Friday rolls round once again, like some perpetually mobile ball-bearing in the supermarket aisle of life… so best grab onto a stack of free fiction to break your fall, eh? Let’s see what we’ve got…

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There’s a big batch of pulp-era classix at Feedbooks:

• “The Gallery” by Rog Phillips
• “Advanced Chemistry” by Jack G Huekels
• “Alien Offer” by Al Sevcik
• “Star Mother” by Robert Franklin Young
• “Wanted – 7 Fearless Engineers!” by F Orlin Tremaine
• “The Coming of the Ice” by Green Peyton Wertenbaker
• “A Place in the Sun” by Stephen Marlowe
• “Summer Snow Storm” by Stephen Marlowe

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AntipodeanSF‘s new issue has ten micro-flash stories waiting to be read.

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There’s a new issue of Behind the Wainscot, too:

• “Faster Than a Speeding Bullet” by Becca de la Rosa
• “Some Notes on the Eisenberg Estate” by Willow Fagan
• “Birdhouse” by Kristine Ong Muslim
• “Exoskeletal” by Laura Ellen Scott

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This week’s fictional offering from Strange Horizons: “Just After Midnight” by Christie Skipper Ritchotte.

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Tor.com are offering a free ebook version of Brian Francis Slattery‘s Spaceman Blues. The only catch is that you have to be a registered member of the site to get at them, but I imagine the bulk of you are already.

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Here’s a bit of a break from science fiction, if you fancy it, via a tip-off from Futurismic‘s own Tom Marcinko:

Literary agent Lucienne Diver declared “Urban Fantasy Week” and has posted some short stories by some of the series authors in her stable on her Livejournal.

Cheers, Tom!

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Via Nick Mamatas, the summer issue of Weird Tales is available as a free PDF download, for an unspecified limited period…

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Peter Watts has a snippet of fiction up at his blog that comes with spoiler warnings, the title of which appears to be “Good News for Modern Man“. Peter Watts being Peter Watts, it probably isn’t good news at all…

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Via the indispensable SF Signal, there’s an excerpt from Alastair Reynolds‘ The Six Directions of Space at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.

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The latest news from Subterranean Online:

The Fall 2008 issue is well under way, with the serialized “Celestial Empire” novelette by Chris Roberson now complete…

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More leather-slappin’ sharp-shootin’ fiction at SpaceWesterns.com:

• “The Mound (Part VI)” by H P Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop
• “Last Taste of Manna” by T J McIntyre

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Jayme Lynn Blaschke is still dredging through a sea of Memory – here’s part 27.

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To close things off, here’s a handful of Friday Flash Fiction:

• Greg O’Byrne is down with “Cats These Days“. You dig it?
• Phred Serenissima has an appointment at “The Surgery“
• Sarah Ellender swears “Till Death Do Us Part“

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And that’s about your lot, folks… for this week, anyway. Keep those tip-offs coming in; I need ’em before 1800 GMT if they’re to make the cut on Friday! In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Is it just me, or are the weeks speeding up? Seems like only yesterday I compiled the last Friday Free Fiction post, but here I am again with a big batch of free-to-read science fiction from the far reaches of the hyper-clogged intertubes…

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A couple of oldies at Manybooks.net:

• “The Lanson Screen” by Arthur Leo Zagat
• “Jewels of Gwahlur” by Robert Howard

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A whole bunch of stuff from Feedbooks:

• “Hard Guy” by Howard Browne
• “Omega, the Man” by Lowell Howard Morrow
• “Islands in the Air” by Lowell Howard Morrow
• “The Sword and the Atopen” by Taylor H Greenfield
• “John Jones’s Dollar” by Harry Stephen Keeler
• “The Rat Racket” by David Henry Keller
• “The Jameson Satellite” by Neil Ronald Jones
• “Zehru of Xollar” by Hal K Wells
• The Faith of Men – a collection of Jack London‘s stories
• The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories by John Kessel
• Magic for Beginners, the much-praised collection by by Kelly Link

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Via Karl Schroeder:

You can try out Metatropolis, the shared world anthology from Audible.com, before buying. There’s a sample from my own story, “To Hie from Far Cilenia”, or if you want you can listen to Jay Lake’s excellent story, “In the Forests of the Night” in its entirety.

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Paul McAuley seems intent on sharing pretty much the whole of his new novel The Quiet War; here’s chapter 8 and chapter 9.

