AI tools to create cool illustrations
Reading Time: 37 minutes How to use free and low-cost AI tools to create cool images for websites and social media.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for May 15, 2021
Reading Time: 16 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a gay romance between a vampire and a were-beaver, lots and lots of dragons, and three magical cozy mysteries.
15 free mind map tools for writers
Reading Time: 26 minutes I try out the top 15 free online mind mapping apps.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for May 7, 2021
Reading Time: 14 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a shape-shifting dragon, zombies, elves, and vampire assassins.
How to use Miro for story plotting
Reading Time: 8 minutes How the use the free Miro app to outline your story or novel.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 30, 2021
Reading Time: 12 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes aliens, a fairy tale with a big bad wolf, magical mysteries, and a collapse of civilization.
Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is now on Kindle Unlimited
Reading Time: < 1 minute Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is now in Kindle Unlimited, which means that if you’re a member, you can read this magazine at no additional cost.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 23, 2021
Reading Time: 13 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes space battles, haunted houses, and a succubus demon with werewolf lovers.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 16, 2021
Reading Time: 11 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes FBI agents who can shape-shift into dragons, a battle to save Earth from an evil AI, vampires, witches, werewolves, wormholes, space pirates and a prison planet.
2021 Hugo Award Finalists Announced
Reading Time: 7 minutes Finalists for the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book were announced by DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention today in a YouTube video.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 9, 2021
Reading Time: 11 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes dragons, badass devil hunters, and time-traveling sailing ships.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 2, 2021
Reading Time: 12 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes two magic schools, dragons, space battles, and some very proper Victorian zombies.
What is Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and how is it different from Prime Reading?
Reading Time: 5 minutes There are a lot of all-you-can-read and free e-book options out there. Learn all about Kindle Unlimited, Prime Reading, OverDrive and Libby, Project Gutenberg, Open Library, Scribd, 24Symbols, and Bookmate. There’s even a service that will send print books to you by mail, BookLender.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 26, 2021
Reading Time: 11 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten books on Amazon’s fantasy and sci-fi list of free books, and today’s list includes a paranormal investigator, a succubus, and a magic-wielding orphan in a dystopian future.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 19, 2021
Reading Time: 9 minutes I’ve read the first few chapters of each of the top ten books on Amazon’s fantasy and sci-fi list of free books, so you don’t have to.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 12, 2021
Reading Time: 9 minutes Did you know that Amazon has a list of the top-selling and free sci-fi and fantasy books? Here are the top ten — and my takes on each of them.
The best free* books to help you battle procrastination
Reading Time: 6 minutes Here are seven books on Amazon with over a 100 positive reviews that will help you finish your writing project — are free to read with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
The Bone Ships wins 2020 British Fantasy Award
Reading Time: 3 minutes The British Fantasy Society announced the winners of the 2020 British Fantasy Awards yesterday, and RJ Barker’s The Bone Ships was selected as the best fantasy novel of the year.
The first Mars photos from Perseverance are here
Reading Time: 3 minutes NASA has been releasing photos as they arrive from Mars and they are awesome.
Ten ‘Keys to Reality from Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek
Reading Time: 4 minutes To understand ourselves and our place in the universe, “we should have humility but also self-respect,” the physicist writes in a new book.
Scientists: Super AI will be beyond our control
Reading Time: 3 minutes While more progress is being made all the time in artificial intelligence, some scientists and philosophers warn of the dangers of an uncontrollable superintelligent AI.
Sci-fi legend Ursula K. Le Guin to get her own postage stamp
Reading Time: 2 minutes The U. S. Postal Service announced its new lineup of stamps for 2021, and sci-fi legend Ursula K. Le Guin is the latest addition to the Literary Arts series.
Galactic Civilizations 3 is free from Epic this week
Reading Time: < 1 minute Every Thursday, Epic offers a PC game for free. Yesterday that was Stardock Games’ Galactic Civilizations 3, a critically-acclaimed, popular game that’s like Sid Meier’s Civilization, but in space. Other differences include the fact that you can play the game in multi-player mode, battling your friends for control of the galaxy. That’s nice, considering that, …
Galactic Civilizations 3 is free from Epic this week Read More »
‘Renna’s Crossing’ is a progressive, magical coming-of-age story
Reading Time: 4 minutes I just finished “Renna’s Crossing” by Geordie Morse and was surprised, and humbled, by the author’s approach to gender issues.
Cli-fi short story contest offers $8,700 in prizes
Reading Time: < 1 minute Grist, a publication that focuses on climate, sustainability and social justice has announced a contest for short stories that focus on climate change. Entry is free, the deadline is April 12, and the short stories should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length. “We’re embracing the opportunity to look beyond the confines of the …
Cli-fi short story contest offers $8,700 in prizes Read More »
28 ways to beat procrastination for writers
Reading Time: 22 minutes Have you ever stared at your screen or typewriter or notebook and couldn’t force yourself to write? I have, and here’s what I do to fix it.
