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Flurb #13 Goes Mobile!

March 27, 2012.

Yeah, baby. With much programming and sweat, I’ve turned Flurb #13 into an ebook that can be read on any ereading device—Kindles, iPhones, Androids, NOOKs, Windows laptops, iPads, whatever.

Mobi (for Kindle) and Epub (for the others) now available for free download at

http://flurb.rudyrucker.com/ebook/

Go for it!

March 23, 2012

Issue #13 of Flurb is out, with astonishing tales by thirteen writers: Albrecht, Ashby, Cha, Deitch, Garcia, Garrison, Hayes, Highsmith, Rucker, Quaglia, Salinas, Watson, What, Worrad!

This brings us into the sixth year of Flurb since the first issue, with 164 stories published in all.

Go to flurb.rudyrucker.com and be among the first of the fifty thousand or more people who’ll be checking out our new issue over the coming months!

Enjoy the gnarl, dear readers, it’s good for you.

And when you take a break, come back here and post something encouraging in the comments section below. Our intrepid authors need and deserve your support.

38 Responses to “Flurb #13 Goes Mobile!”

  1. Eileen Gunn Says:

    So happy to see a new Leslie What story. Thanks, Leslie & Rudy. (Now to go read the rest of the issue.)

  2. palindrome Says:

    This was amazing! Thanks Rudy.

  3. Jaimie M. Engle Says:

    Great story, Bill. Really liked the twist that they were characters. Didn’t see that coming. Love your creative mind. It must be a fun place to visit. KEEP WRITING!

  4. Bill Says:

    Jaimie, thanks. I must credit Rudy for suggesting a different and better ending.

  5. Paul Says:

    Just read ‘Eye-High’ by James Worrad. I was impressed. Original and funny, and perhaps more importantly, it held my attention from the first sentence to the last. Away to read the other stories in this issue.

  6. Dan Thomas Says:

    RudyG’s “Last Call for Ice Cream”–what an imaginative, rich & creamy taste treat for the brain and funny bone! Hey, it’s been tried with military might, religion and ideology–might be less collateral damage with ice cream!

  7. robert brown Says:

    Just read Garrison’s poems. I liked the last three especially. Effervescent yet weighty: a delightful heft with no bitter aftertaste.

  8. Christopher Says:

    please think about releasing it as a pdf. I would like to read these fantastic stories outside of the browser

  9. William Says:

    BoingBoing notes Flurb #13: http://boingboing.net/2012/03/25/flurb-13-is-out.html

  10. John C Says:

    Just found out about Flurb today and with excitement looked immediately for the downloadable epub version and was stunned and disappointed to find it’s web only.

    The idea is great but the execution…well in a world where book readers are getting to be so prevalent it’s not exactly 21st century.

    I guess this must be what they mean by a “boutique” project.

    I won’t be one of the “50,000”.

  11. Rudy Says:

    Christopher and John C, I am in fact working on getting EPUB and MOBI (for Kindle) versions of Flurb 13 posted. Thanks to Calibre and Sigil, this turns out to be a little easier than I’d thought—although like all things computer-related, not completely without gotchas.

    The port is moving along, but it could take me twenty more hours of work. Pending my authors’ approval, EPUB and MOBI versions of Flurb 13 could be up within a week.

    Christopher, at this point, PDFs don’t make all that much sense for ereading anymore, as their pages don’t “flow” to match the ereader screen size.

    And, John C, there’s no need to get huffy! I am, after all, doing this for free, as are my generous authors.

  12. James Worrad Says:

    Paul- thanks, mate! Means a lot. And things can only go up from here if mine’s the first story you read- it’s one heckuvan issue!

  13. Rudy Says:

    As mentioned in the main post, I’ve ported our webzine to portable ereaders. Go to http://www.flurb.net/ebook

    I prepped the files in Dreamweaver, converted the site with Calibre, then tweaked it in Sigil, repeatedly iterating variations on these three steps—I mean iterating about a hundred times. Whew.

    Initially it’s kind of easy to turn a website into an Epub—you just get all the files in one place on your hard disk, then load the “index.html” file into Calibre. And then the fun begins.

    The one thing I don’t like about Calibre is that it UTTERLY trashes my .css style sheet, putting in dozens of really stupid and unecessary new styles. It does this even if I paste my good original style sheet into the box at Convert Books | Look and Feel | Extra CSS. And I really don’t NEED dozens of extra styles with insctrutable names like calibre141. I already styled my frikkin’ HTML. Don’t know how to prevent this.

  14. Mike Says:

    Flurb for my phone! O frabjous day! Thanks, man!

  15. Chuck Says:

    This is great! For Mac users, you can also email yourself the ePub to your iOS device. Then you get an option to open/install the file in whatever book reader(s) you have installed. Bypasses the need for an iTunes sync and lets you easily load the book into 3rd party readers like MegaReader (*much* better reader for iPhones than iBooks is, IMO.)

  16. Soh Says:

    I much enjoyed reading Wongoon C’s story today. I have not been much exposed to this type of literature but had so much fun to read this creative and fantasy story. Haha, it was fun to see some Korean names for musics. I enjoyed a dry sarcastic humor …

  17. Ned Says:

    Rudy, we had a discussion about the ebook format last year. Thank you for finally offering Flurb in the various ebook formats, and without DRM.

  18. Bruce Says:

    Epub version is awesome, thanks!

  19. Bill T. Says:

    Frabjous indeed! Thank you so much for the epub conversion.

    Have you given any thought to converting the older issues? Make a good task for an eager fan or three!

