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Futurismic re-opens to fiction submissions

The title says it all, folks; we’ve given Chris a bit of breathing space, but now it’s time to re-open the floodgates for new fiction submissions here at Futurismic. If you’ve got something you think is ready to send to us, go give the submission guidelines another read-through, then click on through to the submissions webform and send us your masterpiece!

If you want to know what sort of standards you’re up against, keep your eyes peeled – there’ll be a brand new story on the site later today. In the meantime, why not dig through our previous publications?

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Romania’s balloon-launch moonshot

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The MoonIt’s been a while since space exploration was the sole province of national behemoths like NASA, despite the relative infancy of the commercial space sector. A small budget might prevent you from launching human payloads, but there’s still plenty of options at the bottom end of the funding scale… along with some tantalising enticements for an outfit with big dreams.  [image by ComputerHotline]

Romanian company ARCA is one such outfit, and they’re taking a stab at the Google-funded Lunar X Prize using comparatively cheap and simple technology:

… a balloon that can carry ARCA’s European Lunar Explorer (ELE) space probe into the upper atmosphere, eliminating the need for a traditional launch pad and allowing ARCA to launch close to the equator from a sea platform. The “0” pressure balloon design is similar to a giant black hot-air balloon that uses solar energy to heat the air inside, instead of the burner that normal hot-air balloons use.

Once the balloon soars above 11 miles (18 km), the three-stage rocket slung below will fire and boost itself into low Earth orbit. ELE will then travel to the moon and deploy its Lunar Lander, which resembles a knobby rubber ball that uses its own rocket engine to ensure a soft landing.

ARCA’s lander itself isn’t really designed to do much when (or rather if) it arrives on the Lunar surface; because of the way the X Prize is defined, reaching the Moon is more important than achieving anything there. But as with most private space-launch initiatives, it’s all about proof-of-concept – once they know they can make the journey, they can start thinking about what to cart along next time.

Balloon-launch projects always remind me of Zion Cluster from William Gibson’s early novels, which – if I remember correctly – was colonised by exactly this sort of cheap-and-cheerful bootstrap approach.

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Quantum superposition breakthrough

theory_actualA rich seam of technological and science-fictional ideas seem ready to be mined with the development of the first light trap that can simultaneously store different numbers of photons:

“These superposition states are a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics, but this is the first time they have been controllably created with light,” Cleland said. Martinis added, “This experiment can be thought of as a quantum digital-to-analog converter.” As digital-to-analog converters are key components in classical communication devices (for example, producing the sound waveforms in cell phones), this experiment might enable more advanced communication protocols for the transmission of quantum information.

The research is funded by IARPA. Intelligence services are understandably keen to learn more about the potential for quantum computers to break conventionally encrypted communications.

[image and story from Physorg]

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Friday Free Fiction for 29th may

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It’s nearly June, my band played a show last night, and I’ve had a long and busy day. So I hope you’ll forgive me skipping the banter and getting straight into this week’s batch of free science fiction stories from the intertubes – onwards!

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A bunch from ManyBooks:

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And a bunch more from FeedBooks:

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Subterranean Online presents:

And also from Subterranean:

Those of you interested in a peak at the world of Kage Baker’s The Women of Nell Gwynne’s will be very interested in her novelette, “Speed, Speed the Cable” (pdf file), which explores the Gentleman’s Speculative Society, the Company Precursor that plays an important role in her new novella, as well as her next novel, Not Less Than Gods.

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Strange Horizons presents “If Wishes Were Horses” by Tiffani Angus-Bodie

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The New Yorker presents “The Slows” by Gail Hareven [via World SF News]

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Revolution SF presents “The Four Jerks of the Apocalypse” by Camille Alexa

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The latest Shadow Unit DVD Extra is “Misadventure”

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Via Futurismic‘s own Tom Marcinko (who has apparently sold them a couple of stories, the saucy devil) comes the news that Circlet Press is publishing some free-to-read erotic sf/f stories on their website at the moment.

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If you’re following along with Jason Stoddard‘s Eternal Franchise, we’re up to chapter 8.2

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Once again the SF Signal gang make a lazy man’s life a little easier with not one, not two but three free fiction round-up posts. There’s a smattering of extras as well

  • The Online Pulps Site presents “The Last Monster” by Gardner Fox
  • Atomjack presents “Purple” by Alissa Grosso
  • The latest issue of Allegory includes fiction by JC Tabler, Michael Andreoni, Jennifer Linnaea, Adam Armstrong, Martin Turton, RJ Astruc, Philip Roberts, AJ Brown, and Ty Drago
  • Web Fiction Guide offers free online novels, story collections, and reviews.
  • Book View Cafe presents:

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And last but not least, here’s a handful of Friday Flash Fiction:

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And that’s your lot! You know the drill about getting in touch with plugs and tip-offs for free fiction, right? Awesome – so have a good weekend!

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