3 questions I still have after watching ‘Wonder Woman 1984’
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you haven’t seen this excellent movie yet, go watch it on HBO Max, then come back. I’ll wait.
Pandemic bingewatch: Tony Shaloub is at his best when infected by space bugs in ‘BrainDead’
Reading Time: 4 minutes I came for Tony Shalhoub and I was not disappointed.
Space-based nuclear reactors a boon to thriller writers
Reading Time: < 1 minute Yesterday’s directive promoting the use of nuclear power in space, including in low Earth Orbit, presents lots of interesting plot possibilities for thrillers.
Body language master list for writers
Reading Time: 6 minutes A very, very long list of ways to show emotion through body language or actions.
Where to find low-cost, pre-made covers for spec fic books
Reading Time: 10 minutes Pre-made book cover sites offer low-cost, professional-looking covers for independent authors.
Excerpt: Krim Times
Reading Time: 8 minutes Once upon a time, there was a virtual world that was almost, but not quite, completely unlike 1500s England. The assassin peered out from the window overlooking Leadenhall Street. It was mid-day and there were plenty of targets. Local residents, mostly, but also a fair number of tourists and would-be adventurers looking for quests. The …
Pandemic Bingewatch: Away
Reading Time: 2 minutes Update: Netflix is not picking up Away for a second season. I have to be honest. I’m not really the target audience for Netflix’ new science fiction drama, Away. Yes, it’s about humanity’s first manned mission to Mars. And yes, it stars Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank. Both of those things are great. But it’s …
Preview: BBC takes on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
Reading Time: 3 minutes BBC America just released the first video previews of “The Watch,” a series based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, and it’s not looking at all like what people were expecting.
Pandemic Bingewatch: ‘What We Do In the Shadows’
Reading Time: 3 minutes What if “The Office” was staffed by vampires? Here’s the answer, folks.
New VR camera delivered to space station
Reading Time: 2 minutes A new virtual reality camera was successfully delivered to the International Space Station today and will allow the astronauts to film spacewalks in VR.
Resources for writers
Reading Time: 4 minutes Our master list of best resources for writers of fantasy, horror and sci-fi.
Six things we will do with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, according to sci-fi
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last Friday, billionaire inventor Tony Stark — I mean, Elon Musk — showed off progress on his latest project, the Neuralink.
New Terry Pratchett book out today
Reading Time: 2 minutes Terry Pratchett is one of my all-time favorite authors, and even though he died five years ago, a new book is now out, a collection of never-before-published short stories he wrote for local newspapers back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Brandon Sanderson’s writing lectures are free on YouTube
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sci-fi and fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s 13 hour-long “Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy” lectures are up on YouTube.
Scientists: ‘Oumuamua may be alien after all
Reading Time: 2 minutes ‘Oumuamua, a weird interstellar object that was discovered passing through our solar system in 2017, might be alien after all.
Wormhole travel could be possible, scientists say
Reading Time: < 1 minute According to new research, it’s possible that we could have wormholes large and stable enough for humans to be able to travel to distant stars.
Lava tubes on the Moon and Mars could be our future homes
Reading Time: 2 minutes Living on the surface of the Moon, or of Mars, is dangerous. The lack of a protective atmosphere means that radiation is a constant hazard, for example. Lava tubes can be the solution, scientists say.
Netflix sends Hilary Swank ‘Away’ to Mars
Reading Time: < 1 minute Netflix’s new show “Away”, the first 10-episode season of which drops Sept. 4, takes a realistic, personal approach to the first manned trip to Mars.
My vision of the future is wireless, and we’re one step closer
Reading Time: 2 minutes Wireless power transmission is the future, but there are a lot of technical challenges to overcome.
N. K. Jemisin’s Short Story Emergency Skin Wins 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Reading Time: 2 minutes New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin’s short story Emergency Skin was named the winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Short Novelette.
A Memory Called Empire Wins the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Reading Time: < 1 minute A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine, wins the 2020 Hugo Award for best novel.
14 Reasons to Use Google Docs to Write
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here are my top 14 reasons to try Google Docs, if you’re not using it yet.
Free book — first in the Lady Astronauts series
Reading Time: < 1 minute A couple of people in this group have talked about Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars. The book won the 2019 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2019 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the 2019 Sidewise Award for Alternate History. If you saw Hidden Figures …
Writing Advice Sites
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here’s our list of great online resources and websites for speculative fiction authors.