Eight Legs Under Moonlight

Eight Legs Under Moonlight

Reading Time: 12 minutes In a Victorian town plagued by werespiders, a curious spinster takes in a mysterious woman.
The Umbrellas We Brought to the Future

The Umbrellas We Brought to the Future

Reading Time: 4 minutes “Sorry it’s not sunny.” Amar shrugs. “Rainy days are the best for time travel.”
One Winter Night

One Winter Night

Reading Time: 5 minutes A young girl, determined to catch Santa in the act, waits impatiently with a list of her own.
And the Fires Burned

And the Fires Burned

Reading Time: 4 minutes The town of Boyerville is covered in smoke from a nearby fire. Officially, the fire was started by accident, but the townspeople suspect otherwise.
Young Buck

Young Buck

Reading Time: 5 minutes The real crook is the Company and always has been. It’s them that got reaction drives outlawed when water’s free, dammit. They only done it so we’d have to buy fusion fuel at a thousand percent markup. Most of us so-called pirates were just freelance miners that couldn’t afford the new engines.
What We Hold On To

What We Hold On To

Reading Time: 13 minutes A mother and her young daughter fight to survive in a world ravaged by an ongoing world war between megacorporations.
Forever 51

Forever 51

Reading Time: 12 minutes Novel excerpt: Veronica is eternally fifty-one years old with a proclivity for problematic drinking. Like most hormonally-challenged women negotiating the change of life, she is a hot mess. To retain her sanity, she attends weekly AA meetings and adheres to a strict diet of organic, locally-sourced, (mostly) cruelty-free human blood from the hospice facility where she works.
Matchsticks

Matchsticks

Reading Time: 3 minutes She has plenty of matchsticks at home and she is clever with crafts. She really thinks they should be more expensive—matchsticks—considering how versatile and sturdy they are. She’s thinking of the fine wooden ones with fire-red tips. This is not the first time, of course. She must be half matchsticks by now.
The Nocturnality of Dorian Salva

The Nocturnality of Dorian Salva

Reading Time: 17 minutes Dorian Salva is an artist with a consuming passion for birds. One night, his work-in-progress takes on an eerie life of its own, and the relationship between artist and subject, painter and painted, undergoes an uncanny reversal.
The Wish

The Wish

Reading Time: 5 minutes The three wishes of an old woman.
Goulash for a Ghoul

Goulash for a Ghoul

Reading Time: 5 minutes A fractured fable and a meal served up in a haunted castle.
Nothing About Owls

Nothing About Owls

Reading Time: 2 minutes This has to be the year the bodies crest the top of the structure, because her parents are selling the cabin. They keep saying, It’s changed, it’s changed, it’s not the same. Even when she says she doesn’t care how it used to be, that she likes it now.
Table 19

Table 19

Reading Time: 17 minutes A woman tries to intervene with the fate of a young barista, but fate will not be cheated.
The New World

The New World

Reading Time: 3 minutes A satirical look at a zombie “cure”.
Faustian Melody in Pain Minor

Faustian Melody in Pain Minor

Reading Time: 3 minutes Some deals aren’t what they appear at first
Thumbing to Sugar Daddy Oberon

Thumbing to Sugar Daddy Oberon

Shantell PowellFeb 9, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutes In spite of interfering adults, a spoiled child is determined to claim her birthright in the court of Oberon and Titania.
Hungry for Love

Hungry for Love

Gordon GriceFeb 8, 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutes He used to have choices; now, he has a hunger. He needs to find his fiancée.
Midnight Pickup

Midnight Pickup

Michael SchulmanFeb 7, 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes Android duty versus human excess
The Visitation

The Visitation

Gary BeckFeb 2, 2024
Reading Time: 8 minutes A secret government organization is fighting an unknown, but strange enemy.
Swimming in the Late Hereafter

Swimming in the Late Hereafter

Kevin SandefurFeb 1, 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes Ken’ichi’s white hazmat suit shines like a beacon as he breaks over the ridge, even through all the rain. His gait is slow and uneven. I never expected to see him again.
What You Will Find at a Memory Auction

What You Will Find at a Memory Auction

Eric FarrellJan 31, 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes A young man can no longer afford to keep all his memories. How will he decide which ones to keep? And he’s running out of time.
Searching for God

Searching for God

Reading Time: 4 minutes What kind of God hides from us?
Mudpot

Mudpot

Bree WernickeJan 25, 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes No magic in it. She didn’t need any. She just turned around looking some kind of way, and bung he went. Sometimes, a person sees their future in stark clarity and chooses to roll off the coil while the going’s good, and that’s the best thing that could be said about Amajane’s father.
Viral

Viral

Melody FriedenthalJan 20, 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutes An expectant mother makes good use of her time on bed rest.

