After last week’s short shrift, we return with another bumper crop of free fiction. Eyes down for a full house …

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From Futurismic blogger Ed Willett (who’s off treading the boards in a production of Beauty And The Beast at the moment), a special recommendation:

Brett Alexander Savory’s collection No Further Messages and his novel The Distance Travelled are available to download in full from his bibliography page at ChiZine.

They are indeed – cheers Ed! ChiZine is in the sidebar, but we’re more than happy to announce special recommendations from Futurismic readers even if they’re located somewhere we’ve mentioned before. Drop us a line, and share your under-rated favourites with the world!

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And in the same spirit, a recommendation from Jeremy Tolbert:

Fantasy continues to please me with this week’s story, “Possession”. There are some nicely odd worldbuilding touches and even some steampunk elements. You have to kind of appreciate a story that takes place entirely inside a gigantic hole.

Leave the Freudian analysis alone, folks.

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I got mail! From Nancy Jane Moore, to be precise:

The folks at Farrago’s Wainscot have finally given Behind the Wainscot – where they publish short-shorts and other oddities between the regular quarterly issues of Farrago’s Wainscot [also in the sidebar, folks!] – its own website. These stories were online before, but a little hard to find. Now those craving an interstitial fix can gorge on them all at once.

Cheers, Nancy!

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Via lots of people:

Weird Tales has a new website, and there’s free fiction to be had there, too – as well as non-fiction and lots of other webby rich-media type malarkey. Get to it!

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Chris Roberson fans, prepare to rejoice!

First spotted at Iain Emsley‘s Yatterings blog (but plenty of other places since then):

Those excellent folk over at Solaris have started publishing chapters from Chris Roberson’s forthcoming novel, Three Unbroken, on their website for free. The actual paperbook will appear in 2009.

And from Roberson himself, another Friday freebie: “The Likeness Of A Wolf“.

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Jay Lake is posting up free stories, too:

The current installment in this series is a short-short entitled “A Conspiracy of Dentists.” At 800 words of length, this originally appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebd Wristlet, #14 June, 2004 [ Tangent Online Review ]. It has not been reprinted before now.
This is based on something that actually happened to me as a teenager, when we were clearing out my grandparents’ house after the death of my Granddaddy Lake. A bit more detail is available here. If you like this story, please consider supporting Small Beer Press and LCRW. In any case, enjoy.

A conspiracy of dentists? Has to be a horror story, surely …

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Hello, Paul McAuley:

I’ve just put up my short story “Interstitial“ on [my] web site. It’s an end-of-the-world story that takes off from the theory that life had survived at least one bottleneck caused by a runaway effect that created a snowball Earth and ends in the kind of conflict between the military and scientists that powered most 1950’s sci-fi movies, with a tip of the hat to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Imagine it in scratchy black-and-white, with John Agar playing the hero.

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Those folk at Subterranean just keep rolling it out:

We’re closing out the Fall Issue of Subterranean Online in the next week or so. Among the features just posted are a short, dark tale by Caitlin R. Kiernan, “In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection,” and the final travails of the madcap characters in Daniel Abraham’s screwball serial, “The Support Technician Tango”

In the Winter issue, look for a novella by Thomas M. Disch, plus short stories by Michael Bishop, Tia V. Travis, Mike Resnick (surprise, a Lucifer Jones tale!) as well as hot new writer Rachel Swirsky.

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Welcome to the realm of Flash (ah-aaaaah!) …

First of all, a piece I found via Warren Ellis: Simon Bisson‘s “Getting in is easy. Getting out is the hard bit.“

A feral Matrioshka Brain is a dangerous place. The wild evolution of self-replicating machines makes it a playground for Darwin – and deadly for anyone that tries to venture in. But if you’re scavenging the ruins of dead civilisations, there’s really no other place to go.

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And a new recruit of sorts. Brendan Adkins writes:

I’ve only just discovered Futurismic, and I’m happy to be learning for
the first time about the Friday Flash Fictioneers.  I’ve been writing
stories of exactly 101 words every weekday since 2003 and posting them at xorph.com/anacrusis/, so I’m embarrassingly enthusiastic about this kind of stuff (and everything else you post in your roundups).  Thanks for providing such an interesting service!

We do our best, Brendan – but it pales against your flash output! After receiving Brendan’s email, I started doing a mental calculation of how many words of flash he must have produced in that time period, but I had to stop because my brain couldn’t handle the number of decimal places.

