A Dribble of Ink

What’s better than free fiction? Free fiction that’s considered some of the best published in the past year. Here’s a rundown of the Hugo-nominated short stories, novellas, novelettes, and even a novel that’re legally available for free reading.

Best Novel

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold — Download via Baen Books

Best Short Story
“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn — Read on Lightspeed
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal — Read on Robinette’s website
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson — Read on Tor.com
“The Things” by Peter Watts — Read on Clarkesworld

Best Novelette
“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen — Read on McMullen’s website
“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard — Read on de Bodard’s website
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly — Read on Kelly’s website
“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone — Read on Stone’s website

Best Novella
“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky — Read on Subterranean Press
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang — Read on Subterranean Press
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis — Download a PDF from Asimov’s

That should keep you busy for a while, huh? Enjoy!

Sam Sykes is a good Internet friend of mine. Why? Because he’d crotch-stomp me if I said any differently. He’s also a bloody good interview, achingly funny and of similar age to myself. It’s like we’re destined to be buddies.

You’ll notice, perhaps, that I’ve not said anything about his books. Easily explainable. You see… I haven’t read them. Derp. What a friend I am, huh? Still, doesn’t mean I can’t get excited about the release of his second novel, Black Halo (or move his first novel, Tome of the Undergates even closer to the top of my TBR pile…). Luckily the good folks at Tor.com have Sam’s fans better covered than I do.

Dawn had never been so quiet in the country.

Amid the sparse oases in the desert, noise had thrived where all other sound had died. Dawn came with songbirds, beds creaking as people rousted themselves for labor, bread and water sloshed down as meager breakfast. In the country, the sun came with life.

In the city, life ended with the sun.

Anacha stared from her balcony over Cier’Djaal as the sun rose over its rooftops and peeked through its towers to shine on the sand-covered streets below. The city, in response, seemed to draw tighter in on itself, folding its shadows like a blanket as it rolled over and told the sun to let it sleep for a few more moments.

No songbirds came to Anacha’s ears; merchants sold such songs in the market for prices she could not afford. No sounds of beds; all clients slept on cushions on the floor, that their late-night visitors might not wake them when leaving. No bread, no water; breakfast would be served when the clients were gone and the girls might rest up from the previous night.

A frown crossed her face as she observed the scaffolding and lazy bricks of a tower being raised right in front of her balcony. It would be done in one year, she had heard the workers say.

One year, she thought, and then the city steals the sun from me, too.

So, head on over to Tor.com and read a lengthy excerpt from Black Halo and support young Sam Sykes. I get to keep my balls intact and un-mushed, you get to read a good story and Sam gets to feel special. Really, it’s a win-win(-win) situation.

The children of the embassy all saw the boat land. Their teachers and shiftparents had had them painting it for days. One wall of the room had been given over to their ideas. It’s been centuries since any voidcraft vented fire, as they imagined this one doing, but it’s a tradition to represent them with such trails. When I was young, I painted ships the same way.

I looked at the pictures and the man beside me leaned in too. ‘Look,’ I said.

‘See? That’s you.’ A face at the boat’s window.

The man smiled. He gripped a pretend wheel like the simply rendered figure.

‘You have to excuse us,’ I said, nodding at the decorations.

‘We’re a bit parochial.’

‘No, no,’ the pilot said. I was older than him, dressed-up and dropping slang to tell him stories. He enjoyed me flustering him. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s not…It is amazing though. Coming here. To the edge. With Lord knows what’s beyond.’ He looked into the Arrival Ball.

There were other parties: seasonals; comings-out; graduations and yearsends; the three Christmases of December; but the Arrival Ball was always the most important. Dictated by the vagaries of trade winds, it was irregular and rare. It had been years since the last.

China Mieville’s a big deal these days.

How big? The City & The City was nominated for almost every single genre award (and won many of them). Perdido Street Station was recently chosen by readers of Tor.com as one of the ‘Best SFF Novels of the Decade’ in a reader poll. But, perhaps the most damning evidence is a recent party thrown by Tor UK to celebrate… the announcement of new cover art for his old books.

Yeah. Not a new book announcement. Not a celebration of his success on the awards circuit. Not a milestone in his career. New book covers.

Hidden in amongst this ‘celebration’ were several bloggers and industry folk who, by attending the party, were able to acquire early galleys of Mieville’s hotly anticipated Embassytown, the author’s first foray into hard Space Opera. Jealous fits could be heard the world over from those fans who didn’t get a copy.

Well, it’s not a galley, but now Mieville fans can get an early glimpse of Embassytown courtesy of Pan Macmillan (Mieville’s UK publisher), who have made the prologue and Chapter One of Embassytown available on their website.