Edo of Pink Tentacle fame has unearthed a bunch of ultra-pulpy cover illustrations from Japan’s prosaically-named SF Magazine. Produced by Kazuaki Saito, they pretty much sum up the way the future looked from a viewpoint set four decades back:
I wonder what the stories were like?
Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new method for generating energy from water flows:
The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.
As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.
Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.
More about this VIVACE (Vortex Induced Vibrations Aquatic Clean Energy) technology can be found here.
The Arizona Republic‘s publisher, Gannett Newspapers, announced long-awaited layoffs of almost 100 people, including some of its long-time reporters. It’s part of a national epidemic. Who’s going to write the newspaper? Interns and journalism students, apparently. Jon Talton has been blogging about the things he couldn’t say when he was a columnist for the paper:
I learned a few things, chiefly that Gannett is not really a newspaper company. Yet it will be remembered as the company that destroyed newspapers.
Gannett has its roots in small newspapers and it never could shake its inferiority complex. …Gannett didn’t believe it had anything to learn from excellent newspapers. A top executive used the word “metro-itis” to describe, and quash, any effort to do high-impact journalism, build superior reporting and editing staffs or develop sophisticated content.
To these leaders, who by this time were highly influential in the industry, small and “lite” papers had all the answers. Lite being the operative phrase.
So maybe it’s not just teh intramawebs that are killing newspapers. It may have something to do with content so fluffy you can finish reading your morning paper before your cereal has time to get soggy. More and better journalism, please.
[Dead Sea Newspaper, Wikimedia Commons]
It’s the first Friday Free Fiction of the month, which means that lots of webzines have new issues full to bursting of good stuff for you to read. So let’s get to it, eh?
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Here’s a mixed bag of old and new from the nice folk at Feedbooks:
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New stories at Clarkesworld:
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New stories at Apex Online:
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Polu Texni presents “Running Free” by Mark Sherwood
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Strange Horizons presents “The Same Old Story” by Naomi Bloch
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One new piece and one classic at SpaceWesterns:
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New pieces at Lone Star Stories:
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An update from Subterranean Online:
… we’ve just posted a couple of treats for readers — “Spring Training,” by Mike Resnick, being the latest adventure starring everyone’s favorite scalawag, the Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, and “The Seed of Lost Souls“, part of the long sold out chapbook that includes the story that was to become Poppy Z. Brite’s acclaimed first novel.
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Fantasy & Science Fiction has posted Charles Coleman Finlay‘s “We Come Not to Praise Washington“. (This news via SF Signal; no-one has actually thought to blog this at F&SF as of yet, apparently. *shrug*)
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Tor.com presents “The Film-makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman
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Via BoingBoing and SF Signal (and Futurismic reader OldMiser in the comments of my review of Fast Forward 2): the collaborative story “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow can now be found online for your reading delectation. It’s a long story with lots of crazy stuff in it, so strap yourself in for a wild ride.
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A message from Jake Freivald:
This issue of Flash Fiction Online has only one new piece of speculative fiction, this one a little fantasy called “Shelter”, though there are some other fresh pieces of different genres.
I also published a Classic Flash from 1960, though — one of my favorite early flash pieces. It’s called “Earthmen Bearing Gifts” by Fredric Brown.
Cheers, Jake!
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Here’s the stuff that we’d have missed if not for the fiction-sifting internet baleen of the SF Signal hivemind:
Plus the Signallers have a humongous list of the latest additions to the Free Speculative Fiction list site, which should keep you busy well past New Year’s.
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And last but not least, a fistful of Friday Flash Fiction:
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And there we have it – that should keep you busy for a while. In the meantime, send us your tips, plugs, blatant self-aggrandisement and digital brickbats – Futurismic‘s your site too, y’know. Have a great weekend!
