Welcome to this week’s Free Book Friday, wherein we give you the best titles in indie publishing for the low low price of nothing. Congrats to last week’s winner James DeBruicker for scoring a copy of Hound by Vincent McCaffrey.

This week, we are giving away a copy of Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales by Greer Gilman. In the eighteen years since her IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award–winning debut novel Moonwise, Greer Gilman’s writing has only grown more complex and entrancing. Cloud & Ashes is a slow whirlwind of language, a button box of words, a mythic Joycean fable that will invite immersion, study, revisitation, and delight. Cloud & Ashes comprises three tales: “Jack Daw’s Pack” (Nebula Award finalist), “A Crowd of Bone” (winner of the World Fantasy Award), and the new third part, a whole novel, “Unleaving.” Inventive, playful, and erudite, Gilman is an archeolexicologist rewriting language itself in these long-awaited tales.

This week’s Free Book Friday is sponsored by Small Beer Press. Gavin Grant and Kelly Link started Small Beer Press in 2000, after putting out a do-it-yourself zine, and working for years in independent bookstores, in order to publish the kind of books they loved handselling. Small Beer Press publishes literary fiction, innovative fantastic fiction, and classic authors whom you just may have missed the first time around. In their catalog, you’ll find first novels, collections both satisfying and surreal, critically acclaimed, award-winning writers, and exciting talents whose names you may never have heard, but whose work you’ll never be able to forget. Joan Aiken, John Crowley, Carol Emshwiller, Angelica Gorodischer, Naomi Mitchinson, and Sean Stewart are among the names on Small Beer Press’ growing list of innovators.

Read Gilman’s short story “A Crowd of Bone” in full on Small Beer Press’ website.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment with your e-mail address in the space below, or send an email directly to contact@litdrift.com. We also recommend doing any or all of the following: 

• Downloading Small Beer Press’ podcasts
• Signing up for Small Beer Press’ mailing list
• Becoming our friend on Twitter, Facebook, and/or StumbleUpon
• Tweeting about this week’s giveaway
• Signing up for our newsletter
• Sharing a haiku with us in the comments

Winner will be chosen randomly at 12pm on Friday, October 16. The winner must provide his/her mailing address via email within 48 hours, or a new winner will be randomly selected.

Good luck!