Original flash fiction submissions now open. Submission window closes Mar. 31.
I Know Who Killed Natalie Roane
Reading Time: 6 minutes Horror meets the near-term sci fi of additive manufacturing in a ghost story unlike most that came before it.
Chlorophylliation
Reading Time: 5 minutes Colonists struggle with a strange, addictive plant that is strangling their settlement.
For Warmth and Trinkets
Reading Time: 4 minutes Brrr’s investigation reveal his ice planet is losing cold and fledglings because of bureaucrats chasing profit with human aliens.
Tattoo Me
Reading Time: 13 minutes A guy walks into a bar . . .
Deracination
Reading Time: 4 minutes Lovesick Serena is prepared to risk everything and uproot herself completely to be with the one she loves. But are her feelings returned?
Clean Slate
Reading Time: 21 minutes On a Saturday morning, Grace Merritt vomits up a pocket watch that she’s never seen before.
Occupational Hazards or The Quite Curious Tale of Astridr Grimsdottir
Reading Time: 5 minutes Working to a deadline can sometimes lead to astonishing conversations, even revelations. Does the artist dictate the art? Or the art the artist?
Enough
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the tale of a young photographer looking to catch her big break by capturing the perfect shot in the woods supposedly haunted by the ‘Snow Witch’.
The Spinning Circle
Reading Time: 8 minutes An old wives’ tale about love and violence.
The Scrap Pile
Reading Time: 11 minutes Frank believed he was the last man on Earth, but was he?
Mired
Reading Time: 5 minutes In this short historical horror, a soldier on WWI’s Western Front struggles with the enormity and guilt of having volunteered to enlist.
A Voice for the Scavengers
Reading Time: 23 minutes A government Hunter in a post apocalyptic world is challenged with either changing his allegiance or living a lie.
Hermit Crabs
Reading Time: 4 minutes An unusual being is on a quest to find the perfect birthday gift for their lover. The tricky part is, they must leapfrog across several human bodies to get there.
Night Eyes
Reading Time: 4 minutes Turner finds himself stranded in the middle of the highway late at night. As he waits for help to arrive, a strange girl appears at his car. Is she real or a ghost of his dark past?
A Substitute for Salvation
Reading Time: 23 minutes A post-apocalyptic love triangle inspired by “Casablanca” that revolves around a misanthropic bar owner, a Mars-bound clone fighting for his freedom, and a repurposed sex droid.
I Know Who Killed Natalie Roane
Reading Time: 6 minutes Horror meets the near-term sci fi of additive manufacturing in a ghost story unlike most that came before it.
Chlorophylliation
Reading Time: 5 minutes Colonists struggle with a strange, addictive plant that is strangling their settlement.
For Warmth and Trinkets
Reading Time: 4 minutes Brrr’s investigation reveal his ice planet is losing cold and fledglings because of bureaucrats chasing profit with human aliens.
Tattoo Me
Reading Time: 13 minutes A guy walks into a bar . . .
Deracination
Reading Time: 4 minutes Lovesick Serena is prepared to risk everything and uproot herself completely to be with the one she loves. But are her feelings returned?
Clean Slate
Reading Time: 21 minutes On a Saturday morning, Grace Merritt vomits up a pocket watch that she’s never seen before.
Occupational Hazards or The Quite Curious Tale of Astridr Grimsdottir
Reading Time: 5 minutes Working to a deadline can sometimes lead to astonishing conversations, even revelations. Does the artist dictate the art? Or the art the artist?
Enough
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the tale of a young photographer looking to catch her big break by capturing the perfect shot in the woods supposedly haunted by the ‘Snow Witch’.
The Spinning Circle
Reading Time: 8 minutes An old wives’ tale about love and violence.
Metastellar shopping
All proceeds go to pay for original speculative fiction.
MOST POPULAR VIDEOS
REVIEWS
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 17, 2023
Reading Time: 16 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a dragon king who can teleport, an ancient dragon threatening a kingdom, and a magic portal to a world of dragons. Plus, an exploration trip to Saturn’s largest moon.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 10, 2023
Reading Time: 17 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a sneak peak at a new Martha Wells novel, a modern-day Cinderella story, and a private eye with magical powers.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 3, 2023
Reading Time: 18 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a modern-day rock band mysteriously transported to a medieval fantasy world, a cyberpunk grandpa, a swashbuckling bounty hunter searching for a magical object, and a disgraced space navy officer who has to save humanity from an alien menace.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 24, 2023
Reading Time: 14 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a derelict starship brought back to battle aliens, a dragon slayer on a quest to find a magic stone guarded by a dragon, and an assassin in a medieval fantasy world whose knife sucks the souls from his victims.
