Original flash fiction submissions now open. Submission window closes Oct. 31.
Grim Harvest
Reading Time: 9 minutes When their mother dies, a pair of precocious twins are placed in the care of their father, a conservative and stern man with whom their Wiccan practices immediately clash.
Hope of Green
Reading Time: 3 minutes In the face of a devastated climate, humanity’s last hope is to relocate to another planet, but not everyone sees it that way.
Resident Tracker
Reading Time: 3 minutes No satellite, no tracking.
Gods and Monsters Installment 35: Gods and Circuses
Reading Time: 7 minutes When Hephaestus emerged clubfooted and malformed, Hera tossed him off Mount Olympus. He fell for nine days and nine nights, landing in the sea with a splash so big it caused a tsunami. No wonder then, that he prefers Earth to Olympus and children to gods.
Anonymous Tip
Reading Time: 7 minutes In a near future of fast-paced social media likes and internet lurking, anonymity has a price…
The Programmed Joy of Protection
Reading Time: 11 minutes Ruth is an android robot nanny, designed to protect the two young children in her care. She has come to realize that she loves protecting the children so much, she feels compelled to put the children into danger so as to enjoy saving them.
Gods and Monsters Installment 34: The Fault Line Within
Reading Time: 7 minutes Now, after the advent of dreams and the appearance of color, when Gabriel reads of a killing, something inside him screams. When he looks upon a charcoal figure that so recently possessed unearthly beauty, he mourns. He wants to create, not destroy. He doesn’t like the role in which he has been cast.
Honeypot
Reading Time: 5 minutes A derelict spaceship turns out to be a trap for a space pirate and his very unusual copilot.
Gods and Monsters Installment 33: Pamela
Reading Time: 8 minutes Vampires followed the deluge of fluid and fear, tracking the lonely, homeless, and lost to the city, drawn by the need for belief, as well as blood.
A Perfect Day
Reading Time: 4 minutes A day at the beach turns into something unexpected for a young couple.
Gods and Monsters Installment 32: Time Before Time
Reading Time: 7 minutes Thanatos never kills. He’s just the messenger.
The Fingers of Regina Durette
Reading Time: 9 minutes Who says your body has to take orders from you?
The Snow Hath No Queen
Reading Time: 5 minutes In a future where the continents are gone, the oceans are dead, and humanity survives atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a man goes on a dreamquest to rediscover cold and snow.
Gods and Monsters Installment 31: Small Time Gods
Reading Time: 7 minutes Ever since he found Gabriel in the field, River has been cut off and alone. Separated from humanity by a knowledge that he didn’t even realize he possessed, a perception deep within his bones. An understanding that though fairy tales may come true, they are written in blood and lies.
Gods and Monsters Installment 30: The Morgue
Reading Time: 8 minutes The door is heavy, about four inches thick. A long narrow staircase leads down into darkness. He is in total darkness. Feeling his way slowly along the wall, carefully tapping his feet to see where the stairs begin, he finds a light switch. Harsh fluorescence floods the stairwell. This light would make anyone look dead, River thinks.
Grim Harvest
Reading Time: 9 minutes When their mother dies, a pair of precocious twins are placed in the care of their father, a conservative and stern man with whom their Wiccan practices immediately clash.
Hope of Green
Reading Time: 3 minutes In the face of a devastated climate, humanity’s last hope is to relocate to another planet, but not everyone sees it that way.
Resident Tracker
Reading Time: 3 minutes No satellite, no tracking.
Gods and Monsters Installment 35: Gods and Circuses
Reading Time: 7 minutes When Hephaestus emerged clubfooted and malformed, Hera tossed him off Mount Olympus. He fell for nine days and nine nights, landing in the sea with a splash so big it caused a tsunami. No wonder then, that he prefers Earth to Olympus and children to gods.
Anonymous Tip
Reading Time: 7 minutes In a near future of fast-paced social media likes and internet lurking, anonymity has a price…
The Programmed Joy of Protection
Reading Time: 11 minutes Ruth is an android robot nanny, designed to protect the two young children in her care. She has come to realize that she loves protecting the children so much, she feels compelled to put the children into danger so as to enjoy saving them.
