Renna’s Crossing Chapter 9: The Katzarov’s First Gambit
Reading Time: 27 minutesThere would be no winner, however this battle ended. Renna squeezed her eyes shut, not from fear, but from desperation in trying to find a way to end this chaos.
In the Dark
Reading Time: 6 minutesZoey is about to wake up to face a darkness she can’t escape in this tale of desperation and hope when she realizes she’s been buried alive.
Law Enforcement
Reading Time: 2 minutes“He told me to go f**k myself, which is a function I am not programmed to perform. However, thanks to a certain maverick engineer…”
A Solitary Poison
Reading Time: 3 minutesA lonely lighthouse keeper dreams of falling, a familiar face, and a sinister flower as he is forced to confront his past.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 8: Words of the Sage
Reading Time: 18 minutesThere was so much there—it was in prose, poetry, puzzle and picture. The sage’s wisdom couldn’t be confined to a single medium. All of it was laid out before her, insisting that it be known. Demanding to be understood.
Perfect Mother
Reading Time: 14 minutesAfter suffering a miscarriage at a professional conference, a young mortician becomes a surrogate mother to a deathless and extremely hungry entity.
Time’s Up
Reading Time: 2 minutesA fabled figure tries to keep humanity off the path to self-destruction.
Dandelion Wishes
Reading Time: 3 minutesPeople and flowers need nourishment and light to grown. Sometimes, sometimes people can be just as resilient as the tenacious, beautiful weeds.
A Garden in the Winter
Reading Time: 5 minutesOn a farm one winter night in the late 1930s, the children are left at home alone by their parents when a snowstorm descends…
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 7: The Library Cat-alogues
Reading Time: 15 minutesThe stares the cats gave them felt uncomfortably sentient; they were not only watching, they were knowing; contemplating; judging.
The Crystal Egg
Reading Time: 24 minutesA man becomes obsessed with crystal egg and the mystical town captured inside it.
Date Night
Reading Time: 3 minutesOur heroine has fangs, fur, and an agenda.
Dueling Map Apps
Reading Time: 4 minutesA road trip through Southern Quebec becomes chaotic when multiple navigation systems start bickering. With his wife asleep, the driver is caught between OnStar’s Southern drawl, Google’s British precision, and an unexpected voice from FordPass, turning a simple drive into a comedic tech showdown.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 6: Rainy Day Bird Cafe
Reading Time: 14 minutesRenna’s quest for knowledge takes her to a hidden library, and the path to its doors reveals a town’s strange undercurrents.
Where Old Wood Decays
Reading Time: 5 minutesA timeworn witch, the last of her coven, fights her young replacement to cling to the post she’s held for centuries as the steward of the Mother Tree.
Oceans Away
Reading Time: 16 minutesA young woman invents a telescope that allows her to see Mars as it appeared in the distant past, revealing an ancient secret with staggering implications for present day Earth.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 10: Some Overdue Emotions
Reading Time: 18 minutes“That sounds like something your teacher would say. We know what we’re doing, thanks to that book you’re holding there, and thanks to an excellent teacher of our own. You’re still new to this side of the world, Renna. And right now you’re just listening to what one person tells you.”
A Scratching at the Door
Reading Time: 6 minutesDuring a visit to confront her estranged boyfriend, Nikki discovers his family’s dark secret.
Hacker Chess
Reading Time: 11 minutesJerry is used to brushing off teen hackers, but this one is in a whole different league.
The Reckoning
Reading Time: 4 minutesSent by her husband to kill the draelings that threaten their village, a woman drives them from their burrow. She does not expect the draelings to speak to her. When they reveal an uncomfortable truth, she is forced to reconsider her actions.
The In-between
Reading Time: 7 minutesAfter dying in a brutal past life, a soul awakens with vivid memories of betrayal, agony, and unfinished business. Bound, tortured, and abandoned, they curse the fate that left them forgotten. Now, caught between worlds, they must confront their past, seeking closure and revenge, to break free from the abyss.
Renna’s Crossing Chapter 9: The Katzarov’s First Gambit
Reading Time: 27 minutesThere would be no winner, however this battle ended. Renna squeezed her eyes shut, not from fear, but from desperation in trying to find a way to end this chaos.
In the Dark
Reading Time: 6 minutesZoey is about to wake up to face a darkness she can’t escape in this tale of desperation and hope when she realizes she’s been buried alive.
Law Enforcement
Reading Time: 2 minutes“He told me to go f**k myself, which is a function I am not programmed to perform. However, thanks to a certain maverick engineer…”
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REVIEWS
Hammajang Luck Review: A Diverse Heist with Lovable Characters
Reading Time: 3 minutesYamamoto’s book shines particularly bright in the diversity department. Most characters are culturally Hawaiian, and the queer spectrum is in full display.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Apr. 4, 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 space operas and a romantasy by a New York Times bestselling author.
Gate to Kagoshima Review: Just a Girl Living Life in Japan
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe book plays with a sense of nostalgia for two eras. It has romance, a little glimpse at the past, and a main character that is easy to project into.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 28, 2025
Reading Time: 12 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes sexy vampires, sexy shifters, USA Today bestselling authors, deal-making demons, and space battles.
