included in Pyr Books’ new original SF anthology Fast Forward 2, which will soon be available in all good book stores. I was even more pleased when editor Lou Anders told me he’d be launching the anthology by putting my story “Catherine Drewe”, complete, up on the Pyr website

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Tor have got a new original Terry Bisson story available to read in full; it’s called “Catch ‘Em In The Act“.

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Via the superbly-monikered Cat Rambo, who’s holding the fort at Jeff VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days at the moment:

The new issue of Farrago’s Wainscot is up, which includes my story, “The Fisherman’s Child“.

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SpaceWesterns have got themselves a spiffy RSS feed, which makes keeping on top of their updates much easier from my point of view. It also means I’m pleased to report that the following stories have materialised over there:

  • A serialised version of H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop‘s “The Mound” in seven parts; latest updates are parts two and three.
  • Amanda Spikol‘s “Old Habits“, which is apparently a prequel to “A Few Sunsets Too Many“.

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Being the beginning of the month, it’s new issue time for many a webzine. First up, Clarkesworld:

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From Apex Online:

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Lone Star Stories:

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Reflection’s Edge seems to lean toward fantasy, but the new issue has one story marked out as sf:

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Via BoingBoing, Small Beer Press are at it again:

To celebrate the publication of Kelly Link‘s new collection, Pretty Monsters, most of Kelly’s previous collection Magic for Beginners is now available as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached. It is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license…

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John Joseph Adams just can’t stop himself – maybe he got bitten by something?

I’ve just added the following two free stories to the Free Stories & Excerpts page of The Living Dead’s website:

There’s now six free stories here on the website in their entirety, plus all the excerpts. Be sure to keep checking back to see more!

(I’ve only linked to the HTML versions; there are other portable formats available too.)

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Pick up the twenty-fifth piece of Jayme Lynn Blaschke‘s Memory… but mind you don’t cut yourself.

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A quick message from Ben Rawluk:

Here’s another shameless, shameless self-plug for some of my short-short fiction: “Night on the Compost Heap“. Thanks!

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And while we’re talking short-short fiction, here’s a handful of Friday Flash:

Nothing new from Phred Serenissima this week, but he has collected together his previous Friday Flash stories into a digital book called Consent To Be Monitored, now available on Scribd.

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That’s it for this week – plenty to keep you busy there, I’m thinking. Don’t forget to send us your plugs, links and pitches before 1800 GMT next week… but for now, have a great weekend!

Virgin Galactic declines to take Rule 34 to space – suborbital sex movies delayed

Virgin Galactic logoSay what you like about Richard Branson, but the man’s got standards and he sticks to ’em. One of those standards would appear to be not corrupting his brands with what some punters might consider to be unsavoury business… at least that’s my guess after hearing that Virgin Galactic have declined an up-front offer of US$1 million cash to film the first* zero-G pr0n movie on SpaceShipTwo.

Who says ethics and entrepreneurship are incompatible, eh? Looks like Rule 34 as applied to zero-G will have to rely on camera tricks and cartoons for a while longer. [via SlashDot]

[ * – Well, the first one featuring humans, at least. ]

Feminist SF blog carnival at SpaceWesterns – call for submissions

Attention, SF bloggers! We got an email from Nathan Lilly at SpaceWesterns:

I’m hosting the 22nd Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction on the topic of “Women in Space Westerns” and I was wondering if you (or anyone else at Futurismic) would care to submit a blog post to it. Check out the submission guidelines for more details.

I’m afraid my busy schedule precludes me participating, much as I’d like to get involved, but I thought I’d throw it open to Futurismic‘s readership – if you’re a blogger on subjects sf-nal, here’s a chance to get you writing in front of a wider audience!