One of the cool trends of our age are the small group of writers doing experiments in self publishing that often include the giving away of free stories online.

Peter Watts, who I've written about here before, has been doing this for a while.

So right now I am enjoying a Watts short story, "The Island", that just won the Hugo award. Hugos are for Science Fiction, so naturally this is a SF story, set in a far far distant future.

One of the sad things about the choices america has made these past 30 years is that choosing "free trade" and the consumer empire pretty much forced us to give up massive technology projects like human space exploration. We are still doing fairly well in astronomy tho - and chances are good before I die we will have detected the chemical signatures of life on planets around distant stars.

Anyway, here's a link to Peter Watts "The Island"

And here are more Peter Watts free stories and books.