Original flash fiction submissions now open. Submission window closes Mar. 31.
Schrödinger’s Dilemma
Reading Time: 4 minutesA man receives a mysterious puzzle box with no sender, igniting an existential journey into the nature of self and reality. As obsession consumes him, the box reveals an impossible and horrifying truth—one that will shatter his reality and unlock his own doom.
When It Found Us
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhile returning from a nearby lake on a camping trip, a couple discovers their camp trashed—with a strange sparkling substance coating everything—and are forced to run when something unnatural gives chase.
At a higher dose, love
Reading Time: 13 minutesIs human photosynthesis the future we need to avert climate change?
This Place Will Be the Death of Us
Reading Time: 14 minutesA group of therapists are attacked by their own building. They must rely on a drug-induced second sight to survive.
The Wager
Reading Time: 17 minutesAfter a supernatural entity kidnaps their unborn child from the womb, a young New Orleans couple seeks help from a Choctaw conjuror to get him back.
A Kindness, A Cruelty
Reading Time: 4 minutes“The arrow is easy,” Elspeth said. “If it is a kindness, it is only in comparison to a cruelty.”
Saturn Slingshot
Reading Time: 18 minutesPirates attack a solar sail above the rings of Saturn.
A Bear at the Fridge
Reading Time: 4 minutesSometimes a spirit guide isn’t quite what you expect.
Slip
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe plan failed, or I wouldn’t be here assisting a paramedic as he straps my corpse onto a gurney. Confusing? Yeah. Try being me.
Life In 2050
Reading Time: 32 minutesThis novel is a pastiche of the classic novel by George Orwell 1984.
All In The Game
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn a battle-ridden world, lives are spent like currency, and one soldier tries to understand what happened to his comrade.
The Rarest of Contraband
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe best thing about running the ship’s laundry was the many nooks and crannies to hide contraband. I had powder, of course, and weapons, the bread and butter of any smuggling outfit. But a month ago things changed when the hyperdrive malfunctioned.
Gods and Monsters Installment 45: Love Without Compromise
Reading Time: 5 minutesHe will miss the fog and the light on the Bay. But he hungers for the solace of the Redwoods’ towering shadows. He needs to hear waves break endlessly on wild rocky shores.
Imaginary Children
Reading Time: 24 minutesA lonely, powerful woman takes part in a risky experiment that allows her to see visions of the children she could conceive with certain men—strangers whom she would find deeply attractive. She becomes obsessed with finding a man who is triggering visions of one child in particular.
Theory Into Practice
Reading Time: 4 minutesStealing the space station was the easy part.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 2: Renna’s Room
Reading Time: 12 minutesSurely Job had a Reason for coming to see her, with lots of Relevant Information and perhaps even some Responsibilities. She didn’t know, so she was nervous. She wanted them to speak first and get on with it.
Act of God: In The Beginning
Reading Time: 6 minutesEarth is facing a coming ice age. Humanity has marshaled its technology and resources in an attempt to delay the great cold; a diversion necessary to maintain hope for the people. But some few know the truth. There is little hope left on Earth. But there may still be hope in the stars.
Our God is a Jealous God
Reading Time: 12 minutesA woman seeks healing at an isolated ranch in the southwest. It goes as expected until it doesn’t.
Providence Will Provide
Reading Time: 4 minutesNaima has everything she needs, and everything she wants, and more besides. Providence does just what it says: whatever you need, it provides. Coming here was the right thing to do, the best thing. Coming here was the only thing that made sense. Coming here was Naima’s idea, after all.
car·niv·o·rous
Reading Time: 19 minutesA detective investigating a string of gristly murders comes face to face with an unimaginable horror.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 1: The Visitor, Twelve Years Later
Reading Time: 13 minutesJob, a youthful but accomplished witch, has come to the foster home of Inglenook to meet with 16-year old Renna Porter. Their purpose is a mystery even to the three dads of the foster home, but Job’s quiet tension indicates sudden change incoming.
Audit
Reading Time: 8 minutesIn the future, the government conducts regular audits of people’s thoughts in order to root out criminals and to prevent corporate fraud. A young man discovers a hack on the black market that allows him to have his objectionable thoughts overwritten with benevolent thoughts. Naturally, however, there is a catch.
Transference
Reading Time: 4 minutesDr Peters’ new patient suffers from a particularly unpleasant recurring nightmare but, after a session with the doctor, it seems that the ‘fetus-man’ has gone away for good.
The Coffee Shop
Reading Time: 4 minutesA celebrated sci fi author gets annoyed by fans constantly tracking him down at his favorite writing haunts and pitching him with ideas.
Metastellar shopping
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Reading Time: 5 minutesDid you recently watch Nosferatu and were left wanting more vampire content? So did we. That’s why we scoured the internet for novels featuring vampires. We have curated a short list of books that caught our eye, and maybe these will also appeal to you. Happy reading! The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires […]
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Jan. 24, 2025
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Nosferatu Is a Homage to Classic Horror Movies, Not Just to F. W. Murnau’s Version
Reading Time: 3 minutesRobert Eggers directed the most recent adaptation of Nosferatu, which is a frankly cynically plagiarized version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But that’s a story for another day (and a really fun one). In terms of plot, not much differs from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 version: a centuries-old vampire living in a remote castle somewhere in […]
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Jan. 17, 2025
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Best Speculative Fiction Books Read in 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutesAnother year has come and gone, and I thankfully never had reader’s block. I even surprised myself by out-reading my own reading challenge. From yours truly, here are the best speculative fiction books I read in 2024 in no particular order. Disclaimer: Most of these were not published in 2024. Ansibles, perfiladores y otras máquinas […]
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Jan. 10, 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 a magical hairless cat, a serial killer on the loose in a steampunk London, a telepathic monkey on a distant planet, and a girl who is admitted to a magic academy despite the fact that she has no obvious magic.