  20. Alex Says:

    Excellent! I downloaded the epub version in 30 secs. (Super fast Internet here in Japan!)
    Onto my iPod Touch and reading it in Stanza.
    Thank you, Rudy!

  21. Kevin Says:

    Hi, I downloaded the stories – quite liked some of them and I especially liked the art work.

  22. Rudy Says:

    Bill T., if the authors approve, I will convert the back issues, but probably not till this fall, as I’m busy with a few other things right now, and one Flurb project every six months is enough.

    The conversion isn’t a job I’d turn over to a fan as there’s a lot of design decisions involved. And in any case much of the conversion is automated by Calibre.

    The bigger thing is that I’ll need to work out a packaging plan and an agreement with the authors. I do have a plan for this, so stay tuned.

  23. Christopher Says:

    Awesome! A million thank you’s for the ebook formats 😀

  24. William Says:

    An anthology would be cool, ebook or POD.

  25. Rudy Says:

    I just noticed a slight Apple gotcha. If you try and download the EPUB version of Flurb #13 via Safari onto the iPad, Safari refuses to do the download UNLESS you have already put the iBooks app onto your device. But you probably know that. If you have iBooks on the machine, Safari downloads it and offers to open the file in iBooks. If you have the free Kindle reader app on your iPad, Safari is willing to download the MOBI version of Flurb #13 and open it in the Kindle reader. I think the iBooks reader is nicer, though.

  26. DMcCunney Says:

    A few comments about reading the Mobi and ePub files:

    Amazon’s Kindle format is the one developed by French eBook publisher MobiPocket, who Amazon bought in 2005. Mobipocket’s reader app is available for Blackberry, Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile as well as the PR. If you aren’t using any of the extensions to the Mobi format Amazon has added more recently, it should work fine.) You can get Mobi’s reader app here: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/default.asp?Language=EN

    If you use Windows or Linux, you can use the open source FBReader viewer, which handles both Mobi and ePub files, as well as an assortment of other formats. The Linux version is available for the Sharp Zaurus, Nokia Internet Tablet, and other platforms, and there is a third party port to Mac OS/X. There is also a version in Java available for Android. You can get them here: http://www.fbreader.org/

    For Firefox, I prefer the Lucifox extension. ePubreader works, but insists on keeping a catalog of ebooks you read, and copies of the ePub files get kept in your Firefox Profile folder, which may not be what you want. (The developer has no intention of changing the practice. I wanted to be able to specifiy a location other than the Profile folder where the books woulod be kept.)
    Lucifox is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lucifox/
    ______
    Dennis

  27. Anonymous Says:

    I enjoyed the piece very much—-lots of pathos.

  28. aboombong Says:

    Thanks for this.

    Here’s some music to read Flurb to…cellular automata involved in the creation of the track…

    Free or pay what you like at
    http://aboombong.bandcamp.com/album/atrophic

  29. Seth K. Deitch Says:

    Ms. Ashby’s story was quite interesting. It’s a difficult theme to extract something new from, but she managed to do so. I’m eagerly awaiting the novel.

  30. Tony the Wonderhorse Says:

    Just finished A Bigger Piece of Nothing, still holding back the tears, amazing so few words can get to me like that, great work!

  31. Bill Says:

    SFRevu has reviewed Flurb #13: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=13464

  32. William Tucker Says:

    Hello Rudy,

    Read some of your science fiction while I was in Portland Oregon, found it at Powell’s Bookstore. Actually I was guided to it.

    Had some interesting experiences with Tibetan gods in parallel realities, Egyptian gods influencing this reality now, Native American entities….smoking the sun, dancing with Apollo inside of me, Balinese Fire dancing as an aspect of another being merged with mine, Heyagriva…..anyway it was interesting to find some parallels within your stories to my actual experiences…timewalking as taught to me by an medicine man from 6000 years ago…coincident experience.

    Haven’t done drugs in decades.

    Chakras, toning, meditation….and I have a degree in Electronics and Computer Design/BS.

    Would you be interested in talking sometime?

    Just curious, I don’t get my ideas from books I get them from experience and verify them with books….I don’t see mythology as being stories, I see them as being history….but a particular kind……

  33. Threv Says:

    Lovely, lovely stuff!

  34. Téx Royahaha´ Says:

    Full o hot inspiration, full o ‘ZEIT’. James Worrad’s ‘Eye-High’ is a big thrill trip with an ace pace that had me pounding! I’m printing a copy out for a train journey tomorrow, to go over with notes. ‘The Gaon of Chozzerai’ had a wonderfully inky, cartoon flavour space emerging! reminiscent of ‘Porky in Wackyland’ and the Ren & Stimpy short ‘Marooned!’ — Seth Deitch conjuring as strong n bouncy an image with words as his bro, Kim!

    Thanks to everyone for putting this together — Rudy, your Roadspider story is dread and the 2D ‘centre o the earth’ piece was hilarious.

    If 13 is truly the final FLURB then yer all dead ok.
    🙂

  35. Carlos Says:

    Great story Mr. Wongoon Cha!

    I did enjoy it! And one day I would like t write like you and become an over achiever as well! Procrastination is a great topic, can you write something about future awareness?

    Thank you for your story!

    Carlos

  36. Anton Born Says:

    A very well written, fun combination of many tropes. I like your story very much.
    Thank you very much for an enjoyable read!

    says Anton

  37. Tomás Rosa Bueno Says:

    A question for the editor

    Is Gerry Gurken’s metanovel Banality based on a famously unknown movie made in France by an obscurely celebrated meta-French moviemaker and international troublemaker?

  38. woh3 Says:

    Brilliant Story, Well written and Clever! I thoroughly enjoyed it.


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