Another Fine Free Thing

While I’m posting about lovely things what you can get from the InterTubes for free, I should also point out that the most recent issue of Clarkesworld Magazine is out and that it contains something of particular interest to me.

See, as you probably know, I’m a fan of Peter Watts’ writing. And before the whole thing with the US Border cowboys, the most interesting public controversy Watts was involved with (well, maybe the second most interesting–the On Spec thing was actually probably more interesting, but didn’t prevent me from reading a Watts story, so it was less personally annoying) had to do with a story he had written riffing on “Who Goes There?” and one of its movie adaptations, John Carpenter’s The Thing.

I’d seen Watts bat around some pretty interesting sounding ideas, and then read some snippets of the story when he posted them. I’d heard some rumours that it was very good indeed, from editors who had read it. I believe it was planned to be released in Eclipse 3, which would have meant I’d get it since I’m buying those pretty automatically… but then it didn’t happen, apparently because of not-really-discussed-in-public stuff with lawyers worried about copyrights (although, as usual, Watts was pretty forthright in explaining his take on the issue, and Strahan is only slightly more elliptic about the details of what couldn’t be worked out in his congratulatory post on the publication). So it looked like I was never going to get to read the story… and then word came out that Clarkesworld would be running the story at some point in the future.

This, obviously, is that point. The new issue has the story, and an audio version of it as well–plus other interesting contents. I haven’t gone through the audio version yet, but Watts’ apparently thinks the reader did a better job than he could.

Anyway, if you’re interested in the original Campbell novellaIf you haven’t read the original novella, you could probably find it online or find an old time radio version, or something…, or like The Thing, or have interest in the ideas that were Watts’ seed, or just like a good, dark, SF story… go check it out. It’s freeWhile Clarkesworld is free, if you find things of interest there, you may want to consider citizenship. The Watts story alone is worth the $10., after all.

Oh, and in case it’s not utterly obvious, this is another example of that whole “excess of copyright restricts creation of new works” thing–the law that’s supposed to encourage creation nearly stopped us from having this added to our commonsYes, Watts retains copyright for the legal period, but we can discuss the work now–it’s part of the great dialogue–and eventually, assuming Disney doesn’t get their way completely, it will actually enter the commons. The alternative, where the work was never published at all, and thus couldn’t be part of our ongoing discussion, is much less appealing., you know?