So, how was your Easter weekend? I was having a high old time of it at Orbital, this year’s incarnation of the British National Science Fiction Convention – which probably explains why I’m still exhausted now! But no matter – free fiction waits for no one. So let’s bring it on …

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Just the two from Manybooks.net:

• “The Planet Strappers” by Raymond Z. Gallun
• “The Monster” by S.M. Tenneshaw

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This week the VanderMeers celebrated New Weird Wednesday to mark the launch of their anthology, er, The New Weird.

In free fiction terms, that means you get a free downloadable PDF version of Jay Lake’s “The Lizard of Ooze“. The good Mr Lake has also recorded a podcast version of the same story, so you can hear it exactly as its author intended it.

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Tachyon Publications (publishers of the above-mentioned The New Weird, as it happens) offers Michael Swanwick‘s Hugo-nominated “A Small Room in Koboldtown” as a PDF download.

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Pyr is offering a Sampler eBook containing “sizable excerpts” from Joe Abercrombie‘s Before They Are Hanged, Kay Kenyon‘s A World Too Near, Theodore Judson‘s The Martian General’s Daughter, Robert Silverberg‘s Son of Man, David Louis Edelman‘s Infoquake, and Mike Resnick‘s Stalking the Unicorn and Stalking the Dragon.

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Gwyneth Jones is planning a redesign of her webspace. In the interim, she has set free two stories: “The Fulcrum” and “The Voyage Out“.

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Via BoingBoing we discover that …

“… Night Shade Books has just made Jon Armstrong‘s novel Grey available as a free download. This stunning “high-fashion dystopia” has been nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.”

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Fantasy And Science Fiction Magazine have posted Benjamin Rosenbaum‘s “Start The Clock” over on their blog.

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The nice people at Eos are getting into the spirit by sharing two pieces of short fiction that are in the running for a Hugo this year:

• “Glory” by Greg Egan.
• “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” by Ken MacLeod.

Two of my personal favourite authors right there, and two stories I’ve not yet read. Result!

Eos also has the Hugo-nominated novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon available for online browsing. Our cup brimmeth over!

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Via the relentless Cole Kitchen (who doesn’t even have a website I can link to in thanks, poor fellow):

“Scott Sigler‘s new horror novel Infected is available as a free PDF download from the Random House Web site, but only until March 31.”

That’s a pretty small window, folks, so get on over and slurp that file down. You can always read it later, right? Cheers, Cole!

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Here’s a new addition to the free fiction sidebar: AtomJack Science Fiction Magazine.

The content is hidden behind a Flash frontpage, but it looks like there’s a good few back issues there. If you go take a look and fancy writing a review, drop us a line!

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And finally, Friday wouldn’t be Friday without the Flash Fictioneers, now would it?

First the catch-up entries from last week that arrived too late for me to include – both of which, to my shame, were posted by wi-fi from elsewhere in the same hotel as me! Shaun C Green was obviously pretty discomforted by the foyer service if “Deadblogging” is anything to go by, and Neil Beynon was feeling “Crushed“. Travel will do that to you.

And here’s something from a new recruit: Clive Birnie invites you to “Open The Doors“.

And now we move on to the fresh material –

There’s more Jay Lake goodness in the form of the ultra-short “Smoke“, while Greg O’Byrne goes over the word count with “The Bard And The Girl“, but that’s OK – we’ve all done that once or twice.

The majority of the UK chapter (arf!) of the Fictioneers did a flash fiction writing workshop at Eastercon, and some of the results have surfaced today:

• Shaun C Green has a handful of little fragments,
• Gareth L Powell thinks he’s “God’s Gift“,
• Gareth D Jones suspects that “It’s A Sign“,
• Martin McGrath touches down with “The Spitfire“,
• Neil Beynon gets “Burned“,
• Justin Pickard is sat beneath “The Crone Tree“,
• and finally yours truly pays a visit to the “Karmachanic“.

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That’s your lot for this week, boys and girls – don’t forget to send us your plugs and tip-offs for next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

This will be fairly brief, I’m afraid, as I’m currently soaking up the atmosphere at Eastercon, and working on this post is eating into precious bar conversation time … 😉

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From Manybooks.net:

• "Teams" by Ann Wilson
• "Thakur-Na" by Ann Wilson
• "The Premiere" by Richard Sabia
• "The Great Potlatch Riots" by Allen Kim Lang
• "The Stars, My Brothers" by Edmond Hamilton

 

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Everyone has been linking to "Wikihistory" by Desmond Warzel, but that’s all the more reason to go and read it.