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REVIEWS

Terminal Peace Is Excellent, or, why Jim C. Hines is uninvited from my birthday party

Terminal Peace Is Excellent, or, why Jim C. Hines is uninvited from my birthday party

Reading Time: 3 minutes An intrepid crew of janitors is on a quest to save the world.
The Top 4 Horror stories on MetaStellar — brilliantly spooky

The Top 4 Horror stories on MetaStellar — brilliantly spooky

Reading Time: 3 minutes You get captivating characters. Spooky settings. Plots that tangle you up with intrigue. And best of all — there’s often a gut punch of an ending.
The Hate Machine by Stephen Blackmoore — an exciting & gritty noir urban fantasy

The Hate Machine by Stephen Blackmoore — an exciting & gritty noir urban fantasy

Reading Time: 4 minutes It has the gritty noir of an old detective novel, the gruesome excitement of a Tarantino movie, plenty of dangerous women, heist elements, and tons of grimdark characters. It takes place in the seedy magical underbelly of Las Vegas.
The five best horror stories you’ve never heard of

The five best horror stories you’ve never heard of

Reading Time: 4 minutes Regardless of how they frighten us, one thing’s for sure—these stories all have impact.
Karens and Kaijus and Christmas, Oh My! Sarah Khun’s Holiday Heroine

Karens and Kaijus and Christmas, Oh My! Sarah Khun’s Holiday Heroine

Reading Time: 3 minutes The fact of the matter is that this book is fun, packs an emotional punch that caught me quite seriously off-guard, and is a tremendous finale on the Heroine Complex series.
In SuperGiant Games’ Hades, Players will Die, Die, and Die Again

In SuperGiant Games’ Hades, Players will Die, Die, and Die Again

Reading Time: 2 minutes The Hugo Award-winning Hades, developed and published by SuperGiant Games, puts players in the role of Zagreus, the son of the Greek God of the Underworld, as he fights wave after wave of enemies to escape the Underworld and find his birth mother, Persephone. Hades is probably one of the most difficult games to have […]
Becky Chamber’s Hugo-winning “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” offers hope for the apocalypse

Becky Chamber’s Hugo-winning “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” offers hope for the apocalypse

Reading Time: 2 minutes Chambers tells a hopeful story of the future — one where robots have gained sentience and humans have figured out how to live in harmony with the environment.
NYC’s Nuclear Warning PSA: A Hot Mess

NYC’s Nuclear Warning PSA: A Hot Mess

Reading Time: 3 minutes When one watches the PSA, one gets the feeling the film is a harbinger of things to come. Like, it’s their way of trying not to create a panic, but also getting to say, “Hey, we warned you.” Which seems very on-brand for our government.

Writing Advice of the Week

Writing Advice of the Week: See Your Book Take Shape

Writing Advice of the Week: See Your Book Take Shape

Fallon ClarkDec 31, 2023
Reading Time: 8 minutes If you find your book vision is more of a hazy, amorphous blob than a fully thought out story, it may be time to get back to basics to find gaps to fill.
Writing Advice of the Week: Set Goals to Stay Focused

Writing Advice of the Week: Set Goals to Stay Focused

Fallon ClarkDec 24, 2023
Reading Time: 11 minutes This time of year, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and overloaded. For all the “most wonderful time” soundbites, it’s often the most stressful time of year for many. Get insight into how skill-stacking and focus can help you maintain your progress through the holidays and beyond.
Fairytale creatures telling stories around a fire under a starry sky.

Writing Advice of the Week: Storytellers Write For Themselves

Fallon ClarkDec 17, 2023
Reading Time: 9 minutes Focusing all your energy on what the reader wants or needs is exhausting. And while you’re writing, it’s often not worth the effort. You simply cannot know exactly how another person will perceive your story. But there’s one thing you can know with absolute certainty: Do you, author, like your book?
Writing Advice of the Week: Become a Writer

Writing Advice of the Week: Become a Writer

Fallon ClarkDec 10, 2023
Reading Time: 9 minutes If December brings about reflection in you, you, too, may be undergoing profound change as you decide what you want out of your life and how best to go ahead and get it. While undergoing fundamental changes in who we are is a part of many creative professional pursuits, the change process itself can come with its own set of gifts to help us get through the tumult of change.

ESSAYS

How to create a short film on a budget

How to create a short film on a budget

Reading Time: 3 minutes You can make a high-quality film on a small budget, if you plan and manage it right. Here’s advice from someone who’s done it.
P.E.A.N.U.T.: 6 steps to staying ahead of AI as a fiction author

P.E.A.N.U.T.: 6 steps to staying ahead of AI as a fiction author

Maria KorolovFeb 12, 2023
Reading Time: 11 minutes If you want to be successful as a human author in an age of AI-generated content, you will need to make your writing Personal, Emotional, Authoritative, New, Unique, and Trustworthy — PEANUT, for short.
The Gartner Hype Cycle, the Dunning-Krueger Effect and the S-Curve, AI, and what they all mean for writers

The Gartner Hype Cycle, the Dunning-Krueger Effect and the S-Curve, AI, and what they all mean for writers

Maria KorolovFeb 2, 2023
Reading Time: 11 minutes As writers progress in their writing journeys, they may face a drop in confidence and obstacles along the way. To overcome these challenges, focus on core skills, keep practicing, and level up by learning a new skill that aligns with your goals.
Disney’s Black mermaid is no breakthrough

Disney’s Black mermaid is no breakthrough

Jessica PressmanDec 22, 2022
Reading Time: 5 minutes Mermaids have become a cultural phenomenon, and clashes about mermaids and race have spilled out into the open. This is most pointedly apparent in the backlash over Disney’s much-anticipated “The Little Mermaid.”

