Hi folks – your Free Fiction was somewhat delayed this week thanks to some hosting-related downtime. But better late than never, eh?

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They’re keeping it old-school at Manybooks.net, as is traditional:

• “Greener Than You Think” by Ward Moore 
• “Victory” by Lester del Rey
• “The Untouchable” by Stephan A. Kallis
• “Gun for Hire” by D.M. Reynolds
• “A Transmutation of Muddles” by Horace Brown Fyfe
• “The First One” by Herbert D. Kastle
• “A Spaceship Named McGuire” by Randall Garrett
• “Card…Trick” by Gordon Randall Garrett
• “Attrition” by Jim Wannamaker
• “The Coffin Cure” by Alan Nourse
• “Letter of the Law” by Alan Nourse
• “The Native Soil” by Alan Nourse
• “PRoblem” by Alan E. Nourse
• “The Highest Treason” by Randall Garrett.

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David Barr Kirtley has the give-away bug; you can read “Save me Plz” and “Blood of Virgins” on his website, both of which appeared originally in Realms of Fantasy.

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From the folks at Orbit:

It’s only a …er… matter of weeks before [the new Iain M. Banks novel] Matter arrives in bookstores. The first Culture novel since Look to Windward, Matter is one of the most anticipated science fiction novels coming out this year. We’re thrilled to be publishing it, and thrilled to offer a first look at the stunning prologue.

At the risk of sounding boastful, I’ll tell you that I was lucky enough to be sent an ARC of Matter, and I can assure you it’s a book you’ll want to read if you have even the slightest fondness for space opera with a twist. Go check out that prologue if you don’t believe me – Iain M. Banks isn’t my authorial hero for nothing, you know..

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Free fiction in audio format!

How’s about John Wyndham‘s classic cosy catastrophe Day of the Triffids?

And over at Podiobooks you can download a free audiobook version of Grey by Jon Armstrong, a book originally published by Night Shade Books in February 2007.

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From my good web-buddy Doctor James “Big Dumb Object” Bloomer:

The new issue of Spacesuits and Sixguns Magazine is online and it includes my story “A Letter Of Complaint“. If you’ve ever done your grocery shopping online (as is increasingly common in the UK) – and have been left baffled at the produce that actually turns up – then this one is for you.

Get your shopping delivered? You lazy bum, James – I walk to the shops and hence lower my carbon footprint! 🙂 Well done on the story, man.

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You’d have to have been very busy (or very cynical) not to have noticed it’s Nebula season.

In addition to all their other hard work (without some of which these posts would be almost impossible) the SF Signal gang are keeping a list of Nebula nominated fiction complete with links to freely readable online versions where available.

So if you like your free fiction fresh, up-to-date and award nominated, that’s probably your best first port of call right now.

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It looks like the Friday Flash Fictioneers are up to nearly full complement this week. Let’s see what we have:

Neil Beynon has “The Cloud“, Dan Pawley is “Adrift“, Gareth L Powell is at “The Highest Point“, and Martin McGrath is “Leaving The World” – a definite thematic drift upwards, wouldn’t you say?

Down here on the ground, though, Gareth D Jones has a “Prequel“, Shaun C Green has a “Human Interest Story“, and yours truly takes on “Sturgeon’s Law” (hopefully without falling foul of it).

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Flash fiction bonus: more flash to read, and a market to submit to! Go take a look at the aptly named FlashFictionOnline.com.

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And a non-fiction bonus, via BoingBoing:

Julian Dibbell has released the text of his ground-breaking “My Tiny Life” as a free download through Lulu.com.

Part memoir and part ethnography, My Tiny Life is about the social life of the online, text-based virtual world LambdaMOO and my own brief encounter with it in the early ’90s. Andrew Leonard, in Salon, called it “the best book yet on the meaning of online life.”

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OK folks, that’s your lot for this week.

Don’t forget, we’re always wanting your tips, recommendations and shameless self-plugs. Even if your work turns up in one of the sites in the sidebar, we’ll still give it a mention here if you just let us know about it! Just drop me a line via the Staff page.

Have a great weekend!

A comparatively slow week for free fiction, but there’s still plenty enough if you need it …

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Free fiction at ManyBooks.net:

• “The Destroyers” by Randall Garrett
• “All Day September” by Roger Kuykendall
• “The Cosmic Expense Account” by C.M. Kornbluth
• “The Asa Rule” by Jay Williams

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At Fantasy Magazine: “Zombie Lenin” by Ekaterina Sedia

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A kind-of sneak-peek from Jay Lake:

“[This is] the original short story “Green”, basis of the novel I am currently writing. At 6,700 words, this originally appeared at Aeon 5 back in 2005 …”

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Good news from Cole Kitchen: the excellent print magazine Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest is getting into the free content game – take a look at Apex Online, with stories from James Walton Langolf and Matt Wallace, and lots of other non-fiction too.

