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:

• “One Out Of Ten” by J Anthony Ferlaine
• Eternity’s End by Jeffrey A Carver
• “Collector’s Item” by Robert F Young
• Jason, Son of Jason by J U Giesy
• “When I Grow Up” by Richard E Lowe
• “This is Klon Calling” by Walter J Sheldon

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And a bunch more from FeedBooks:

• “Of Time and Texas” by William F Nolan
• “Two Plus Two Makes Crazy” by Walter J Sheldon
• “Benefactor” by George H Smith
• “Compatible” by Richard R Smith

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Subterranean Online presents:

• “Conquistador de la Noche” by Carrie Vaughn
• “Crimes and Glory” by Paul McAuley

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:
  • “One of Us” by Alma Alexander
  • “White Fire” by Sylvia Kelso

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And last but not least, here’s a handful of Friday Flash Fiction:

• “Nocebo” by Sarah Ellender
• “In Your Headlights” by Sumit Dam
• “Between the Breakers” by Neil Beynon

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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!

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:

• The Electronic Mind Reader by John Blaine
• The Mouthpiece of Zitu by J U Giesy
• Palos of the Dog Star Pack by J U Giesy
• “Of Time and Texas” by William F Nolan
• “Two Plus Two Makes Crazy” by Walter J Sheldon
• “Benefactor” by George H Smith
• “… And Gulliver Returns” by Bob O’Connor

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And a couple from FeedBooks:

• “The Sargasso of Space” by Edmond Moore Hamilton
• “The Copper-Clad World” by Harl Vincent

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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…

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:

• “The God in the Box” by Sewell Peaslee Wright
• “The Crystal Crypt” by Philip K Dick
• “The Defenders” by Philip K Dick

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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*

The days are getting longer and brighter; it’ll be summer before we know what’s hit us. But at least the weekly rituals of life are there to keep us in some cyclic tradition of normalcy – rituals like rounding up big batches of free science fiction stories every Friday!

And as it’s a new month, there’s lots of new stuff from our fellow webzines, so get clicking…

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A triptych at Manybooks:

• “The Crystal Crypt” by Philip K Dick
• “The God in the Box” by Sewell Peaslee Wright
• A Winter Amid the Ice and Other Thrilling Stories by Jules Verne

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And a bunch from Feedbooks:

• “Inside John Barth” by William W Stuart
• “Beyond the Door” by Philip K Dick
• “Year of the Big Thaw” by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• “Texas Week” by Albert Hernhuter
• “Lost in the Future” by John Victor Peterson
• “Solar Stiff” by Chas A Stopher

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New for May at Clarkesworld:

• “From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog9” by Nnedi Okorafor
• “The Devonshire Arms” by Alex Dally MacFarlane

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New stuff from Apex Online:

• “Hideki and the Gnomes” by Mark Lee Pearson
• “Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens” by Peter M Ball
• “When the Thorns are the Tips of Trees” by Jason Sanford
• “Gone Fishin’” by John R Platt

And as an added bonus, Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup is being made available as a free PDF download for the remainder of May.

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Subterranean Online presents:

• “Conquistador de la Noche” by Carrie Vaughn
• “Crimes and Glory” by Paul McAuley
• “Under the Honey” by Liz Williams

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Here’s episode 2.03 of Shadow Unit: “Sin Eater”

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Jason Stoddard presents chapter 6.2 of Eternal Franchise

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Tor.com presents “Last Son of Tomorrow” by Greg Van Eekhout

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Strange Horizons presents “The Rising Waters” by Benjamin Crowell

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COSMOS Magazine presents “Delivering Tomorrow, Today” by Robert Friedman

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HUB Magazine #85 includes “Old Clothes” by Chris Cyr

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A message from Chris Odhner:

My brother is publishing a new free short story *every day* for the next year.

Thanks, Chris!

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A message from from Jake Freivald:

The latest edition of Flash Fiction Online is up. Two of our three new flashes are SF: “Jack Rabbit” by Isaac Espriu and “Billions of Stars” by KJ Kabza.

Cheers, Jake!