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Via pretty much everywhere, it seems that although you can’t read it, you can hear the entirety of Neil Gaiman‘s new YA novel The Graveyard Book… as read by Gaiman himself on his just-finished tour of bookstores and lovingly video’d by his people.

The videos are embedded in different posts on his blog, but this category collects them all together. I know it’s not sf, but it deserves inclusion because it’s good to see that even as big a name as Gaiman can see the merits in giving free access to his work.

Plus he’s a very nice chap, don’t you know. 🙂

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Scotland-based Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi just sold a trilogy to Gollancz, but the first book isn’t even finished yet, so there’ll be a while to wait until you can read it.

Some of you may have read his story in the latest Interzone… the rest of you can make do with the free stories stashed on Rajaniemi’s website:

• “Shibuya no Love“
• “Gingerbread“
• “Naarssuk’s Daughter“
• “Kosmograd Blues“

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This week at Strange Horizons: “The Lion and the Mouse” by Kaolin Imago Fire

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Ray Gun Revival has a new issue available to download (comes as a PDF, y’see).

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Two new pieces at SpaceWesterns:

• “Kin” by Bruce McAllister
• “The Mound: Part 5” by H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop

They’ve just upped their rates for fiction, by the way, so sf writers with a Clint Eastwood jones should get over there and submit something.

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A message from Ben Rawluk:

A couple weird/SF postcard stories available on my blog: #1 and #2.

As well, the first issue of Future Earth is available for free as a pdf, with lots of fiction and poetry inside.

Thanks, Ben!

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Jayme Lynn Blaschke has found the twenty-sixth fragment of his Memory.

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Finally, some Friday Flashing from a few of the usual suspects:

• Gareth D Jones is “Dog’s Best Friend“
• Gaie Sebold has been meditating at “The Temple“
• Gareth L Powell needs to rescue “The Cloud Princess“
• Neil Beynon spreads his “Wings“

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And here’s a novelty non-fiction bonus via BoingBoing whose title explains itself:

The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush by Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Perhaps that should be filed under fantasy? 😉

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That’s all for this week, boys and girls. Keep those tip-offs coming in – deadline is 1800 GMT every Friday. Have a great weekend!

I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to spend this week assiduously avoiding watching the news. A big batch of free fiction should help…

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Again, only the one super-shorty from Manybooks:

• “Hard Guy” by H B Carleton

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Most of Feedbooks‘ output appears on Manybooks first… but Feedbooks offer more versions and a much better interface, and that’s market forces, folks. So here’s the links:

• “Cully” by Jack Egan
• “A Question of Courage” by Jesse Franklin Bone
• “Cerebrum” by Albert Teichner
• The People of the Ruins by Edward Shanks
• “It Could Be Anything” by John Keith Laumer
• “Get Out Of Our Skies!” by E K Jarvis
• “Tomorrow“, “The Lanson Screen” by Arthur Leo Zagat
• “The Dope on Mars” by John Michael Sharkey (And they only just found water there! Damned stoners get everywhere… )
• The Blue Germ by Maurice Nicoll

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Paul McAuley‘s still churning out the free stuff; here’s The Quiet War, chapters six and seven.

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Subterranean Online has posted the second instalment of Chris Roberson‘s “Mirror Of Fiery Brightness”

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This week’s offering from Strange Horizons: “Swan Song” by Joanne Merriam.

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Via SF Signal: “The Transhuman Singularity” is a science fiction virtuality space opera by Michael Blade

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At The Future Fire:

• “One Drop” by David Dumitru
• “Getting Down and Dirty” by Michael Johnson
• “Avatar on the Belts 3: Aither” by William J. Piovano
• “Suburban Alchemist” by Rob Sharp

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Tor.com has an original short story from one of my personal favourite authors, Rudy Rucker: “Jack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory”

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Two new pieces from SpaceWesterns:

• “The Mound—Part IV” by H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop
• “Better than Gold” by Robert Mancebo

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And let’s end with a handful of Friday Flash:

• Clive Birnie tells the tale of “The Identity Thief 3.0“
• Sarah Ellender wants to know “What Lies On The Other Side“
• Gareth L Powell‘s hanging out with the “Chip Heads“
• Neil Beynon remembers “When“

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And that’s your lot, folks. Keep those tip-offs and plugs coming in – deadline is 1800 GMT every Friday. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

It’s Friday, and this week the free fiction cup runneth over…

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Just one (very short) story from Manybooks:

• “Cully” by Jack Egan

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Feedbooks have yet another Futurismic re-release: “Maquech” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

And a bunch of other stuff:

• Refuge by Richard Herley
• “Children Of Tomorrow” by Arthur Leo Zagat
• “Seven Out Of Time” by Arthur Leo Zagat
• “The Putnam Tradition” by Sonya Dorman
• “I’m A Stranger Here Myself” by Mack Reynolds

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Here’s another couple of free chapters from The Quiet War by Paul McAuley; chapter 4 parts one and two, and chapter 5.

