The Revenant of the Gaol
Reading Time: 4 minutesJournalist Ellen Carter investigates ghostly rumours at the old Frontenac County Gaol and uncovers the buried story of Samuel Larkin, a man wrongfully executed. As she digs deeper, revealing the truth may free his spirit—or awaken something far more sinister.
One Kiss Will Set You Free
Reading Time: 4 minutesAngie and Dan kiss in a graveyard, inadvertantly unlocking an ancient curse. They free trapped souls, who then inhabit the lovers’ bodies and condemn them to the grave, in limbo between life and death. Now only ‘one kiss’ will set them free.
Oceans Away
Reading Time: 16 minutesA young woman invents a telescope that allows her to see Mars as it appeared in the distant past, revealing an ancient secret with staggering implications for present day Earth.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 10: Some Overdue Emotions
Reading Time: 18 minutes“That sounds like something your teacher would say. We know what we’re doing, thanks to that book you’re holding there, and thanks to an excellent teacher of our own. You’re still new to this side of the world, Renna. And right now you’re just listening to what one person tells you.”
A Scratching at the Door
Reading Time: 6 minutesDuring a visit to confront her estranged boyfriend, Nikki discovers his family’s dark secret.
Hacker Chess
Reading Time: 11 minutesJerry is used to brushing off teen hackers, but this one is in a whole different league.
The Reckoning
Reading Time: 4 minutesSent by her husband to kill the draelings that threaten their village, a woman drives them from their burrow. She does not expect the draelings to speak to her. When they reveal an uncomfortable truth, she is forced to reconsider her actions.
The In-between
Reading Time: 7 minutesAfter dying in a brutal past life, a soul awakens with vivid memories of betrayal, agony, and unfinished business. Bound, tortured, and abandoned, they curse the fate that left them forgotten. Now, caught between worlds, they must confront their past, seeking closure and revenge, to break free from the abyss.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 9: The Katzarov’s First Gambit
Reading Time: 27 minutesThere would be no winner, however this battle ended. Renna squeezed her eyes shut, not from fear, but from desperation in trying to find a way to end this chaos.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for April 25, 2025
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes sexy aliens, eco-terrorists, and magical librarians.
A Case for Folk Horror in Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
Reading Time: 4 minutesFolk horror resists urbanization and punishes what’s not wild and of the earth. Ottessa Moshfegh’s Lapvona exists in this space of wilderness and nature.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 18, 2025
Reading Time: 8 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a space opera box set by a USA Today bestselling author.
No Life but Immortality Review: The Dangers of Uncontrolled AI
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe novel is deeply immersive with many layers and vivid, absorbing writing. There are faint echoes of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, though in mood only.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for April 11, 2025
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes time traveling baseball fans, sexy orcs, and spaceship-flying alien bears.
Hammajang Luck Review: A Diverse Heist with Lovable Characters
Reading Time: 3 minutesYamamoto’s book shines particularly bright in the diversity department. Most characters are culturally Hawaiian, and the queer spectrum is in full display.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 4, 2025
Reading Time: 11 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes space operas and a romantasy by a New York Times bestselling author.
Gate to Kagoshima Review: Just a Girl Living Life in Japan
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe book plays with a sense of nostalgia for two eras. It has romance, a little glimpse at the past, and a main character that is easy to project into.
Writing Advice of the Week
Word Count By Genre: A Guide for Novelists
Reading Time: 5 minutesMake sure your book is appropriately sized for your chosen audience before you submit your manuscript for consideration.
Overcoming Story Submission Fatigue
Reading Time: 5 minutesDon’t let submission fatigue force you to stop and consider whether writing stories is worth the effort. Instead, overcome that showstopping submission fatigue with these tips.
When To Stop Revising
Reading Time: 6 minutesKnowing when your story is done is a writing superpower. Learn how to define and hit that critical “done” point so you can move onto the next piece of writing.
