Sunday, October 19, 2008

Original free fiction feed now tracks 5 more sources

Recount: Original free fiction bot is a piece of server software that automatically & continuously tracks (currently) 71 72 publishers of original free fiction on web, & delivers their stories, episodes & new issue notifications to inbox via feed.

During the 7 day period 12-18 October 2008, this feed picked up 42 unique short stories, 1 audio short story, 4 magazine new issue announcements, 3 episodes of serialized novels, & 16 comic strips. How many magazines will that average to - in the inbox every day?

New sources added to watch list this week.

  1. Expanded Horizons: New webzine - "to increase diversity in the field of speculative fiction, both in the authors who contribute and in the perspectives presented.". Mix of reprints & original stories. [via SF Scope].

    I'm currently watching for new issue announcements via SF Scope. Magazine editor assures me next issue announcement on will be in a form my feed can pick up.
  2. The Bearded Lady: Flash fiction & poetry of Georgina Bruce. I pick up only flash fiction.

    It's more of a fantasy thing; may be will mark as such in feed after reading a few stories. Only story I've read so far was clearly fantasy.
  3. FreakAngels: Weekly "ongoing comic" from Avatar Press. New "episode" every Friday. "written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Paul Duffield". Their posts are marked "[comic] [serial] " in my feed. [via BlueTyson].
  4. Ben Rawluk's "Wildcat": No schedule, but frequent fiction posts on this site by Ben under one of the creative commons licenses. [via Futurismic].
  5. "Ctrl+Alt+Del": Online comic. [via ComixMix].

New magazines that debuted this week but not being picked up because of lack of feed.

  1. Future Earth Magazine: New magazine debuting this week. Each issue a downloadable PDF. No feed. Includes fiction, among other things. [via Futurismic].
  2. Demolition Magazine: "where literary fiction & pulp fiction fight to the death." No feed. This may be the debut issue; there are no archives at the site - only "Summer 2008" issue. [via Observations from the Balcony]. Update: Brian clarifies in comments below that this is an old magazine, now closed.
  3. h+: New quarterly online magazine. May not have fiction; I'm not sure. No feed. "h+" stands for "Humanity+" - about post-human science. [via Boing Boing].

Bugfixes.

  1. Both added, & then deleted, "3:AM Magazine" from watch list. Flash fiction & short stories. Unspecified schedule, but quite frequent - sometimes 2 or 3 stories a week, though sometimes a fortnight could pass without one.

    I'd found it listed among genre sites somewhere. But first story my feed picked up was near porn! That's what prompted its deletion. I won't be adding it till I can clearly figure out a way of separating genre content (assuming there is some) from rest of stories, & I don't see an obvious way.
  2. Stories from SpaceWesterns are now marked "[maybe reprint]". Since I cannot distinguish its original & reprint content, & there are just too many reprints here. Probably the right place will be my miscellaneous feed - that's part 3 of Tracking Free Fiction series. But that feed is yet to debut; so, for now, it stays here with a qualifier.
  3. Now individual stories also picked up from "Behind the Wainscot" magazine feed, when available. Till now, only new issue announcements were being picked up.
  4. ChiZine new issue announcements are now marked "[maybe horror]". I think it's a horror magazine, but I've not read anything from here - so not sure.
  5. New episodes of Paul McAuley's serialized novel "The Quiet War" are moved to reprints feed from original feed, its right location.
  6. Tom Dell Aringa's Marooned comics posts are now labeled "[serial]". It's a single continuing story, & understanding a specific strip sometimes needs context.

Other sources looked at but ignored because no/bad feed.

  1. Well Told Tales: "an original audio short story in the horror, sci-fi or crime/hardboiled genre every other Thursday." They have a feed, but their feed generator is buggy - cannot even send feed to browser or feedburner.
Related: Bot SF magazine feed that combines this original fiction feed with reprints & featured posts - so ends up fetching more free fiction.

4 comments:

Blue Tyson said...

Yes, you are safe calling Chizine horror, it certainly is, in general.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for clarifying, Blue Tyson. I'll drop "maybe" during next update.

Brian Lindenmuth said...

Demolition had been around for a couple of years.

I say had because the editor Bryon Quertermous pulled the plug after that issue that I linked to was published.

http://bryonquertermous.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/demolition-rip/

Anonymous said...

Thanks for clarifying, Brian.