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Via SF Signal, Elizabeth Bear is in on the free excerpts game, too. Here are chapters one, two, and three of All the Windwracked Stars.

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It’s new issue time at Subterranean Online:

Chris Roberson kicks off the Fall 2008 issue of Subterranean Online with part one of a long novelette set in the world of his Celestial Empire, in which the future space race doesn’t go quite as anyone intended. “Mirror of Fiery Brightness” is action filled, the result of strange conjectures, and imbued with humanity, as are most of Chris’ entries in this future history.

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This week’s offering from Strange Horizons: “Kimberley Ann Duray Is Not Afraid” by Leah Bobet.

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From the charmingly affable Paul Cornell (yeah, that guy who writes Doctor Who scripts; he does other stuff too, y’know):

I was very pleased to have a story included in Pyr Books’ new original SF anthology Fast Forward 2, which will soon be available in all good book stores. I was even more pleased when editor Lou Anders told me he’d be launching the anthology by putting my story “Catherine Drewe”, complete, up on the Pyr website…

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Tor have got a new original Terry Bisson story available to read in full; it’s called “Catch ‘Em In The Act“.

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Via the superbly-monikered Cat Rambo, who’s holding the fort at Jeff VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days at the moment:

The new issue of Farrago’s Wainscot is up, which includes my story, “The Fisherman’s Child“.

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SpaceWesterns have got themselves a spiffy RSS feed, which makes keeping on top of their updates much easier from my point of view. It also means I’m pleased to report that the following stories have materialised over there:

• A serialised version of H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop‘s “The Mound” in seven parts; latest updates are parts two and three.
• Amanda Spikol‘s “Old Habits“, which is apparently a prequel to “A Few Sunsets Too Many“.

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Being the beginning of the month, it’s new issue time for many a webzine. First up, Clarkesworld:

• “Gift of the Kites” by Jim C. Hines
• “Passwords” by John A. McDermott

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From Apex Online:

• “Blakenjel” by Lavie Tidhar
• “Hunting Aliens” by Erik Williams
• “I Know an Old Lady” by Nathan Rosen
• Spoiled Meat by Ryan C. Thomas
• “Dick Does Time” by Adam Roberts

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Lone Star Stories:

• “The Toymaker’s Grief” by Hal Duncan
• “This Is How We Remember” by Jaime Lee Moyer
• “Needle and Thread” by Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky

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Reflection’s Edge seems to lean toward fantasy, but the new issue has one story marked out as sf:

• “Roots as Deep as Mountains” by Thane Thompson

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Via BoingBoing, Small Beer Press are at it again:

To celebrate the publication of Kelly Link‘s new collection, Pretty Monsters, most of Kelly’s previous collection Magic for Beginners is now available as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached. It is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license…

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John Joseph Adams just can’t stop himself – maybe he got bitten by something?

I’ve just added the following two free stories to the Free Stories & Excerpts page of The Living Dead’s website:

• “The Dead Kid” by Darrell Schweitzer
  
• “Beautiful Stuff“ by Susan Palwick
  

There’s now six free stories here on the website in their entirety, plus all the excerpts. Be sure to keep checking back to see more!

(I’ve only linked to the HTML versions; there are other portable formats available too.)

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Pick up the twenty-fifth piece of Jayme Lynn Blaschke‘s Memory… but mind you don’t cut yourself.

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A quick message from Ben Rawluk:

Here’s another shameless, shameless self-plug for some of my short-short fiction: “Night on the Compost Heap“. Thanks!

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And while we’re talking short-short fiction, here’s a handful of Friday Flash:

• “Thomas and the Machine” by Gaie Sebold
• “Avan” by Neil Beynon
• “Carried Out to the Sea” by Shaun C Green

Nothing new from Phred Serenissima this week, but he has collected together his previous Friday Flash stories into a digital book called Consent To Be Monitored, now available on Scribd.

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That’s it for this week – plenty to keep you busy there, I’m thinking. Don’t forget to send us your plugs, links and pitches before 1800 GMT next week… but for now, have a great weekend!