Tag Archives: Fiction

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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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Friday Free Fiction for 22nd May

It’s Friday again… and unless I’m mistaken, this is one of those weekends where folk on both sides of the pond have a Monday off. Which is reason to be cheerful – so why not celebrate by reading some free science fiction stories online, eh? C’mon, your boss is probably coasting his way to close-of-business anyway, who’s gonna notice? Step this way…

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Here’s a bunch from ManyBooks:

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And a couple from FeedBooks:

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Jason Stoddard‘s Creative Commons release of Eternal Franchise continues; we’re up to chapter 8.1

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Yet another Shadow Unit Season 2 DVD Extra: “The Truth”

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News from Arkham Tales:

Issue #3 of Arkham Tales is now available for free download! This issue features a cover by George Cotronis, and contains fiction by Nicholas Ozment, J.C. Koch, Rob Brooks, Nandi Ekles, Eric W. Jepson, Maura McHugh, J.J. Beazley and Edward Morris.

Their server seems a little flaky at the moment (possibly just overloaded on release day) so give the refresh button a few jabs if you get a connection error.

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I’m not sure if it’s entirely meant to be read as fiction, but Ken MacLeod‘s “Invasion Dream” is a pretty weird read nonetheless.

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HUB Magazine #87 features “Nightlife” by Dean Grondo

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Here’s Memory part 37 by Jayme Lynn Blaschke

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The SF Signal gang have made my life a little easier with a couple of free fiction link posts. Meanwhile, here’s another few snippets that passed through there over the week:

  • The latest issue of Three Crow Press includes fiction by Catherine Knutsson, Glenn Lewis Gillette, T A  Moore, C M  SheVLin, Nu Yang, Brian Dolton, Shannon Page and Jay Lake, Gary McMahon, David Priebe, and Rick Silva
  • Conjunctions presents “Predecessor” by Jeff VanderMeer; looks like they have more free fiction over there, too, but a distinct lack of RSS feed.

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And to close us up, Sumit Dam sneaks in with “Lives of Quiet Desperation“.

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And that’s all, folks, as the cartoon pig used to say. Don’t forget to drop us a line if there’s something you think we should collect here next week, but more importantly, have the best weekend you can, OK? Peace…

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Friday Free Fiction for 15th May

Once again, the weekend has sneaked up on me almost without being noticed… if it weren’t for G-Cal and Remember The Milk I’d probably forget to eat most days. But Friday tends to stick in the mind, because that’s the day I wrap up another big list of the past week’s free science fiction stories on the intertubes. Onward!

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Here’s few from FeedBooks:

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Missed this one last week (only human, sorry!); a message from Jeffrey A Carver via Tor.com:

Eternity’s End is my Nebula-nominated novel about a star rigger named Legroeder who sets out in search of the lost ship Impris, Flying Dutchman of the stars. And along the way, encounters interstellar pirates and some deep-cyber romance. This book is free range, free running, cage free, up on the web for you to download for free!

Go fetch!

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Issue #86 of HUB Magazine includes two stories:

  • “Wink” by Lucy Kemnitzer
  • “Tastes of the Dark” by Malin Larsson

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Even though Jason Stoddard has now sold the hardback rights to Eternal Franchise, he’s still giving the whole thing away; we’re up to chapter 7.1

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Another DVD extra from Shadow Unit Season 2: “Scene”

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Strange Horizons presents part one and part two of “The Rising Waters” by Benjamin Crowell

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From the prolific Lee Gimenez:

I just wanted to let you know that my short story “Unhistory” was just published in the May 2009 issue of Orion’s Child Magazine.

Bravo, Lee!

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From Nancy Jane Moore:

On Book View Cafe this week, you can read:

“Cat T’ai Chi“, a graphic whimsey by Ursula K Le Guin; “Running the Road“, a longish flash fiction from Nancy Jane Moore; Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff‘s “Heroes“, which is novelette-length; “Waterwoman Nude“, a brand new story from Kate Daniel; a memoir from BVC’s newest member Alma Alexander, “Houses in Africa“; and a bonus scene — not in the print book — from Pati Nagle‘s new book, The Betrayal.

And that’s just a tiny amount of the free material available on the Book View Cafe site, which has everything from serialized novels to plays.

