All posts by Paul Raven

Friday Free Fiction for 28th September

Compared to last week’s bumper crop, we’ve a fairly small serving of free fiction this Friday … but there’s always something fresh to read on the intarwebs.

Webzines!

Only one new item at ManyBooks.net (that I’ve seen linked, at least): "Pagan Passions" by Gordon Randall Garrett.

Mac Tonnies has had his CC-licensed short story "The Reenactment" published at Alterati.

The current edition of Chris Roberson‘s free fiction feature that occurs on a Friday has an entire stand-alone short story for your perusal: "Penumbra".

The Friday Flash gang is a few writers short this week, but there’s still some super-short fiction from Shaun C. Green ("Satisfaction"), Neil Beynon ("When I was bad"), Gareth D. Jones ("The Man Behind The Throne") and yours truly ("The Mud-Crab"), if you want to keep it bite-sized.

If you’re hungry for more, and you’re keen on a bit of heavy-duty lit-crit, you can always go and read a transcript of John Clute‘s talk that he gave to the American Centre in Prague back in September, wherein he discusses ‘Fantastika’ – a bracket term he uses for "that wide range of fictional works whose contents are understood to be fantastic". Like all of Clute’s work, it’s intensely brilliant and very complex, and always worth the read.

Enjoy your weekend!


Writers, editors and anyone else – if you have some material published for people to read toll-free here on the wonderful intarwebs, drop me a line using the email address listed for me (Paul Raven) on the Futurismic staff page, and I’ll add it to the next batch.

[tags]free, fiction, stories, online[/tags]

Climate change quick-fixes could actually make things worse

algaesea As Jamais Cascio and others have pointed out, geoengineering – large-scale technological projects aimed at averting the climate change crisis – should only be considered as last-ditch options, because they come with the risk of actually making things worse.

Take for example James "Gaia" Lovelock’s suggestion that we install hundreds of huge pipes in the ocean, with the aim of channeling nutrient-rich deep water to the surface to promote the growth of algae and (hopefully) absorb more atmospheric carbon dioxide. Lovelock himself admits that there’s a risk of the plan backfiring, but he says he’s worried enough that he thinks traditional scientific caution should be left behind. I hope he’s wrong – but even if he is, we could be doing a lot more to solve the problem than we already are. [Via BLDGBLOG] [Image by Jurvetson]

[tags]environment, ocean, geoengineering, climate change[/tags]

Science-fictional property for sale – US$1.5m o.n.o.

ICBMbase Via Chris Nakashima-Brown comes news of a real bargain in the offing – you could be the proud owner of a very Ballardian ICBM base located somewhere in Washington State, provided you have the necessary cash up front. [Image borrowed from linked BBC item.]

CastleBranDracula For those with a more horror/dark fantasy bent, maybe you’d prefer to buy Castle Bran, allegedly (and controversially) claimed as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Castle Dracula. It’s a mite more pricey than the missile base, however – you’re looking at a cool 40 million in UK Pound Sterling, or thereabouts. [Image from National Geographic]

[tags]homes, property, weird[/tags]

The bad and good of biofuels

cornfield We’ve been hearing a lot about the potential of biofuels, particularly ethanol, as being a great (and green) answer to our global dependence of petrochemicals. Which is true, to a certain extent.

The problem being that corn ethanol, while itself a cleaner fuel, is a horrendously climate-intensive crop, the cultivation of which may cause as many (if not more) problems than it solves … which is why we’d be wise to look at the numerous other sources for the same chemical (like algae, prairie grass and fast-growing trees) which won’t cause an environmental and economic trainwreck further down the line. [Via Worldchanging]

Of course, we’ll need to do something about the enticing boondoggle subsidies that are making corn ethanol such an enticing political playing piece first. [Image by Jpeg Jedi]

[tags]environment, biofuels, economics, agriculture[/tags]