NightBirds by Kate J. Armstrong
Reading Time: 3 minutes I’d say that anyone who enjoys well-written feminist fantasy should jump on this series now.Â
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 17, 2023
Reading Time: 17 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a woman who can never die, a telepathic innkeeper, a team of monster hunters in an epic fantasy world, and an archeologist turned bounty hunter.
Threadneedle by Cari Thomas
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mix the dark academia of Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance with some anti-witchcraft hysteria and a little dose of secret curses and magical communities, and you begin to have a grasp of Cari Thomas’ debut YA contemporary fantasy novel, Threadneedle.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Feb. 10, 2023
Reading Time: 14 minutes We read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a witch saving the world, a starship captain on a dangerous mission, and a clever thief with a cloak of invisibility.
ESSAYS
Distant star TOI-700 has two potentially habitable planets orbiting it – making it an excellent candidate in the search for life
Reading Time: 5 minutes NASA recently announced the discovery of a new, Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a nearby star called TOI-700.
ChatGPT is great – you’re just using it wrong
Reading Time: 5 minutes So it doesn’t have facts, per se. It just knows what word should come next. Put another way, ChatGPT doesn’t try to write sentences that are true. But it does try to write sentences that are plausible.
13 free AI detectors tested, why they don’t work, and what to do instead
Reading Time: 9 minutes In the battle against AI-generated spam, some people are turning to AI detectors to weed out AI-generated content. Unfortunately, they don’t work.
7 top misconceptions about ChatGPT and writing
Reading Time: 10 minutes There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings about what ChatGPT can do and how it works. Most people tend to fall on one of two extremes — either that it’s all-powerful and will destroy the writing profession, or that it’s completely useless. The actual truth is somewhere in the middle.
NEWS
Adobe, Nvidia announce ethical AI image generation
Reading Time: 4 minutes Adobe 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 minutes According 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
It 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 minutes The 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 minutes The 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.
Authors Guild proposes new AI training use clause
Reading Time: 2 minutes Authors Guild proposes contract clause to block AI training use without permission.
Flash Fiction Submissions Open March 1
Reading Time: 2 minutes The spring 2023 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on March 1 and closes at midnight on March 31.
5 best free alternatives to Midjourney for writers who need marketing or cover images
Reading Time: 11 minutes The top five free, easy-to-use alternatives to Midjourney: Lexica, Canva, Playground AI, Mage Space, and Dreamlike.
ON WRITING
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Mar. 19, 2023
Reading Time: 9 minutes I subscribe to 166 writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. This week, AI is a big topic of conversation again.
MailPoet is the best email newsletter service for authors and here’s why
Reading Time: 10 minutes If you want the most bang for your buck, marketing-wise, the top advice is to have your own newsletter, and after considering 24 options, I’ve settled on MailPoet as the best combination of usability and value.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Mar. 12, 2023
Reading Time: 8 minutes I subscribe to 166 writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. This week, there’s advice about getting past writer’s block and finding your author voice.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Mar. 5, 2023
Reading Time: 8 minutes I subscribe to 166 writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. AI is a big topic. Again.
Is generative AI legal? Is it ethical? And can you copyright AI text or images?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Proponents argue that generative AI is transformative and therefore fair use. Opponents point to financial losses from AI deep fakes. And the Copyright Office won’t grant copyright to AI images. But all of this could change as lawsuits make their way through the courts and AI companies adapt their business models.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Feb. 26, 2023
Reading Time: 11 minutes I subscribe to 166 writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. This week, writers continue to weigh in on AI… both pro and con.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Feb. 19, 2023
Reading Time: 8 minutes I subscribe to more than a hundred writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. Again, AI was a big topic of conversation, plus a lot of great process advice.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Feb. 12, 2023
Reading Time: 8 minutes I subscribe to more than a hundred writing advice sites and YouTube channels and lovingly pick the best posts from this previous week for your edification. Again, AI was a big topic of conversation, as was TikTok.