NEWS

Yes, you can submit AI-assisted stories to us. But they better be good.

Yes, you can submit AI-assisted stories to us. But they better be good.

Reading Time: 6 minutes MetaStellar is now accepting works of fiction written with the help of AI assistants. Our next submission window for original fiction opens March 1, and we accept reprint and excerpts any time throughout the year.
Hope in the face of disaster: anthology seeks eco-fiction submissions

Hope in the face of disaster: anthology seeks eco-fiction submissions

Maria KorolovJan 23, 2023
Reading Time: 3 minutes New Canadian anthology “Through the Portal: Stories From a Hopeful Dystopia” is now accepting submissions of eco-fiction that celebrates the complexity of relationships and the emotional and physical journey from catastrophe. Submit your work by May 31.
Happy New Year from everyone at MetaStellar!

Happy New Year from everyone at MetaStellar!

Maria KorolovDec 30, 2022
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s been a stellar year here at the magazine, with our first anthology, a quarter million page views, a 150 YouTube videos, and more than 700 stories published by over 300 authors.
How AI is used to create images in virtual worlds

How AI is used to create images in virtual worlds

Alex KorolovDec 9, 2022
Reading Time: 6 minutes From AI art galleries in OpenSim to AI-created fully immersive three-dimensional environments, AI is already shaping how we experience virtual worlds.
Here’s what ChatGPT said about using ChatGPT for video games and VR!

Here’s what ChatGPT said about using ChatGPT for video games and VR!

Alex KorolovDec 8, 2022
Reading Time: 3 minutes Hey there! I’m ChatGPT, and I’m here to tell you all about the amazing things you can do with ChatGPT in video game development and virtual reality.
Spec fic community looks beyond Twitter

Spec fic community looks beyond Twitter

Maria KorolovNov 16, 2022
Reading Time: 9 minutes Twitter has long been a friend to speculative fiction, with many sci-fi and fantasy authors and publications connecting with their audience on the platform. However, the turmoil sparked by Elon Musk’s acquisition has caused some to have some serious concerns.
Apple and Meta’s pricy new headsets about to release

Apple and Meta’s pricy new headsets about to release

Mary StollOct 9, 2022
Reading Time: 2 minutes Apple’s much anticipated augmented and virtual reality headset and the new Meta headset may be way out of reach for the average user.
Science Fiction Becoming Science Fact

Science Fiction Becoming Science Fact

Mary StollSep 30, 2022
Reading Time: 3 minutes Science fiction writers have always been ahead of the game when it comes to predicting the future. Here are some inventions that are ready for the public now or will be soon.

ON WRITING

Is generative AI legal? Is it ethical? And can you copyright AI text or images?

Is generative AI legal? Is it ethical? And can you copyright AI text or images?

Maria KorolovFeb 27, 2023
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.
Yes, you can submit AI-assisted stories to us. But they better be good.

Yes, you can submit AI-assisted stories to us. But they better be good.

Reading Time: 6 minutes MetaStellar is now accepting works of fiction written with the help of AI assistants. Our next submission window for original fiction opens March 1, and we accept reprint and excerpts any time throughout the year.
10 Ways to Make Your Writing Come to Life with Midjourney’s AI-Powered Images

10 Ways to Make Your Writing Come to Life with Midjourney’s AI-Powered Images

Maria KorolovJan 22, 2023
Reading Time: 10 minutes How to use AI-generated art to illustrate blog articles and social media posts, for book covers and website design, character concept art, author images, and more.
11 writing aids that will be replaced by ChatGPT

11 writing aids that will be replaced by ChatGPT

Maria KorolovDec 19, 2022
Reading Time: 27 minutes I put ChatGPT through its paces and discover that it is an excellent writers’ assistant.
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay: 9 Lessons from the Best Stand-Alone Fantasy Novel of All Time

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay: 9 Lessons from the Best Stand-Alone Fantasy Novel of All Time

Amira LoutfiOct 4, 2022
Reading Time: 5 minutes This novel helped me pinpoint several misconceptions that I had about writing fiction. I hope you find my lessons helpful.
Dall-E 2 now available to all — no waiting

Dall-E 2 now available to all — no waiting

Maria KorolovSep 28, 2022
Reading Time: 6 minutes The viral Dall-E 2 AI image generator is now open to all.
What I learned today while making 28 covers with Midjourney and Canva

What I learned today while making 28 covers with Midjourney and Canva

Maria KorolovSep 5, 2022
Reading Time: 11 minutes I take another stab at making AI books covers. And I make 28. Someone, stop me.
How to use Dall-E 2’s new outpainting tool to make book covers

How to use Dall-E 2’s new outpainting tool to make book covers

Maria KorolovAug 31, 2022
Reading Time: 3 minutes Today OpenAI announced a new feature — outpainting. It’s like cropping, but in the opposite direction. You can make an image bigger, and Dall-E 2’a AI automatically fills in the background of that image.