Devouring Tomorrow Review: We Only Have the Future
Reading Time: 3 minutesDevouring Tomorrow is not only a glimpse into the upcoming times, but also a cautionary compilation of tales.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 21, 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 epic, romantic and urban fantasy — plus what would happen if the A-Team was set in space.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: The Gateway for Non-Sonic Fans?
Reading Time: 2 minutesSonic’s third installment doesn’t rely too heavily on the previous two, so anyone could just drop in and get caught up fairly quickly.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 14, 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 epic fantasy, a dystopia, a tale of EMP survival, and a college student flung into a magical world of fae, orcs, and goblins.
Writing Advice of the Week
When To Stop Revising
Reading Time: 6 minutesKnowing when your story is done is a writing superpower. Learn how to define and hit that critical “done” point so you can move onto the next piece of writing.
POV Deep Dive: The Objective Person
Reading Time: 7 minutesAlso called the fly-on-the-wall perspective or the cinematic perspective, the objective POV uses neutral narration that doesn’t reveal the thoughts or feelings of any character. Instead, the narration presents the story events through observation, leaving it up to the reader to infer emotion and intention.
POV Deep Dive: The Omniscient Person
Reading Time: 8 minutesThe omniscient person allows you to tell the reader exactly what they’re supposed to notice and how they’re supposed to think (though whether the reader should believe you is another topic entirely).
POV Deep Dive: The Third Person
Reading Time: 7 minutesThe third person is limited to what the viewpoint character can know, feel, observe, perceive, wonder, hope, remember, or guess, which can add mystery to the larger context of the story or show the viewpoint character’s mistaken assumptions and biases as the story unfolds.
ESSAYS
What is it about the books of Terry Pratchett that make them so difficult to adapt to the screen?
Reading Time: 5 minutesTerry Pratchett’s novels have been adapted for the screen 11 times now. Why are his novels so hard to get right?
Two authors are suing OpenAI for training ChatGPT with their books. Could they win?
Reading Time: 4 minutesMona Awad and Paul Tremblay’s lawsuit claims their books were used without their consent. But copyright protection doesn’t apply to ideas – they’ll need to demonstrate the likelihood of economic loss.
Publishers aren’t going to replace writers with AI. Startups are already doing it.
Reading Time: 5 minutesStartups are popping up that use new AI tools to bypass traditional publishing and distribution systems entirely.
Life: modern physics can’t explain it – but our new theory, which says time is fundamental, might
Reading Time: 5 minutesOver the short span of just 300 years, since the invention of modern physics, we have gained a deeper understanding of how our universe works on both small and large scales. Yet, physics is still very young and when it comes to using it to explain life, physicists struggle.
NEWS
SFWA Announces 59th Nebula Awards Finalists
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe 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 minutesThe 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 minutesThe fall 2023 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on October 1 and closes at midnight on October 31.
Hugo Award nominations are out, and She-Hulk made the list
Reading Time: 5 minutesThis year’s Hugo Awards nominees include Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Nope, and an episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Elden Ring, Everything Everywhere All At Once Win Nebula Awards
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and the video game Elden Ring were big winners in the Nebula Awards this year.
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Reflects On Past And The AI Future Of Writing
Reading Time: 3 minutesDr. Robert J. Sawyer, author of twenty-five novels, including Hominids and the WWW trilogy, won the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award at the L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers and Illustrators of the Future Gala this past Friday. This was the day before his 63rd birthday. “Clearly, you’re done achieving when you hit that magic […]
Top ten online sci-fi magazines
Reading Time: 6 minutesWe look up the traffic numbers for 33 of today’s most popular sci-fi, fantasy and horror magazines. MetaStellar is in second place.
Leonardo AI best new alternative to Midjourney — and free
Reading Time: 8 minutesLeonardo AI offers 150 free images a day. They’re not quite as good-looking at Midjourney, but within throwing distance.
ON WRITING
James S. Corey, Brent Weeks, Ann Leckie, and other authors teach free virtual writing course
Reading Time: 5 minutesOrbit 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.
Dall-E 3 looks great, but lacks respect for artist rights
Reading Time: 3 minutesOpenAI announced its newest AI image generation tool yesterday, Dall-E 3. The images look fantastic, and it can do things that no other AI image generator can do. But it lacks a little bit in terms of respect for creator rights.
Claude Pro is here — and writers should sign up
Reading Time: 2 minutesThis morning, Anthropic announced the paid version of Claude, the best alternative to ChatGPT currently on the market. Writers need to sign up.
Adobe Express offers free AI art and is out of beta
Reading Time: 3 minutesAdobe Express is now publicly available, with free AI image generation. Plus, since it’s Adobe, the AI is trained only on fully-licensed art, and artists and compensated.
Scalzi, other spec fic authors head for the X-it
Reading Time: 3 minutesAuthors are leaving Twitter — rebranded today as just “X” — for other platforms. Many are landing on Threads.
Sci-fi author uses AI to promote new book about AI
Reading Time: 2 minutesBest-selling Brazilian author PJ Caldas used AI technology to release a book trailer for his first novel in English.
How to create a good author profile photo
Reading Time: 6 minutesSome free and easy ways to create good-looking author headshots and profile pics.
Can Claude AI fix your grammar mistakes? No, it can’t, but there’s an AI that will.
Reading Time: 11 minutesClaude AI, the hot new chatbot for book authors, works well as a grammar tutor, but is bad at fixing mistakes in your text. However, I did find one AI-powered tool that caught every error I threw at it.