You heard the lady – go take a look.

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And here’s a few extras via SF Signal and their diligent inter-ma-web filtration-elves:

  • Afterburn SF presents “Ten Little Phobias” by Bev Vincent
  • Issue 131 of AntipodeanSF has appeared, including stories by Kieran Salsone, Tom Williams, David Scholes, Mark Farrugia, Shaun A Saunders, Jamie Richter, Scott Wilson, Jan Napier, Simon Petrie, and Mika F Cella
  • Marie Brennan is offering (in multiple formats) the free novella “Deeds of Men“…a story that takes place between Midnight Never Come and her upcoming novel In Ashes Lie.
  • Baen’s Webscription presents “The Menace from Earth” by Robert Heinlein

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And it looks like that’s the lot. Unfortunately, Keyboard Cat is contractually unable to play me off unless I bribe his management with cargo containers full of fresh tuna, so I’ll simply end with the usual request to keep us posted about anything you think merits inclusion in next week’s round-up, and the suggestion that you have yourself a damn good weekend. *waves*

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The future of fiction is games

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computer game end-screenWe’ve already heard arguments to the effect that computer games could become the ‘new frontier’ for fiction writing and storytelling, but they’ve usually come from the games or fiction communities themselves. It seems the idea is starting to get some traction beyond the ghettos, though – here’s a reviewer at the Daily Telegraph responding to a new game based on Dante’s Inferno:

Dante’s Inferno may not herald a new era in literary gaming, but connoisseurs of story could do worse than watch the area for developments. A recent survey of American teenagers revealed that 97 per cent of the consumers of the future now play video games.

What’s more, certain independent games are entering a phase – familiar to historians of jazz, comics and indeed 20th-century literature – of vigorous experimentation with techniques of narrative. (An evening with the frightening and baffling The Path, rather like an Angela Carter story siphoned through The Sims, will show you what I mean.) And with book sales falling, it may not be long before prose writers jump ship for a medium that offers some of the most exciting possibilities of the new century.

It’s happened before. Veterans of home computing in the Eighties and Nineties may recall knotting their brows over the game of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams himself. Adams also wrote Bureaucracy, a game in which the paper-shuffling protagonist’s most pressing task is to avoid succumbing to a brain haemorrhage from stress. And the veteran sci-fi novelist Harlan Ellison delivered I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, a game whose vision of eternal torture remains more shocking than most of its high-resolution descendants.

No surprise to see science fiction writers cropping up in the discussion – though whether that’s because they’re generally a more forward-thinking type of writer or because they’ve always had to struggle to find new markets is a moot point.

And, of course, computer gaming is still a medium in its infancy by comparison to the novel, song or poem – not to mention one that inherently has vast potential to absorb other media into itself. It doesn’t take a huge mental leap to imagine much of the consumer media we enjoy today being reparsed into more interactive forms; my only hope is that is doesn’t shake down to the levels of banality that tend to define television, the previous game-changing media technology. [image by blakespot; story via TomorrowMuseum]

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Five lies writers believe about editors

Hey, fiction writers – ever wonder what really makes editors tick? Sure you do; you’d love to know what really happens to your story when you wing it off for consideration at a favourite magazine or website.

Well, you’re in luck – Jeremiah Tolbert, himself a writer but also currently submissions editor at Escape Pod, explodes five myths about the editorial process. Here’s the first:

  • LIE #1: Editors give every story fair consideration. OR: Editors reject stories without reading them at all.

The truth is, the slush is deep, and it’s rarely an editor’s favorite part of the job. Why do you think so many places have slush readers?

Every story doesn’t get fair consideration. Not every story deserves it. If you can’t be bothered to read the submission guidelines and follow them, it’s an easy rejection. If you have five grammar and spelling mistakes in the first two paragraphs, it’s an easy rejection. If it’s a story about vampires, and I hate vampire stories, it’s mostly an easy rejection.

Most stories get at least a page out of me. Then I skip to the last 3 paragraphs, if I’m feeling generous. Some get less. Some work is so obviously bad that it’s startlingly easy to know it’s not going to work. But every story gets looked at. Nothing ever gets rejected without being partially read. Honest.

All five are honest, pertinent, and pretty funny. Go read.