Reading Time: 7 minutesIt 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.
Gods and Monsters Installment 25: In the Time of Many Pigeons Read More »
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.
Hugos awarded, Emily Tesh and Ann Leckie take top honors Read More »
Reading Time: 9 minutesReading becomes a form of procrastination when it distracts or detracts from your writing. Get the benefits of reading while writing by curating your book list.
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 is all about magical love, dragon love, and fairy tale love.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 9, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young slaver unknowingly captures her childhood friend, and must consider the extent to which they are each beyond salvation.
Reading Time: 8 minutesDust 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.
Gods and Monsters Installment 24: Wastelands of the Wild Read More »
Reading Time: 7 minutesWith approximately 11,000 books published every single day, how does a no-name author without much by way of platform break into such a saturated and competitive market? By accepting abundance.
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 a plague, a sexy dragon, witches and wizards, and a modern-day retelling of the Snow White story.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 2, 2024 Read More »
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.
Reading Time: 4 minutesA group of mannequins from a fashion department store dream of becoming real women.
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn 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.
Reading Time: 8 minutesWhen ancient Mexican gods visit Venice Beach, America gets a change of dirt.
How Chaac the Rain God Moved to Venice and Became a Glutton-Free Vegan Read More »
Reading Time: 7 minutesInstead of staring at a blank page wondering how you’re going to start writing or even where to start, put away the book project. Write a letter to your reader instead.
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 four cozy, witchy mysteries — and some epic space battles.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 26, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 3 minutesDon’t blame her. She knew that if she avoided the knife, she could grant her city centuries to grow and thrive. She also believed if she made that choice, she would die by year’s end.
Reading Time: 7 minutesWhen a Virgin is seen in a small Mexican town it’s a miracle – the town is blessed… or is it?
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.
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn the mornings, if he wakes beside the dust of a beautiful stranger, he knows he’s drained the world of a bit of color, a bit of beauty, however deadly.
Reading Time: 14 minutesA cosmic traveller helps a grieving fisherman to deal with his trauma.
Reading Time: 8 minutesExplore how to weave backstory well and keep your reader’s attention on the present.
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 some epic epic fantasies, including one by Nora Roberts — yup, the Nora Roberts!
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 19, 2024 Read More »
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.
Reading Time: 4 minutesThey knew each other very well, as much as the Law would allow. Their children were beautiful, curious, and kind. To know where they were now, or what their mother looked like, could lose him everything.
Reading Time: 5 minutesJason’s daughter, Sarah, approached him one morning and said, “Daddy, the Shadow Man is back.”
Reading Time: 8 minutesOut of the earth, up through the floor, dust rises. It clings together, forming a translucent woman. She is brown as earth. Her face is worn. Her eyes are shadows in the night. Red paint dots her cheeks and ears. Her hair is made of darkness, the part decorated by a circle of crimson. “I am Amimi, matriarch of the Lenni Lenape,” she says.
Gods and Monsters Installment 21: Out of Dust – The Lenni Lenape Read More »
Reading Time: 2 minutesHow will a child react to his father’s unsettling business decisions?
Reading Time: 7 minutesSettings in stories have lives of their own and become characters in themselves, living from the first pages of a story, experiencing challenges and changes.
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 college student at the center of a mysterious conspiracy, and a man with no memory marooned on a planet trapped between two dimensions.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 12, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutesScience fiction and technological innovation feed off each other in an ongoing back-and-forth that can play out over decades.
ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’ Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutesAn old man’s dedication to his garden goes beyond the grave.
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe emigrants to Planar6 have survived the voyage from Earth via conversion to semi-sentient fungal forms, a process that is reversed upon arrival. The trouble is, one of the crew prefers to stay the way they are…
Reading Time: 4 minutesA budding student sci-fi writer applies to the Rod Serling School because of the celebrity’s name attached to the school. When a salesman comes by the house to pitch the school, her father joins the conversation, with unexpected results.
Reading Time: 5 minutesMr. Jones appears to have been mauled by a wild animal. His body shows evidence of teeth marks and claw marks. The wounds are uncommon.
Gods and Monsters Installment 20: The Love Song of the Mole Cricket Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe balance of the four elements of the MICE Quotient (milieu, idea, character, event) in narrative fiction carries forward a story succinctly and cohesively to engage readers. Here’s how to use it.
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 cursed merman king, orcs and vampires, and a superhuman soldier called back into action to fight in an interstellar war.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 5, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat does it mean to be human? Other species may never understand, but they can have fun pretending.
Reading Time: 3 minutesHe is deeply fascinated by growth. And he’s ready to sacrifice a lot for its sake…
Reading Time: 7 minutesI drove that ancient pick-up all the way out into the Catskill Mountains. Even after that trek, that good old Ford was running strong. Still is. I rented a place out in the woods about ten miles from Greene Village, New York. It was tiny; just bed, bath, and stove, but I didn’t need more.
Gods and Monsters Installment 19: Lonely Journeys Read More »
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn the environmentally and economically devastated not-so-distant future, best friends Pen and Lissy have fought for years simply to survive. After a lifetime of struggle, Lissy is desperate for escape, and decides uploading her mind onto a computer chip – complete with home-designed software – is her only option.
Reading Time: 10 minutesSubjective interpretation of appearances and other facets of being human means each person has a different reaction to what they’re seeing with varying levels of intrigue, disgust, indifference, and deference. Show your readers who your characters are, rather than telling, for greater emotional effect. Here’s how.
Humanize Characters By Appearance and Interpretation Read More »
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 lots and lots of cozy fantasy — and invading alien monsters.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for June 28, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe funeral was hard. But the thing that helped me smile through the tears was counting the times Tom had sat on top of hotter pyres and lived.
Reading Time: 8 minutesHe awoke at dawn, sore and scratched. His mouth, clothes, and limbs were covered with gore. His clothes were in tatters. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, trying to remember.
Gods and Monsters Installment 18: We Are The Stuff That Genes Are Made Of Read More »
Reading Time: 15 minutesA strange star is spotted in the distant sky. Scientists watch as its near miss brings humanity to its knees.
Reading Time: 8 minutesReaders look for emotional connections to the stories they read, and your characters are poised to deliver those emotional connections with staying power when developed in a robust and well-rounded way.
Humanize Characters Using Dialogue, Thought, and Action Read More »
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 so much romantasy. And all the fae and forbidden loves anyone could ever want.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for June 21, 2024 Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Path!” Glinda paused so abruptly the six foot necromancer slammed into her, tangling himself in the wild frizz of her white hair. Glinda waved a white diamante-studded glove at the waist-high grass. “This is hardly a path, Snark. This is a swamp!”
Reading Time: 7 minutes“Where did you get the gun, River?” Jackson asks. River looks down. His right hand is wrapped around a cold black gun.
Gods and Monsters Installment 17: Moirai Mechanics Read More »
Reading Time: 2 minutesA hungry ghost, pockets full of whatever money he could collect, visits his favorite diner on Halloween