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And thanks as always to SF Signal, without whose ubiquitous free-fictional panopticon we would have missed the following:

• There’s a bunch of new additions to the Suvudu free library:
  • Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian
  • Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham
  • Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock
• Fusion Fragment presents “For the Love of Ceelie” by Matthew Sanborn Smith
• The New Yorker presents “The Slows” by Gail Hareven
• The New Yorker has also published the JG Ballard story “The Autobiography of J.G.B.“
• The Nautilus Engine‘s May 2009 issue includes fiction from Fabio Fernandes, LL Wise, Daniel Stiles, KM Rockwood, Violet Hilton, Jason L Corner, JD Riso, Mimi Vaquer, and Heath Lowrance
• Episode #22 of Contagious by Scott Sigler is available for download in PDF and MP3 formats.
• The latest issue of Aphelion includes fiction by T Richard Williams, Jon Wesick, Joel Realubit, Roderick D Turner, Terry Larson, E S Strout, Ed Barol, Joseph T Christopher, Mary Kiorden Hayden, Tyler Hardin, Philip Roberts, Ken Kraus, and Dan Edelman

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And finally Sumit Dam steps in with some Friday Flash: “The Reunion”

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And that’s your lot! Don’t forget to drop us a line about anything you think warrants inclusion in a future Friday Free Fiction; in the meantime, have a great weekend!

Happy May Day! Even if your religious or political leanings don’t care for the date, it’s not only a Friday but the first weekday of the month – which means we’ve just published our regular fictional offering, and you should go read Stephen Gaskell’s “Under an Arctic Sky” right away.

And when you’re all done with that, you can get started on this little list of free science fiction on the web as a way of filling up your weekend…

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Here’s a bunch from ManyBooks:

• “Only the Neck Down” by David Reagan (a Futurismic classic!)
• “Inside John Barth” by William W Stuart
• Astounding Stories of Super-Science – February 1930 pulp magazine in full!
• “Solar Stiff” by Chas A Stopher
• “Lost in the Future” by John Victor Peterson
• “Texas Week” by Albert Hernhuter
• “Beyond the Door” by Philip K Dick
• “Year of the Big Thaw” by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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And a couple from FeedBooks:

• “The Calm Man” by Frank Belknap Long
• “Devil Crystals of Arret” by Hal K Wells

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HUB Magazine #84 features “My Dad’s Idea” by Llinos Cathryn

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I’ve lost track of what I’ve linked to at Shadow Unit and what I haven’t, as the DVD Extras don’t come with numbers to sort the order out. So here’s the latest two pieces, just in case: “Dragons” and “Disintegration“.

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Jason Stoddard delivers chapter 6.1 of Eternal Franchise

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Tor.com presents “TVA Baby” by Terry Bisson

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Via Ken MacLeod:

My colleague and fellow Genomics Forum Writer in Residence Pippa Goldschmidt‘s short story “The Competition for Immortality” is now online at LabLit.

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From good friend o’ the site Nancy Jane Moore:

I ripped my free Book View Cafe flash fiction for this week straight from the headlines: “How to Deal With the Coming Crisis” is about swine flu. By the way, I post a free flash fiction every Thursday on Book View Cafe, and we generally have new free fiction on the site every day.

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Via BoingBoing and loads of other places:

“[To make Thoughtcrime Experiments,] Sumana Harihareswara and Leonard Richardson selected nine mind-squibbling SF and fantasy stories from the slush pile, commissioned five works of art, paid the authors and artists, and packaged the whole thing as a high-quality anthology that you’re free to copy and remix. Artists include E-Sheep’s Patrick Farley and fanfic darling Erin Ptah; authors include Mary Anne Mohanraj, Carole Lanham, and Ken Liu. We also wrote an essay describing the process, which you can read if you’re interested in how we did it or what the SF/fantasy market looks like from the editor’s perspective.”

Looks like you can get Thoughtcrime Experiments in multiple formats from ManyBooks already, too.

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The SF Signal team obviously sensed how busy I’ve been this week, and did a couple of round-up posts of free fiction links in additio to scraping up the following little tidbits from the far crevices of the intertubes:

• Aberrant Dreams presents “Children of the Fire” by Melissa Mead, “Dione” by Jess Kaan, and “Gilding the Dandelion” by Futurismic veteran Marissa K Lingen
• Chapters 1 and 2 of The Time Idiot by A R Yngve can be found on his website
• The latest issue of Abyss & Apex includes fiction by Lisa A Koosis, Bud Sparhawk, Aliette de Bodard, Ruth Nestvold, and William Highsmith
• The latest issue of Ideomancer presents fiction by J(ae)D Brames, Michaela Kahn, Steven Mohan, Jr., J C Runolfson, Mike Allen, and Amal El-Mohtar
• Issue #5 of Concept Sci-Fi has appeared, including fiction by Dylan Fox, Lawrence Buentello, and Jonathan Lowe

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And to cap it off, there’s one bit of Friday Flash Fiction this week, courtesy of “R-zero” by Sumit Dam.

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And we’re done – so get out of here and enjoy your weekend! But don’t forget to let us know about cool stuff we should be mentioning here, OK?