Our Share of Night Review: Horror, Legacy, and Everything in Between
Reading Time: 3 minutesMariana Enriquez is mostly known for her short narrative. We included her in a little list to keep spreading the Halloween cheer last year. Our Share of Night, for its part, is a big, chunky girl. It is also Enriquez’s most ambitious novel to date that keeps her style intact and introduces more horrors and […]
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Jan. 3, 2025
Reading Time: 9 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 human discovering a long-lost Earth, elves and vampires, time-travel romance, and a solar flare that could destroy humanity.
Writing Advice of the Week
Line Edit Like a Pro (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 6 minutesLine editors look at the structure of your writing, including your meaning, syntax, concision, and word choices. Pull it off like a pro this way.
Unsticking a Stuck Manuscript
Reading Time: 5 minutesFacing a stuck manuscript and unsure how you’re going to unstick the story and finish?
Generate Story Ideas with Tarot (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 6 minutesTarot cards offer powerful ways for creative people to generate story ideas and work through storytelling issues, including character development and problem-solving challenges.
Add a Writing Ritual to Your Routine
Reading Time: 5 minutesRecognizing opportunities to introduce rituals and modify our routines for the better can help us create writing habits that stick.
ESSAYS
3 AI tools I use regularly that aren’t ChatGPT or Midjourney
Reading Time: 4 minutesI use Otter AI, Canva, and Notion nearly every day, and here is why other writers should, too.
The multiverse: how we’re tackling the challenges facing the theory
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe idea of a multiverse consisting of “parallel universes” is a popular science fiction trope, recently explored in the Oscar-winning movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. However, it is within the realm of scientific possibility.
AIs ‘learn’ by creating mini-AIs and it’s super weird but also very cool
Reading Time: 3 minutesAccording to a paper released last fall by researchers from Google, Stanford, and MIT, large language models learn new information and concepts by creating new, miniature machine learning systems on the fly.
Distant star TOI-700 has two potentially habitable planets orbiting it – making it an excellent candidate in the search for life
Reading Time: 5 minutesNASA recently announced the discovery of a new, Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a nearby star called TOI-700.
NEWS
Adobe’s Firefly will be a Midjourney killer for book cover art
Reading Time: 4 minutesAdobe Firefly’s images are almost as good as Midjourney, the interface is infinitely better, and artists will get paid for their training data. The beta is open now, and it’s looking extremely promising.
WGA backtracks on anti-AI stance, as long as writers get credit
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Writers Guild of America, which represents screenwriters, is backing off on its anti-AI stance, Variety reported today.
Google falling farther behind in AI race
Reading Time: 5 minutesEdge, Opera and Brave all now have AI built in. Google’s Chrome is not even in the race yet.
Adobe, Nvidia announce ethical AI image generation
Reading Time: 4 minutesAdobe and Nvidia both announced AI image generators today — Firefly and Picasso, respectively — that do not use artists’ work for training data without their permission. Both companies also promise to pay artists for work generated in their signature styles, as does Getty Images.
Study: Writing occupation will be most affected by AI
Reading Time: 3 minutesAccording to research released today, the more high-level and creative your job, the more likely it will be to be disrupted by AI. Top of the list? Writers and authors — with up to 100 percent of their jobs likely to be affected.
GPT 4, Claude, and Alpaca all went live this week and yes, we need to worry
Reading Time: 8 minutesIt was a big week for AI news these past few days. GPT 4 was released on Tuesday, Midjourney 5 was released on Wednesday, and Alpaca — a $600 clone of ChatGPT — was released on Monday. Yes, you can now have your own large language model for less than the cost of new phone […]
Midjourney 5 released with more aspect ratios, photorealism
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe fifth generation of the super popular Midjourney app is out, and it’s more photorealistic and better at hands and faces.
AI work can be copyrighted, if human creativity was involved
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe US Copyright Office issued a ruling today that AI-generated content can, in fact, be copyrighted — as long as a human being has contributed work to the end product.
ON WRITING
10 ways Claude AI can help you self-edit your book — for free
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Book editing with AI: Code Interpreter vs. Claude — there’s no contest
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Best free Canva fonts for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror
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Midjourney’s new zoom out feature great for book covers
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Adobe will indemnify customers against lawsuits
Reading Time: 2 minutesAdobe promises to cover any legal costs that companies might incur as a result of using their AI-powered image generation tools.
Claude AI can read and analyze an entire book at once — here’s how to use it
Reading Time: 19 minutesClaude can read a 75,000-word book and identify structural and style problems. It can also create outlines and character sheets.
Authors can now use WordPress to create newsletters — and get paid for them
Reading Time: 3 minutesWordPress.com now lets authors get paid for their newsletters.
Adobe adds Firefly’s AI image generation to Photoshop
Reading Time: 7 minutesAdobe has added Firefly’s AI image generation to Photoshop so that you, or your cover designer, can create book covers using commercially-safe AI image generation.