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Equal rights for apes?

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The Great Ape Project is a pressure group demanding a basic set of rights for hominids – and, as a side-effect, throwing up some questions about where the boundaries of rights for other living things should lie. [image by Frank Wouters]

Some countries already have legislation banning certain types of invasive experiments on apes, but GAP’s platform would also ban their exploitation for entertainment purposes as well as their use by profit-making ventures in general. After all, we wouldn’t allow a fellow human to be exploited (‘reality’ television shows notwithstanding – apparently people volunteer for those, and you can’t effectively legislate against stupidity).

Not everyone is keen on GAP’s rights-based approach, though, because it could lead to a moral ‘slippery slope’: once you’ve decided that apes need parity of rights, how can you then deny them to lesser mammals?

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Jason Stoddard’s latest Futurismic story to appear in Rich Horton’s Unplugged anthology!

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OK, you’re going to have to excuse me being a bit effusive here, but I’ve just heard that – for the first time – a story originally published on Futurismic is going to appear in a Best of the Year anthology!

Rich Horton has decided to publish the first anthology devoted purely to stories published on the web from multiple publishers. Unplugged: The Best of Online Fiction will be released by Wyrm Publishing (the people behind the excellent Clarkesworld Magazine), and it will feature Jason Stoddard‘s “Willpower“, published just two weeks ago right here on Futurismic!

Here’s the complete table of contents:

  • Beth Bernobich, “Air and Angels” (Subterranean, Spring)
  • Mercurio D Rivera, “Snatch Me Another” (Abyss and Apex, First Quarter)
  • Nancy Kress, “First Rites” (Baen’s Universe, October)
  • Tina Connolly, “The Bitrunners” (Helix, Summer)
  • Rebecce Epstein, “When We Were Stardust” (Fantasy, February)
  • Jason Stoddard, “Willpower” (Futurismic, December)
  • Peter S Beagle, “The Tale of Junko and Sayiri” (IGMS, July)
  • David Dumitru, “Little Moon, Too, Goes Round” (Aeon Thirteen)
  • Hal Duncan, “The Behold of the Eye” (Lone Star, August)
  • Will McIntosh, “Linkworlds” (Strange Horizons, March 17-24)
  • Merrie Haskell, “The Girl-Prince” (Coyote Wild, August)
  • Brendan DuBois, “Not Enough Stars in the Night” (Cosmos)
  • Catherynne M Valente, “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” (Clarkesworld, May)
  • Cory Doctorow, “The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away” (Tor.com)

Congratulations to all the authors, and to the sites that published them! You can’t imagine how proud I am to see Futurismic considered alongside big hitters of online genre fiction like Strange Horizons and Tor.com – I run this site for the love of short form science fiction, but to see Chris’s editorial skills and Jason’s writing vindicated by Horton’s selection is a greater gift than I ever hoped to receive this year.

Indeed, Unplugged is a great moment for webzines in general – we’re not third-class venues any more. So thank you, Rich – and thank you all – for reading and believing in what we do. Here’s hoping for more selections in years to come!

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Friday Free Fiction for 12th December

Outside my flat it’s cold, damp and very dark. Indoors, however, I can bathe in the comforting glow of a flatscreen monitor replete with links to free science fiction stories available online… and what better way to get into the seasonal spirit than by sharing, eh?

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A couple of classics from Manybooks:

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Here’s a handful from Feedbooks:

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Via OldMiser and others, another freebie from Gwyneth Jones:

Castles Made Of Sand […] should have had a fortunate début, given that the first episode had just won a major award when it came out, but it was all a bit of a rush, and I’ve always wanted to go back and give the script a scale and polish, nothing too painful. So here it is, a few pages shorter, bloopers excised and every sentence a bit tighter, tho’ possibly only the writer can tell.

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A couple of republications from Jay Lake – “The Golden Whip” and “Real North”

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COSMOS Magazine presents “Delivery” by Trent Jamieson

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A message from Ben Rawluk:

I have a couple more short-short SF/weird fictions up at my blog: “Sarah in the Wheat“, “Street Performances” and “It’s All Biohazards Down Here“.

As well, I’ve posted a couple more of my Filthy Postcard Stories series, #3, #4 and #5.

Cheers, Ben!

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Strange Horizons presents “The Same Old Story” by Naomi Bloch

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The new issue of Ideomancer (which should really get itself an RSS feed) features fiction and poetry by George S Walker, A C Wise, Rachel Swirsky, Marsheila Rockwell, David Kopaska-Merkel and J C Runolfson.

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Another update from Subterranean Online; I don’t usually link to podcast stories here (simply because so many other places already do) but I thought I’d break ranks for this one:

…we’re capping off the fall issue with a real corker — one of Alastair Reynolds’ fine space opera novellas, read by Sam Mowry. Head over and check out Thousandth Night, which was the jumping off point for Al’s most recent novel, House of Suns.

Great writer, Al Reynolds; go listen.

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And here’s the stuff that SF Signal‘s immense trawler net caught that I’d have otherwise missed:

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And to finish, a few bits of Friday Flash Fiction:

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And there you have it. Don’t forget to let us know if there’s something you think I might miss! In the meantime, have a great weekend.

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