Cole also points us at Transmitter – an online science fiction anthology magazine, according to the strap-line. Whatever it calls itself, there’s free fiction by the likes of Jake Clyde and Jennifer Moore, so go take a look.

Cheers, Cole!

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From Futurismic’s own Edward Willett:

“The release of my new SF novel Marseguro (DAW Books) is coming up February 5, so I’m beginning to do what I can to promote it online…which includes posting the first two chapters online.”

Good luck, Ed!

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Looks like a full complement on the Friday Flash Fiction parade ground this week:

Gareth L Powell has been thinking (and writing) about “Natalie“.

Gareth D Jones is channeling Ray Bradbury with “Built By Moonlight“.

Dan Pawley‘s journey back to his native country must have unnerved him; he’s worried that “The Natives Are Restless Tonight“.

Martin McGrath returns to the fray with a lingering fear of birds: “Sixty-seven Parrots“.

Justin Pickard is equally unnerved (though for rather different reasons) by “Fatima’s Funeral“.

Neil Beynon wants you to look deep into the “Eyes“.

Shaun C Green has been watching too much TV, I think – “The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Trivial“.

And finally yours truly decided to step out of the science fiction mode for a change, and go “Down on the Upside“.

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That’s your lot, ladies and gents. Don’t forget to get in touch with any tips or suggestions – you can find my email address on the Staff page.

Have a great weekend!

[tags]free, fiction, stories, online[/tags]

Happy new year, Futurismic readers! Here’s your first dose of free fiction for 2008:

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A big lump-lot at ManyBooks.net:

• “As Long As You Wish” by John O’Keefe
• “We Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Hardly” by Roger Kuykendall
• “Make Mine Homogenized” by Rick Raphael
• “Pushbutton War” by Joseph P. Martino
• “The Ambulance Made Two Trips” by Murray Leinster
• “The Aliens” by Murray Leinster
• “The Sky Trap” by Frank Belknap Long
• “Disturbing Sun” by Robert Shirley Richardson (aka Philip Latham)
• “The Guardians” by Irving Cox
• “Egocentric Orbit” by John Cory
• “Dead Giveaway” , “Despoilers of the Golden Empire“, “Damned If You Don’t” and “The Measure of a Man” by Randall Garrett

[Just to reiterate the point, the above list (and indeed some of the below) would be impossible for us to compile on a weekly basis if not for cribbing vigorously from the hard-grafting folk at SF Signal, who have our deepest gratitude.]

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Via Nick Mamatas:

Happy New Year, and check out the latest from Clarkesworld Magazine!

“Debris Ensuing From A Supervortex” by Brian Ames.

And our feature article: Countdown to Singularity: A Conversation with Vernor Vinge by Shaun Farrell.

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Chris Roberson delivers Friday freebies yet again: “The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small“.

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Charles Sheehan-Miles wrote in to let us know that he has released the entirety of his alternate-near-future novel, Republic, free in all formats under a Creative Commons license.

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S.L. Viehl is using Scribd to host all her free-to-read fiction.

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Elizabeth Bear has posted of her short story “Tideline” (from the March 2007 Asimov’s) at her website.

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Podcast fiction! Audible offers “Could Be Worse” by James Patrick Kelly.

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It’s a bit thin on the ground for Friday Flash Fictioneers again, but there’s always a few of us defying such niceties as seasonal laziness … 😉

Neil Beynon delivers one of my favourites from his offerings so far: “The Edge Of The World“.

And in another one of those synchronous happenstances that seem to crop up so often in the world of FFF, both Gareth L Powell and I have stories involving salvaging, though in very different settings.

So take a visit to Gareth’s “Crash Site“, and then consider popping over to my blog and getting “Tagged“.

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And finally, a simultaneously funny and educational non-fiction bonus: The Annals of Improbable Research (also known as AIR) is the publication from the people who brought us the IgNobel Prizes, and it’s now available for free in lo-rez downloadable formats as well as old-school dead-tree media.

If you like genuine science and a good hard laugh, there’s no place you’ll ever find the two more closely meshed – consider that my personal recommendation! 🙂

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That’s your lot for this week, folks. Don’t forget to let us know if you see or hear of any free fiction you think we should be telling people about. Adios!