Who can you rely on to battle past technical issues and shyster hosting companies to bring you your weekly dose of free fiction on the interwebs?
Futurismic, that’s who!
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The retro selection from Manybooks.net:
- “Wizard” by Laurence Mark Janifer
- “The Winds of Time” by James H. Schmitz
- “Cat and Mouse” by Ralph Williams
- “Vigorish” by Randall Garrett
- “Shock Absorber” by E.G. von Wald
- “Mercenary” by D.M. Reynolds
- “Criminal Negligence” by Jesse Francis McComas
- “The Silk and the Song” by Charles Louis Fontenay
- “The Valley of the Flame” by Henry Kuttner
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Via Darren at UKSFBookNews:
“The fifth issue of the online magical realist fiction magazine, Serendipity, features work by Steven Savile, Lynn Bartels, Tony Murfin, Lady Charlotte Guest, Craig Laurance Gidney and Neil Ayres.”
Lovely – I’ve added Serendipity to the sidebar!
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Jay Lake‘s at it again, with a story short enough to qualify for the Flash Fictioneers … if you’d ever like to join in, Jay, please just let us know!
“…the original short story “Arrange the Bones“. At 1,000 words, this originally appeared in Say…Was that a Kiss? back in 2002, then reprinted by Prime Books in my 2004 collection, Dogs in the Moonlight. If you like the story, please consider supporting Fortress of Words and their Say… zine, as well as Prime Books.”
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An email from Sam J Miller:
“Hoped you might be able to include my semi-spec-fic short story, “Paper Bomb,” freshly-published in the new online issue of Pindeldyboz, in your next fabulous Friday Free Fiction communique.
Thanks a million for your excellent work in finding such great sci-fi to send around every week. It’s a high point of my Fridays.”
It’s a highlight of mine too, Sam – though as I’ve mentioned before, I merely collate the work of others and quote emails I’m sent. I am but the conduit! 😉
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From John Klima at Electric Velocipede:
“Of interest to me and my readers is that William Shunn‘s novelette “Not of this Fold” from his chapbook An Alternate History of the 21st Century is on the preliminary [Nebula novellette] ballot. […] To that end, I’ve posted (with Bill’s permission) a PDF of the story online.”
Congratulations to William – and to John as editor, too. I know we’re all about the free online fiction here, but there are some super print mags out there too, and Electric Velocipede is a charming little publication that’s well worth the subscription fee.
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Speaking of excellent print magazines* making award-nominated stories available for free, I should point out that Interzone has published the 2007 BSFA-Nominated story “The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter” by Alastair Reynolds, which is a great story that comes personally recommended by me, for what that’s worth.
[*Disclosure – I’m Interzone‘s Reviews Editor, but I thought it was an excellent magazine long before I started contributing to it. You can now subscribe electronically and avoid that tiresome Transatlantic postage business, too!]
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Subterranean Press are pumping out more material for free on their webzine:
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A few words from Jeremy Tolbert:
“I slept very badly last night, and had a migraine to end all migraines. I’m slowly recovering this morning. I recently woke up and, along with this lingering headache, I found I have an overwhelming desire to give something away.
I’ve posted a story, “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You“, online under a Creative Commons license. It’s about death, Led Zeppelin, and how families cope.”
Jeremy also post-mortem’d the give-away and examined his motives for doing it – interesting reading for other aspiring writers.
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Hey, guess what? Futurismic’s own Fiction Editor Christopher East got one of his stories published at Hub Magazine, but he’s too modest to post about it himself. So it falls to me to blow his trumpet for him (ahem) – so go read “The Scarlet Number“.
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Friday Flash Fictioneers – form up and call ’em out! We’re a few short this week (albeit with a promise of imminent material from Neil Beynon), but we have a new recruit to fill out the ranks.
So, a warm welcome to Greg O’Byrne, who gives us “Dying In A Cold Dark Place“. Welcome aboard, Greg!
Elsewhere, Shaun C Green is interested in “This Urban Aesthetic“.
Meanwhile, in yet another example of synchronous and spontaneous picking of similar themes, we have two stories about starship pilots: Justin Pickard supplies the ultra-brief “Celerity“, while Gareth D Jones recounts “An Obscure Incident Somewhere in Deep Space”
Last but (hopefully) not least, yours truly heads back to his remixed hometown of New Southsea for a ferry-trip with “Charon“.
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Stop Press! Last-minute late-arrival bonus:
Solaris Books have made Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas available to download for free. Yes, the whole book.
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OK folks, that’s your lot for this week! Don’t forget to drop us a line with any tips, plugs and self-promotion. In the meantime, thanks for reading – take care, and have a good weekend.
The original “Mad Max” was about a post-nuclear war Australia, where the war had been caused by countries vying for dwindling oil supplies. But what if the same could happen, only the precious substance was water? 