Charles Stross discusses the influences behind The Atrocity Archives and the rich seam of existential horror from whence they are mined:
There’s nothing terribly funny about “A Colder War”: I was groping in the dark for a way to express the alienating horror of nuclear annihilation that I’d grown up with, and Lovecraft’s monsters came perfectly to hand. The existential dread they evoke is not so alien to those of us who lived through the original Cold War.
So how’s the first full working week of the year been treating you? Yeah, me too… still, the weekend’s nearly here, and the weekend means free science fiction links at Futurismic! So here we go, fiction-fans:
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Here’s a bunch from Feedbooks, including the latest Futurismic reprint:
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Just the one over at Project Gutenberg:
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And one at Manybooks:
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Here’s the latest issue of Apex Online:
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Strange Horizons presents “Sisters of the Blessed Diving Order of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew” by A C Wise
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Subterranean Online‘s Winter quarter kicks off with “Clinic” by Kris Nelscott
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Shira Lipkin strikes again! – this time with a story called “The Angel of Fremont Street” at ChiZine
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Chris Roberson‘s free stories are like buses; you wait for ages, then two come along at once::
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We received a message from Kit O’Connell:
The Continuous Coast project – a Creative Commons-licensed shared world – just released three works of fiction as a preview of the world. The fiction is by Steven Brust, Reesa Brown, and myself.
We’ll keep you posted on the project as it develops (we’re in our beta/prologue phase now), but in the
meantime you can check out a few of our other online presences:
- Voices fromPort Outreach (an in-character blog)
- The Mediators (in-world Twitter stream)
- and Lufton Runner (our fictional concert venue where real musicians play)
Bravo – Futurismic loves Creative Commons projects! Go take a look and show your support.
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From EOS Books:
We’re a couple of weeks away from the release of Jonathan Barnes‘ next book, The Domino Men. And we’re so excited about it, that we are offering his entire first book, The Somnambulist, [to read] online for free.
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Here’s part 30 of Memory by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
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And here’s all the other stuff captured by the diligent hearts of SF Signal:
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And here’s a little bit of Friday Flash Fiction for you to finish with:
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And there you have it! As always, we have our ear to the ground for the rumble and thump of your tip-offs, gratuitous self-plugs and projects, so send ’em in – deadline is 1800 GMT every Friday. In the meantime, have a great weekend!
Ian Sales recently posted some thoughts with respect to the “optimism in sf” debate.
If it is possible to write optimistic science fiction, then it can only be by focusing on the quotidian, by writing fictions which are intensely personal, which look for small everyday victories, which ignore the big questions. Some might call that a failure of imagination.
Science fiction doesn’t need to be optimistic, it needs to be honest.
Hmmm. I’d hold up Jason Stoddard’s “Willpower” as an example of optimistic sf that ranges beyond the personal and doesn’t ignore the big questions – unless by “the big questions” you mean questions like “why do we exist”, and much as I like fiction that tackles heavy philosophy I can’t read it all the time.
That said, honesty in science fiction is something I could get behind. Nothing switches me off like an author shilling for an ideology…
Heads up, writers! Leonard Richardson – the chap who wrote the rather excellent story “Mallory” that we published here at Futurismic last year – has decided to put together his own anthology, Thoughtcrime Experiments, and he’s looking for five stories to populate it.
The full submission guidelines are on the Thoughtcrime Experiments webpage, but the basics are as follows: the stories should be between three thousand and ten thousand words in length, and accepted pieces will be bought for $200; Leonard would “prefer you send [him] a story you’ve already written and pounded the pavement for and acquired a couple rejection slips for.”
And as to style… well, this is why he’s asked us to announce it here at Futurismic:
I like science fiction at lot, especially science fiction set within fifty years of the present. It’s not as likely I’d pay $200 for a fantasy story, but if you’ve got a fantasy story set between 1959 and 2059, send it in. I’m not going to pay $200 for a horror story, unless it’s a really original parody or something.
More specifically, I like stories that engage with the pop culture of the past, present, or future. I like stories that use the alien to illuminate the everyday, or vice versa. I like hard SF that requires a degree to understand, provided it’s the computer science degree I actually have. I like farcical ridiculous gonzo pastiche.
So there you go. Check your trunk of stories and send something in – what have you got to lose? Good luck!
Futurismic fiction hits the ground running for the new year with “Roots” by Mark Ward.
Super-enhanced transhuman troubleshooters; augmented and virtual realities; griefers and grifters and ex-girlfriends… when Chris East sent this one over from the slush pile, I took a look at the first few paragraphs and was sucked inexorably right through to the end before I knew what hit me. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did – be sure to let us know in the comments box at the bottom!
The first Hitler was seen by a jogger chasing the morning light through the remains of San Francisco. He stood in the grassy clearing once known as Ghirardelli Square declaiming to an invisible audience.
The runner hesitated when she saw him, sneakers tapping time on a strip of sidewalk missed by the robot reclamation teams. He looked crazy but she did not know if he was the pervert or harmless kind.
The countdown in the corner of her vision went pink so she pushed off the kerb and out across the springy turf. She relaxed when she saw its shadow pointed toward the sun. It was only a shade. Good work too. The uniform draped well and even the toothbrush moustache looked the right side of ridiculous. She shot some footage then wiggled her fingers to file it to the news channels. Another Hitler popped into view before she dipped under the tree line.
Hitlers were rampant by the time she was leaning on her thighs on Pier 39, sucking in lungfuls of air and fighting the urge to puke.
A thick drift of them, their jerking salutes as choreographed as a chorus line, had formed around the Fountain of Light in Montgomery Park. Continue reading NEW FICTION: ROOTS by Mark Ward