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And so, to the regular irregulars, those fine and forthright Friday Flash Fictioneers …

• Sean C Green is playing catch-up this week – the excellent “Vote Now!” appeared over last weekend.
• Martin McGrath is back in the saddle after server problems and illness, but he’s taking no prisoners – only “Rum and Slaves“.
• Gareth L Powell is back to full strength again, too – here’s his “Dead Twin“.
• Gareth D Jones is gonna get all palendromic on your ass: “Time Did Emit“.
• Dan Pawley sees something spooky among the bookshelves … it’s “The Library Visitor“.
• And here’s a little something from yours truly – a tale of shock, horror, and jealous kitchen appliances: “The New Arrival“.

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Oh, good grief! Is that not enough for you?

OK, so try some non-fiction, via Jason Ellis: the classic Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway.

What, you still want more? Well, if this doesn’t keep you busy, nothing ever will. Via SF Signal:

The Universal Digital Library has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publicly available.

One and a half million? I think you’ll survive until next Friday on that little lot.

In the meantime, we’re always happy to receive tip-offs and recommendations of free fiction online, new or old, as long as it’s all legal. So drop me a line if you’ve got something to share.

Have a good weekend!

A bit of a sparse week for free fiction this time … but there’s always the webzines listed in the sidebar if you’re running short. OK, here we go:

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Classic free fiction at ManyBooks.net: The Creature from Beyond Infinity by Henry Kuttner (1940), The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison (1922), “A Wind is Rising” by Robert Sheckley (1957, writing as Finn O’Donnevan)[edited to remove link to copyright infringing material; see comments], plus “Viewpoint” (1960) and “Unwise Child” by Randall Garrett (1962).

At Project Gutenburg, pointed out by none other than Warren Ellis as a formative influence in his reading as a young man, Space Prison by Tom Godwin, the author of the bleak classic short “The Cold Equations”.

And at Arthur’s Classic Novels: The Time Axis by Henry Kuttner (1948) and Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham (1936).

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A heads-up from BoingBoing, which may not be news for those tech-obsessed (or financially fluid) enough to own an iPhone:

Josh [Klein] sez, “I wrote a sci-fi novel called “Roo’d” and released it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Even cooler, it was chosen for release for the eBook reader for the iPhone – the first modern novel released for the platform, and the second available after Tarzan. W00t! As a first-time author I could never have gotten this kind of feedback any other way – now everyone who hacks their iPhone can try out my book, and I’ve received tons of fabulous feedback. Go Creative Commons!”

You should be able to get Roo’d here at Josh’s own site, but it appears to be down at the moment (doubtless thanks to the BoingBoing effect), so maybe try the Google Cache or wait a while.

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The Friday Flash Fictioneers take the field somewhat reduced in numbers this week, but there’s always a few of the troops willing to man the trenches. Let’s see:

Gareth L Powell has been ill, so he’s using an excerpt of a story titled “Falling Apart” in lieu of a fresh offering.

Dan Pawley puts a twist in the tale with “The New Boss“.

Gareth D Jones is trying an experiment in viral memetic flash fiction with “Let Me Entertain You” – will we see it linked on MetaFilter and Digg before the weekend is out?

And lastly there’s “New kid blues” by yours truly, which probably shows the influence of the Philip K Dick anthology I reviewed recently.

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That’s your lot! Don’t forget to drop me a line at my address as found on the Staff page if there’s something you think deserves a mention of Friday Free Fiction. In the meantime, have a good weekend!

Okay ladies and gents, boys and girls, here’s your weekly fistful of free fiction.

Before I begin, though, I’d just like to draw your attention to the sidebar, where I’ve been adding as many science/speculative fiction webzines as I know addresses for. Not only should this act as a useful reading list for you guys, it also means you can drop us a line about any we don’t know yet – so please do.

Right, onwards!

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James Patrick Kelly has finally finished the epic podcasting marathon that has been his novel, Look Into The Sun, and you can get the whole lot (all 34 installments!) at his "freereads" blog.

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New at ManyBooks.net:

• "Attention Saint Patrick" by Murray Leinster (1960)
• "On Handling the Data" by M.I. Mayfield (1959)
• "Unspecialist" by Murray F. Yaco (1960)
• "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" by Fritz Leiber
• "I Remember Lemuria" (1948) and "The Return of Sathanas" (1948) by Richard S. Shaver
• Gladiator by Philip Wylie.

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Ben Peek has posted Chapter 1 from his book Black Sheep.

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Two heads-up posts in one week from BoingBoing. Firstly:

"[Rick Dakan‘s] Mile Zero [the sequel to Geek Mafia] is a labyrinth of twists and turnabouts, filled with charming geek humor, thoroughly likable characters, and a relentless plot that you won’t be able to put down. Don’t take my word for it — it’s Creative Commons licensed, and you can download the text and check it out for yourself."

