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Friday Free Fiction for 8th December

Having been doing FFF for a few months now, it seems the free fiction online quota works in bi-weekly cycles … after last week’s bumper crop, there’s a comparatively sparse selection this week.

But only comparatively – there’s got to be at least a week’s worth of reading among this little lot: 

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A hefty selection of old-school material from Manybooks.net:

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Via Nick Mamatas, fiction editor for Clarkesworld:

… this month’s Clarkesworld theme is death and wrestling!

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Subterranean Online keeps up its remorseless pace of output:

Now we’re on to the Winter 2008 issue, where the first few features are posted, including a brand new short story (actually, an excerpt from his novel, Black & White, by Lewis Shiner) and a column by SubPress favorite Joe R. Lansdale. In the coming weeks and months, look for new fiction by Michael Bishop, Rachel Swirsky, a novella by Thomas M. Disch, an audio of what just might be Charles Stross’ funniest story, and much more.

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And last but by no means least, the Friday Flash Fictioneers ride forth:

Neil Beynon is afraid of attics. Why? “Because“.

Gareth L Powell reminds us that, in space, no one can hear your stomach rumble: “The Long Walk Aft“.

(Both Neil and Gareth have stories in the current issue of Aphelion webzine, too, so go take a look – congratulations, guys.)

Martin McGrath is fully on board with the creepy themes this week … what’s that noise? “Scritch-Scritch“.

Shaun C Green takes a dark look at corporate control in “Terminator“.

And yours truly takes a look at a reaction to corporate control in “Father and Son“.

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That’s your lot for this week, ladies and gents. Don’t forget you can alert me to stories by you or anyone else and have them included here, as long as they’re free and legally available to read on the web. Just drop me a line.

Have a great weekend!

[tags]free, fiction, stories, online[/tags]
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Some statistics about the publishing industry

Hands on a keyboardFreelancingBlog has collected some statistics that should be of interest to any aspiring writers, of fiction or otherwise. It’s kind of a mixed bag – some of them are quite heartening, like this one:

“Book sales account for 25-30 billion dollars in annual revenue?”

While others make you realise that there’s a lot more to getting published than simply bashing out a manuscript:

“Out of every 10,000 children’s books [written], 3 get published.”

As the post says, you’ve got to have guts and perseverance if you want to make it through.

Any writers among Futurismic’s readers who’d care to share their experiences? [Image by dbdbrobot]

[tags]writing, publishing, statistics, career[/tags]
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Laser fusion makes important steps

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Part of the UCLA tokamak fusion reactorThe quote physicists often say when asked about nuclear fusion is that ‘commercial fusion is 40 years away, but we’ve been saying that for 40 years’. Two main types of fusion are in development – ‘tokamaks’ like JET and ITER that use magnets to fuse hydrogen in a torus of plasma and those that shoot high powered lasers at pellets of hydrogen a few times a second, making bursts of energy.

Neither process is currently producing more energy than is put in to start the reaction but there have been some developments in laser technology that may help the latter approach. The EU has recently decided to fund a new high energy laser research project to build a working reactor. Laser fusion may ‘ignite’ and provide energy before the magnetic fusion research reaches the same point but the pulses of laser energy need to come much faster and more efficiently for this to be economically viable. Without considerable funding, the technological challenges of getting hydrogen to fuse will be insurmountable. However, fusion offers a real hope in the long term (30 years+) of providing clean energy.

[via the guardian, image of UCLA tokamak by r_neches]

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Detecting vegetation, analyzing atmospheres on extrasolar planets

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sodiumlinesWe know there are lots of planets orbiting other stars: we’ve found more than 250 of them already, and we’re getting better at finding them all the time. But the big question is, do any of the obviously plentiful extrasolar planets in the galaxy support life?

So far, we can’t tell: but we’re getting closer to being able to. Dr. Luc Arnold of the CNRS Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France thinks we might be able to tell if an extrasolar planet supports vegetation via a spectral analysis of the light reflected off it, because vegetation absorbs a lot of light around a specific wavelength for use in photosynthesis (on Earth, that’s red light, so this phenomenon is called the Vegetation Red Edge).

We don’t have any Earth or space-based telescopes that are able to carry out spectral analysis fine-grained enough to do this, yet, and even ESA’s Darwin and NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder, launching within the next decade or so, won’t be able to–but the next generation of planet-finding spacecraft after that probably will be.

One thing we have managed to do, though, is analyze the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet: a "hot Jupiter" orbiting a star in the constellation Vulpecula. By measuring which wavelengths of light from the planet’s star are absorbed by its atmosphere every time it swings between the star and Earth, University of Texas at Austin astronomer Seth Redfield determined the planet’s atmosphere contains sodium. (Via Universe Today and Universe Today.)

Again, we’re a long way from using the same technique to look for oxygen–a strong indicator of Life As We Know It–in Earth-sized planets’ atmospheres. But it’s likely just a matter of time. (Illustration: S. Redfield/T. Jones/McDonald Observatory.)

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A Personal Note: I apologize for a lack of posts from me over the past little while. As Paul mentioned in his last Friday Free Fiction post, I’m currently in rehearsal for a professional production of Beauty and the Beast, and it’s taking up most of my time. I hope to still manage an occasional post, though, until the show ends December 30, and resume regular posting in the new year.

[tags]astronomy, extrasolar planets, extraterrestrial life[/tags]

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