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"Dexterity" is the third episode of Shadow Unit, this time by Sarah Monette.

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John Joseph Adams has dropped M Rickert‘s "Bread and Bombs" on the Wastelands Anthology website.

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James Bloomer has a story at Every Day Fiction this week – "The Paths You Would Walk"

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Finally, there’s a few scattered examples of Friday Flash, but most of us are off-duty at Eastercon this week I’m afraid. Still, you get:

• "The Captain" by Greg O’Byrne
• Shaun C Green‘s late piece from last week – "Memories of Place"
• "This Is a Story" by Jay Lake

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That’s your lot for this week, folks -enjoy the holiday weekend!

A slimmer week than the one before, but there’s still plenty out there. Let’s see what’s on the fiction menu at Free’s Bar and Grill …

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A decent fistful from ManyBooks.net:

• A trio of “Terran Empire” stories by Ann Wilson – “Youngling“, “New Year’s Wake” and “Zeta Exchange“

Plus …

• “The World Peril of 1910” by George Chetwynd Griffith
• “The Alternate Plan” by Gerry Maddren
• “The Marooner” by Charles A. Stearns
• “Millennium” by Everett B. Cole
• “The Woman Who Vowed” by Ellison Harding

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Subterranean Press are giving away Charlie Stross’s comic novella Trunk and Disorderly, originally printed in Asimov’s, in audio format:

“Charles Stross is damned funny, both in person and on the page. You’ll have to take my word on the first count. As to the second, here’s a P. G. Wodehouse meets Robert A. Heinlein as filtered through Mr. Stross’s sensibilities. In other words, [Trunk and Disorderly is] funny and indescribable as hell, and probably my favorite story this year.”

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Peter Watts is on the case. He’s just added his short story “Repeating The Past” (originally published in Nature Magazine, as per this PDF if you prefer) to his free short fiction selection, and recent post “A Passing Phase” might be a piece of flash, a fragment of something bigger, or who knows what else. It’s good, though.

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Futurismic‘s own Edward Willett (currently assailed by book-related deadlines) belatedly informs us about SF Canada (Canada’s SFWA equivalent, hopefully minus a Burt equivalent) and its free fiction offerings:

“I just updated the site last week, and currently we’re featuring “Among You” by Phyllis Gotlieb on the home page. Everything we put up (pretty much) stays up indefinitely: the permanent URL will be where the continuation of the story from the home page is now.

Previously featured fiction is all archived, and there’s also a linked list of free fiction.”

Cheers Ed – good luck with that deadline.

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Chris Roberson is subjecting Timmy Gromp to further grief in a tale that came out of a writing workshop he attended recently: “Timmy Gromp and the Golden Hen of Time“.

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Don’t forget that SF Signal has damn near the entire 2008 Nebula ballot list linked to in free online form, all but two novellas.

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Here’s your weekly chunk of work from the Friday Flash Fictioneers.

Gareth L Powell reports on a “Close Encounter“, while Jay Lake writes “In The Green Jungles Of Envy“; Neil Beynon‘s hands are in his “Pockets“, which might make it easier for him to follow Shaun C Green‘s advice to “Carry These Songs Like A Comfort Wherever You Go“. Yours truly has been “Deflowered“, but it’s not what you think.

As an added bonus, Ian Hocking podcasts a piece of flash by Tom Vowler called “Breathe“.

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And that’s it for this week; don’t forget we’re always open for your tips and plugs, just mouse on over to the Contact page and drop us a line.

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

It’s that time of week again, ladies and gents …

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A fistful from Manybooks.net:

• “Mizora: A Prophecy (A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch)” by Mary E. Bradley (1889 – old school to the max!)
• “Adaptation” by Dallas McCord Reynolds
• “Final Weapon” by Everett B. Cole
• “Operation Haystack” by Frank Patrick Herbert (yes, that Frank Herbert)

Plus a bonus for any Dutch-speaking readers:

• “20.000 Mijlen onder Zee: Oostelijk Halfrond” by Jules Verne

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John Joseph Adams has released six stories from his Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse anthology, free to read at your leisure right here on the intarwebs:

