Free!

Lynn Viehl has edited and re-released her collection of short stories Sink or Swim free to readers and available at her blog.

Viehl is so f-ing prolific that she offers oodles of short stories and her own "on writing" materials for free 365 days a year. She's also so prolific that she has to use several pen names to keep up with herself (Lynn Viehl, S. L. Viehl, Rebecca Kelly, Gena Hale, Jessica Hall).

Her blog, if you've never read it before, is frequently funny, (usually) patient and always candid.

More Free Fiction

A short story collection called Federations is coming out from TOR shortly. This collection of news works of science fiction has many of the heavy hitters in the field (e.g. Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, L. E. Modesitt, Jr.) and there are four stories currently available for download before the collection comes out in print.

True to previous statements, I never say no to a free book. In workshop last week I carted off several back copies of literary journals I'd never heard of. One of the editors working on our literary journal came to class with "swap copies" or "sharing copies" or whatever they call 'em, that were several years old and cluttering up the lit journal's office. He'd brought as many as he could easily carry in one hand in hopes that someone would at least take one.

Oo! Free books! I cooed much to his surprise.

Have I read them yet? No. Have I read the free books I got at AWP? A couple.

What can I say? I'm a book-magpie. Even if I don't read them I want them to line my nest on the hope that I will read them. And I will. Hopefully.

I never say no to a free book

Harlequin is giving away 16 titles. All of them ebooks, all of them free -- free! -- and not that free-if-you-join-the-club free but serious-free. Just click and download free. No account needed.

Now, I don't know if I'm ever going to read a NASCAR romance novel or one where the word "faith" appears in the description -- I quickly get sick of the characters offering a prayer to the Lord like that's a detailed description of what's going through their minds! what, precisely, are they praying for? how are they wording that prayer? is it more fear or faith that makes them utter it? now those are details that make characters real and human -- but they're releasing one title for each (or most) of their lines so in their theory there's "something for every woman." And lord knows that after all my grad school work I need a little fluff reading.

In the end a few K of storage costs me very little, and I never say no to a free book, no matter how stodgy or fluffy it is.