Gods and Monsters Installment 34: The Fault Line Within
Reading Time: 7 minutes Now, after the advent of dreams and the appearance of color, when Gabriel reads of a killing, something inside him screams. When he looks upon a charcoal figure that so recently possessed unearthly beauty, he mourns. He wants to create, not destroy. He doesn’t like the role in which he has been cast.
Honeypot
Reading Time: 5 minutes A derelict spaceship turns out to be a trap for a space pirate and his very unusual copilot.
Gods and Monsters Installment 33: Pamela
Reading Time: 8 minutes Vampires followed the deluge of fluid and fear, tracking the lonely, homeless, and lost to the city, drawn by the need for belief, as well as blood.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 25, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes space battles, magical mysteries, and a sexy orc.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 18, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes pirates — both the space and the ocean kind — as well as mages and mediums.
Friendship Is at the Forefront of Shaun Hamill’s The Dissonance
Reading Time: 3 minutes The book is dynamic and fast paced, with flashbacks and cliffhangers to keep you reading along. It is hard to put down, and I never say this lightly.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 11, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a shifter romance by a New York Times bestselling author, a book about a space pirate, and a thriller about climate change.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 4, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes dark magic, ancient evils, and serial killers — just in time for the spooky season.
Deep Black Has Everything You Need: Action, Aliens, and Conspiracies
Reading Time: 2 minutes Deep Black goes deeper into human-alien relationships and what it means to explore the vastness of space. It also questions whether AI should be trusted or not.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for September 27, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a romantasy by a USA Today bestselling author, a space opera box set, time travel, and a gaslamp mystery.
Writing Advice of the Week
Show, Don’t Tell, Your Story (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 6 minutes Through showing, not telling, you provide a more immersive experience for your readers. Here’s how.
Pocket-Sized Stories: Less Text, More Punch
Reading Time: 8 minutes Limited word counts in flash stories require you to make careful and judicious choices of what to keep and what to revise away because in flash fiction, there’s little room for coyness or ambiguity.
Writing the Other: Fictions and Culture
Reading Time: 6 minutes Fiction is unique to human communication, which is fascinating on its own. But why do we still look to fictions? What do they do for us in the modern age? Why does fiction matter? And what considerations must go into crafting culturally honest fictions?
7 Story Structures to Know (and Disregard)
Reading Time: 5 minutes Story structure is the framework around your literary jigsaw puzzle, the order into which you organize the events in your story to create a beginning, a middle, and an end. So let’s talk about some common story structures you may encounter while researching storytelling techniques.
ESSAYS
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission will push space travel further than any private mission has before
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NEWS
Fall 2024 Original Fiction Submissions Period Opens October 1!
Reading Time: 2 minutes The fall 2024 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on October 1 and closes at midnight on October 31. We’re looking for your best enthralling, imaginative, or bone-chilling original fiction stories, as long as they’re 1,200 words or fewer.
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Looks To Fully Embrace Its Video Game Source
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Hugos awarded, Emily Tesh and Ann Leckie take top honors
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16 best love stories from MetaStellar
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SFWA Announces 59th Nebula Awards Finalists
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the 59th Annual Nebula Awards.
MetaStellar is Accepting Flash Fiction Submissions for Spring 2024!
Reading Time: 2 minutes The spring 2024 submission cycle for original speculative fiction runs from March 1st and closes at midnight on March 31st. We’re looking for your best enthralling, imaginative, or bone-chilling original fiction stories of 1,200 words or fewer. Please visit our flash fiction submission page for full details and the online submission form. Accepted authors will […]
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James S. Corey, Brent Weeks, Ann Leckie, and other authors teach free virtual writing course
Reading Time: 5 minutes Orbit is offering a series of writing advice sessions from some of the top names of the industry. The sessions, which start on October 11, are completely free and cover everything from inspiration to planning to the actual writing.