• “And the Deep Blue Sea” by Elizabeth Bear
• “Bread and Bombs” by M. Rickert
• “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” by Cory Doctorow
• “The Last of the O-Forms” by James Van Pelt
• “Still Life With Apocalypse” by Richard Kadrey
• “Waiting for the Zephyr” by Tobias S. Buckell

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Cosmos Magazine presents: “Untangling the Future” by Ingrid Banwell

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From the Subterranean Press posse:

“Over at Subterranean Online, we’re closing out the Winter 2008 issue in fine style, with The Voyage of the Proteus, a delightfully sardonic novelette from the acid dipped pen of Thomas M. Disch. As the limited edition of Voyage has already sold out, we wanted to share this tale of today and deep in the past with as many readers as possible. We’ll be posting a new chapter every other weekday during March. Enjoy.”

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Via John Joseph Adams and many other venues: Night Shade Books is releasing the entire text of Richard Kadrey‘s novel Butcher Bird: A Novel Of The Dominion as a DRM-free download, in a wide variety of formats.

“The world of Butcher Bird is one where angels and devils brawl in the streets, where the Black Clerks charged with keeping the Dominions in check have developed their own dark agenda, where the swordswoman known as Blind Shrike battles monsters in deadly combat, where a civil war has broken out in Hell, and where Spider Lee, an unassuming San Francisco tattoo artist, and his drinking buddy LuLu Garou, have been dropped right smack into the middle of the action.

Richard himself describes the book as “the Gnostic Gospels meets Wild at Heart.” Butcher Bird is an odyssey that will take you from the San Francisco underground to decadent palaces to the very gates of Hell… and beyond!”

Crikey.

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“Knock on Coffins” is the second instalment of the collaborative fiction project Shadow Unit; Elizabeth Bear took the duties on this one.

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Occasional Futurismic contributor and all-round nice guy Jeremiah Tolbert has updated his online bibliography, which includes lots of stuff that’s free to read.

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Well, hark at Jonathan Lethem getting all posh and literary on us; he went and got “The King of Sentences” published in The New Yorker!

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Paolo Bacigalupi is also in the mood for giving it away:

“I’ve added some sample stories under the PUMP SIX header. In addition to “The Tamarisk Hunter” I’ve also added the Hugo and Nebula nominee “The People of Sand and Slag” and just for grins, I also posted the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist “The Fluted Girl.” That should give people enough of an idea about my writing to either love it or hate it.”

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From Mike Brotherton:

“My new novel Spider Star is officially released today … I’ve uploaded what I hope is very close to a final version of the prologue and first four chapters.”

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Via Uncle Nick, news on the latest edition of Clarkesworld Magazine:

“Stephen Dedman writes about Poe’s teeth in “Teeth“, and Ekaterina Sedia discusses the important issues of SUPER-SPERM and PARASITIC FETUSES in our science commentary Evolutionary Arms Race!”

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Jay Lake‘s off at a writing workshop this weekend (lucky devil), but he dropped off another of his frequent freebies earlier in the week:

“The current installment in this series is my short story “The Angel’s Daughter“. At 1,200 words, this originally appeared in the August, 2004 issue of Realms of Fantasy, then reprinted in Fantasy: The Best of 2004. If you like the story, please consider subscribing to Realms of Fantasy.”

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Lise Andreasen from Copenhagen reappears with a story called “Supervision“.

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Jake Freivald wrote to tell us that there’s a new edition of Flash Fiction OnLine, er, online.

It includes a piece from Jim Van Pelt, who as regular readers will know is someone whose writing advice I greatly respect. Naturally, he’s shared his thoughts about (and links for resources concerning) flash fiction before, as it’s a format he’s very fond of.

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Which brings us – by way of a segue that even Howard Stern would remove his hat for – to the Friday Flash Fictioneers!

It’s another slow week for the triple-F crew for an assortment of reasons, but a few of us are still kicking out the jams – Justin Pickard‘s resolve is “Non-Perishable“, and Gareth L Powell doesn’t give a damn when “Life Goes Wrong“. Meanwhile, yours truly is “Leaving Mars” – maybe I should hitch a ride on Neil Beynon‘s second “Elevator“?

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And that would appear to be that for this week – a pretty decent haul, I reckon. Don’t forget to drop us any tip-offs or blatant self-plugs that you may have by way of the Contact page. And in the interim – have a great weekend!