POV Deep Dive: The Objective Person
Reading Time: 7 minutesAlso called the fly-on-the-wall perspective or the cinematic perspective, the objective POV uses neutral narration that doesn’t reveal the thoughts or feelings of any character. Instead, the narration presents the story events through observation, leaving it up to the reader to infer emotion and intention.
ESSAYS
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission will push space travel further than any private mission has before
Reading Time: 5 minutesPolaris Dawn pushes the envelope of civilian space travel in 2024, but at what cost?
Studying lake deposits in Idaho could give scientists insight into ancient traces of life on Mars
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhile NASA researchers are directly combing the surface of Mars for signs of life, scientists are also using a site here on Earth to approximate ancient environmental conditions on Mars.
ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’
Reading Time: 5 minutesScience fiction and technological innovation feed off each other in an ongoing back-and-forth that can play out over decades.
Everything a writer needs to know about AI (for now, at least)
Reading Time: 6 minutesI want to know what’s really going on with AI. And, as a writer and journalist, I have a personal stake in figuring out what’s happening because I have a strong feeling that my whole career is on the line.
NEWS
Spring 2025 Original Fiction Submission Period Opens March 1st!
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe fall 2025 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on March 1 and closes at midnight on March 31. We’re looking for your best enthralling, imaginative, or bone-chilling original fiction stories of 1,200 words or fewer.
No, you can’t submit AI stories to us
Reading Time: 2 minutesMetaStellar does not accept works of fiction written with the help of ChatGPT or other generative AI tools. Our next submission window for original fiction opens March 1, and we accept reprint and excerpts any time throughout the year.
Fall 2024 Original Fiction Submissions Period Opens October 1!
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe 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
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is taking a darker approach than the previous two films, but still boasts quite a few laughs and Easter eggs for long-time fans of the blue hedgehog.
Hugos awarded, Emily Tesh and Ann Leckie take top honors
Reading Time: 5 minutesEmith Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch won this year’s Hugo Awards for best novel and best series.
Sci-fi tractor beam comes closer to reality
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn a breakthrough that sounds like it’s straight out of a science fiction novel, researchers have successfully created a tractor beam using twisting light beams.
Hugo awards votes disqualified
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Hugo Awards, set to be awarded on August 11, has disqualified nearly ten percent of the votes cast this year due to fraud.
16 best love stories from MetaStellar
Reading Time: 8 minutesDive into 16 enchanting tales of love that transcend time, space, and even the boundaries of reality, plucked right from the pages of MetaStellar.
ON WRITING
No, you can’t submit AI stories to us
Reading Time: 2 minutesMetaStellar does not accept works of fiction written with the help of ChatGPT or other generative AI tools. Our next submission window for original fiction opens March 1, and we accept reprint and excerpts any time throughout the year.
How creatives can survive AI — lessons from a $1 trillion industry that’s fully at risk
Reading Time: 9 minutesThere’s a $1 trillion industry that is about to be decimated by AI, and they’re spending billions to figure out how to survive. Any writer, artist, or editor can use their strategies.
Why Adobe Firefly is the only AI image app I recommend — and how to use the latest features
Reading Time: 9 minutesAdobe Firefly, which is only trained on fully licensed images and pays artists, has added some new features that make it even easier for authors to create illustrations.
The best free* books to help you battle procrastination
Reading Time: 10 minutesHere are nine books on Amazon with tons of positive reviews that will help you finish your writing project — and are free to read with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
The Do’s and Don’ts of building a book trailer in the age of AI
Reading Time: 5 minutesHow to steal Hollywood’s marketing tricks and develop trailers for print novels.
Claude AI doubles reading length, ups accuracy
Reading Time: 2 minutesAnthropic’s Claude can now read texts up to 150,000 words in length, double its previous limit — and its accuracy is now better, as well.
Adobe upgrades Firefly for better images, vector graphics
Reading Time: 6 minutesAdobe announced a new version of its Firefly image generation tool today at the Adobe Max 2023 conference.
Canva sets up a $200 million artist compensation fund
Reading Time: 8 minutesCanva announces a $200 million fund to compensate artists for AI, adds new AI features.