And secondly, via a BoingBoing reader:

"Mindwebs was a radio series produced in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It features semi-dramatized readings of stories by authors such as Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon R. Dickson, and Ray Bradbury. I’ve been listening to it on the bus and it’s really entertaining!"

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News from Sir John of Scalzi:

"I’m delighted to announce that Subterranean Press has decided to post the complete text of “The Sagan Diary” at Subterranean Online […] and don’t forget the audio version is also freely available."

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Chris Roberson returns to free-fiction Friday action this week with a story called "Granma Stemple".

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These aren’t really science fiction, but certainly are free: 201 Stories by Anton Chekhov, via Jeremiah Tolbert.

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Friday Flash Fictioneers in effect … but first, a brief word from James Bloomer of Big Dumb Object:

"Just thought I’d mention that I’m posting a piece of flash fiction
every day in November (my alternative to NaNoWriMo) on my writing blog – and consequently some of it is both Flash, and on a Friday. So you could say that I’m popping into the FFF club for one month …"

Welcome aboard, James! We’re short a few crew this week, for various reasons, so that’s well-timed.

Meanwhile, Martin McGrath has a continuing disregard for the ‘Friday’ part of the title, but as he’s a nice chap we’ll let him off. He posted "The Decision That Changed The Life Of Fabrice Colliseo" last Sunday.

Gareth D. Jones tells of a different sort of "Cat Burglar".

Neil Beynon remembers "Amber".

Justin Pickard is using NaNoWriMo extracts again – this week, he has "Creeping Doubts". Not about the NaNo project, we hope, Justin!

Gareth L. Powell is in a sober mood with "Where Were You When The Fun Stopped?"

An last but not least (or so I hope) is my attempt to win the not-very-prestigious (and, indeed, non-existent) award for the shortest title for a piece of short-short science fiction ever – it’s just called "J".

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That’s your lot for this week. Don’t forget that if you (or someone you know) have a piece of free fiction that you’d like us to tell the world about, or if you’d like to join the ranks of the Friday Flash Fictioneers, please just drop me an email using my address on the staff page. Just make sure you put "Friday Free Fiction" in the email subject line so it doesn’t get chomped by my spam-traps.

Have fun!

Here’s your free fiction fix for the weekend:

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Speculative fiction e-zine Heliotrope issue #3 has been posted with fiction by Brendan Connell, Tina Connolly and Rob Vagle, as well as articles by Jeffrey Ford, Michael Moorcock and Jeff Vandermeer.

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From Andy Cox, head honcho (and my boss) at Interzone:

"Jay Lake has posted his story "All Our Heroes are Bastards", originally published in issue 35 of The Third Alternative (now Black Static), on his website. Recommended!"

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More fine freebies from the folk at Subterranean:

"The serial of Daniel Abraham‘s that we’re running this November, The Support Technician Tango, is definitely not sf. Think of Connie Willis in her madcap comic mode and you’ll be closer to the pleasures Tango has to offer. Look for a chapter or two every weekday over at Subterranean Online."

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Free science fiction online at ManyBooks.net: "Unwise Child" by Gordon Randall Garrett, "Tight Squeeze" by Dean Charles Ing and "Indirection" by Everett B. Cole.

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Mentioned here at Futurismic earlier this week, but worthy of a re-plug – the inimitable Bruce Sterling has a short story in a most untraditional venue. Read "The Interoperation" at Technology Review.

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Friday Flash Fictioneers in tha hiz-ouse!

Martin McGrath slipped in late last week with "Stone Must Roll" – technically a rule-breaker on length terms, but we’re all friends here.

Which means we’ll excuse also Shaun C Green for posting a 2500-word short called "Half-Day of the Dead". Because, as he points out, everything goes better with zombies.

Gareth D Jones cocks a snook at superheroes with "The Ironic Man"; he also posted a late catch-up earlier in the week called "The Planet Sweets".

Neil Beynon shares some backstory from his ongoing NaNoWriMo effort: "Hakon’s Folly".

Justin Pickard is also NaNoing (if that’s a real verb). His excerpt is called "Paper Boats in the Blue Hour".

Gareth L Powell has a bleak little nugget called "The Point Furthest From The Sun".

And in one of those strangely synchronistic happenstances, both Dan Pawley and myself hit on the same theme, albeit from different angles. Dan’s is called "Abduction", and mine is "Alien Abduction".

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As always, please get in touch (use my email address as on the Staff page) with anything you’d like to be announced … and please put "Futurismic Free Fiction" in the subject line. I’ve had to batten down the spam-traps recently, but I have a filter installed that will let through anything with that subject. If I don’t respond to your email, please try again, or leave a comment here if that doesn’t work.

In the meantime, enjoy your weekend!