Gods and Monsters Installment 29: Beautiful and Strange
Reading Time: 7 minutes Pamela stands in the doorway. River stops stirring and opens his arms. Pamela doesn’t even need to cross the room. She melts into him, soft as butter into flour. She is cold, damp as night fog.
Taking Care of Our Own
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s an aswang on the loose and it’s up to us to deal with it. Don’t forget to bring trash bags…
Forest in Apartment Number Ten
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.
Gods and Monsters Installment 28: Journey’s End
Reading Time: 8 minutes That night, Jackson does not come to Bert’s.
Your Entire Universe in One Bite
Reading Time: 4 minutes First dates are always scary, but sometimes fear can be delicious.
Gods and Monsters Installment 27: The Crossing
Reading Time: 6 minutes Jim is standing on the rocky shore of a dark underground river. The only sound is the constant thrum of pebbles which gently lapping waves draw back and fling up the high strand. There is a whisper, the sound of a shadow gliding over hard round stones. Against the blackness he sees a man, tall and lean.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions
Reading Time: 3 minutes This piece imagines a future world where apologies are necessary for every step of personal interactions with others.
Invocation
Reading Time: 4 minutes A desperate young Wiccan encounters an archetypal presence in a shopping mall Santa.
Gods and Monsters Installment 26: Scent Memory
Reading Time: 6 minutes Glistening like a frozen tear, delicate as a kiss, the crystal necklace lies on wine velvet cloth. Jim has never seen anything so lovely and flawless. His breath catches in his throat. It’s out of his price range. There’s no way he can afford it. There’s no way he can walk away. Something in the manner the colors intertwine weaves around his soul.
Coffee Robot
Reading Time: 4 minutes One million, two hundred-thousand seconds later, the reporter from the Tribune sips his coffee and raises his hand. “I just don’t see how people can be expected to trust you after an incident like this.”
Gods and Monsters Installment 25: In the Time of Many Pigeons
Reading Time: 7 minutes It is the first time Gabriel has heard birdsong. Usually, birds drop lifeless at his feet. Hearing the song, Gabriel is warmed by an invincible summer. He stretches his arms toward the light.
On the Edge of Destruction
Reading Time: 4 minutes A young slaver unknowingly captures her childhood friend, and must consider the extent to which they are each beyond salvation.
Gods and Monsters Installment 24: Wastelands of the Wild
Reading Time: 8 minutes Dust fur falls like rain, feathering into the plumes of a dove. The dove’s wings become sleeves. Amimi is shining like a hologram in the glooming.
Real Women
Reading Time: 4 minutes A group of mannequins from a fashion department store dream of becoming real women.
Gods and Monsters Installment 23: History Lies
Reading Time: 7 minutes In the night shadows of trees, shunning the moonlight, a man waits. It is Kristjan, taller than Jim remembers. He is nearly naked, covered only by a wolf skin. In the night, his eyes glow red. As Jim looks at him, unable to turn away, something dark slips beneath Jim’s fingernails, flowing like a shadow into his blood.
Gods and Monsters Installment 29: Beautiful and Strange
Reading Time: 7 minutes Pamela stands in the doorway. River stops stirring and opens his arms. Pamela doesn’t even need to cross the room. She melts into him, soft as butter into flour. She is cold, damp as night fog.
Taking Care of Our Own
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s an aswang on the loose and it’s up to us to deal with it. Don’t forget to bring trash bags…
Forest in Apartment Number Ten
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.
Gods and Monsters Installment 28: Journey’s End
Reading Time: 8 minutes That night, Jackson does not come to Bert’s.
Your Entire Universe in One Bite
Reading Time: 4 minutes First dates are always scary, but sometimes fear can be delicious.
Gods and Monsters Installment 27: The Crossing
Reading Time: 6 minutes Jim is standing on the rocky shore of a dark underground river. The only sound is the constant thrum of pebbles which gently lapping waves draw back and fling up the high strand. There is a whisper, the sound of a shadow gliding over hard round stones. Against the blackness he sees a man, tall and lean.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions
Reading Time: 3 minutes This piece imagines a future world where apologies are necessary for every step of personal interactions with others.
Invocation
Reading Time: 4 minutes A desperate young Wiccan encounters an archetypal presence in a shopping mall Santa.
Gods and Monsters Installment 26: Scent Memory
Reading Time: 6 minutes Glistening like a frozen tear, delicate as a kiss, the crystal necklace lies on wine velvet cloth. Jim has never seen anything so lovely and flawless. His breath catches in his throat. It’s out of his price range. There’s no way he can afford it. There’s no way he can walk away. Something in the manner the colors intertwine weaves around his soul.
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Awesome fantasy sets and special editions on sale on Amazon through May 20
Reading Time: 6 minutes Starting today and running through May 20, Amazon is holding a giant book sale with tons of great book deals, including gorgeous collectible editions and box sets of classic fantasy books.
Classic sci-fi books on sale on Amazon through May 20
Reading Time: 10 minutes 15 of the best sci-fi books ever written, including some box sets, are on massive discount this week on Amazon.
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Floating Hotel is Optimistic, Beautiful, and Grand
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Iron-Bound Flames by Melanie K. Moschella
Reading Time: 3 minutes Iron-Bound Flames is the debut work by Melanie K. Moschella, the first book in her Raek Rider’s series.
13 best AI stories from MetaStellar
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Talabi’s collection showcases the interplay of family, culture, queer identity, and speculative futures in fifteen fantastic short stories and one novella.
Writing Advice of the Week
Traveling Through Space-Time: Physics VS Fantasy
Reading Time: 8 minutes As fun as it is to conceptualize, philosophize, and ‘what if’ oneself through astrophysics, it’s important to know what the scientific and literary rules are for space travel so you can either use them to your story’s advantage (and please your readers with your knowledge) or disregard them intentionally in pursuit of imaginative creative expression.
Structure, Character, Plot: The Big Picture of Story
Reading Time: 7 minutes Regardless of genre, tropes, and intended audiences, every novel you pick up has three things in common: structure, character, and plot.
Get Your First Line to Make a Good Impression (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 5 minutes When you know the purpose of your opening line, crafting the opener and tinkering with it until it hums can even be fun.
Remove Filters and Strengthen Your Fiction
Reading Time: 4 minutes Filtering separates the reader from the immediacy of the experience and disallows full immersion in the character’s journey. While there are valid reasons to use sensory filters, removing them may enhance the reader’s experience of your work.
ESSAYS
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission will push space travel further than any private mission has before
Reading Time: 5 minutes Polaris 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 minutes While 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 minutes Science 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 minutes I 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
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Looks To Fully Embrace Its Video Game Source
Reading Time: 2 minutes The 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 minutes Emith 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 minutes In 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 minutes The 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 minutes Dive into 16 enchanting tales of love that transcend time, space, and even the boundaries of reality, plucked right from the pages of MetaStellar.
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 […]
Metastellar Open for Fall 2023 Flash Fiction Submissions Oct 1st
Reading Time: 2 minutes The fall 2023 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on October 1 and closes at midnight on October 31.
ON WRITING
How creatives can survive AI — lessons from a $1 trillion industry that’s fully at risk
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Why Adobe Firefly is the only AI image app I recommend — and how to use the latest features
Reading Time: 9 minutes Adobe 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 minutes Here 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 minutes How to steal Hollywood’s marketing tricks and develop trailers for print novels.
Claude AI doubles reading length, ups accuracy
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Adobe upgrades Firefly for better images, vector graphics
Reading Time: 6 minutes Adobe 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
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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.