Castaway on Temurlone
Reading Time: 21 minutes
It is indeed a Universe of Miracles! But not for young Pimsol Anderts, idle and jobless on a depressed, waterlogged world, until he signs aboard the interstellar freighter Miraculous Abernathy. Indentured to the aristocratic Wirthy family—and bewitched by beautiful Mirable Wirthy, the latest clone of the long-dead matriarch Imogene Wirthy—Pim’s adventure has barely begun when pirates attack, forcing him to flee the ship with Mirable in tow …
Vonnegut’s The Big Trip Up Yonder Casts Hilarious Fun at Generation Gap
Reading Time: 13 minutesThis tale is an excellent example of Vonnegut’s grasp of the hilarious and sometimes macabre nature of humanity.
The Apatite Necklace
Reading Time: 8 minutesAt a cliff’s edge, an unnamed protagonist has a conversation with their dead mother.
Treasure Hunt
Reading Time: 4 minutesA video game eventually progresses from virtuality to reality.
The Erasure
Reading Time: 6 minutesAfter watching his annoying neighbor be arrested and erased, both virtually and physically, from the world, a man decides to risk everything to help preserve a few fleeting memories of others who have been erased.
No Worlds Left to Conquer
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhat happens to science fiction when aliens actually do show up on Earth?
Leinster’s Scrimshaw Takes a Stab at the Moon
Reading Time: 21 minutesIn this story, the stark life of a moon miner conflicts with the psychological burden of life on the moon in a beautiful connection of suspense and raw emotion.
Shift Change
Reading Time: 8 minutesPerhaps we control our own destiny. Perhaps, a kind and gentle deity looks over us from on high, and provides just the right amount of guidance, love and support. Then again, probably not. Perhaps, just perhaps, our destinies and our beliefs are intertwined in some strange manner.
The Dark Constellation
Reading Time: 3 minutesI haven’t seen what the world is running from, and my father won’t tell me. But I have heard what they say in the village. The monsters came from the sky to live in our oceans.
Blood State
Reading Time: 16 minutesWhen humans move to an ice planet, biological antifreeze becomes necessary – but only the First settlers have evolved it. General Devereaux goes head-to-head with a First revolutionary as each tries to save their people from the cold front – and from each other.
Wyrmhole: Jack Stein #1
Reading Time: 16 minutes
When Pyschic Investigator Jack Stein is hired by Outreach Industries, a massive conglomerate, to find the truth surrounding the mysterious disappearance of a mining crew on Dairil III, he finds himself the target in his mobile city, the Locality, when he gets too close to the truth
Smith’s Helpfully Yours Blends Humor and Culture Clash
Reading Time: 48 minutesDifferent cultures hold different values. The laws and customs of a foreign land can feel downright alien.
The Arbitrator 4000
Reading Time: 7 minutesAfter being arrested for stealing a bike, Hasan faces a trial led by a thorough, emotionless machine.
A Ship With No Parrot
Reading Time: 4 minutesTwo cyborgs, a woman, and a parrot, are outmatched by their deep space competitors.
The Odds of Logical Failure
Reading Time: 6 minutesWhen Carter’s whole life has been defined through science and facts, what will he do when those facts suddenly turn his heart—and mind—against all logic?
Giselle and Mr. Goebbels
Reading Time: 3 minutesRoger’s virtual digital assistant becomes possessed by the spirit of a vengeful ex-girlfriend who died of a broken heart. She wants to force him to dance himself to death to sixties rock music. The only one who can save Roger is the spirit of his deceased wife, Diane.
Portrait
Reading Time: 8 minutesIn 1921, a London painter’s encounter with a beautiful Romanian woman leads to a portrait sitting with hellish consequences.
I Know Who Killed Natalie Roane
Reading Time: 6 minutesHorror meets the near-term sci fi of additive manufacturing in a ghost story unlike most that came before it.
Chlorophylliation
Reading Time: 5 minutesColonists struggle with a strange, addictive plant that is strangling their settlement.
For Warmth and Trinkets
Reading Time: 4 minutesBrrr’s investigation reveal his ice planet is losing cold and fledglings because of bureaucrats chasing profit with human aliens.
Tattoo Me
Reading Time: 13 minutesA guy walks into a bar . . .
Deracination
Reading Time: 4 minutesLovesick 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 minutesOn 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 minutesWorking to a deadline can sometimes lead to astonishing conversations, even revelations. Does the artist dictate the art? Or the art the artist?
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Kittens need saving, too: How Blake Snyder’s beats can work for short stories
Reading Time: 3 minutesCan the Save the Cat method release the hidden kitten in a crouching cat? That is, is the method applicable to shorter works?
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Mar. 12, 2021
Reading Time: 9 minutesDid 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.
Buehler’s ‘The Forest Bride’ will satisfy your craving for fantasy romance
Reading Time: 2 minutes“The Forest Bride: A Fairy Tale with Benefits” by Jane Buehler is a cozy, sexy, fantasy romance that follows Princess Rose through a series of challenging, sometimes terrifying, events that ultimately lead her on a journey of love and self-discovery.
Aliens in Lagos: sci-fi novel Lagoon offers a bold new future
Reading Time: 4 minutesLagoon, through its shapeshifting alien protagonist, challenges long-held ideas of how gender and sexual identities are considered in Africa.
How Old is ‘Warp Drive?’ Where was ‘Zap Gun’ First Used?
Reading Time: 3 minutesDo you “grok” jargon? Does your “filk” contain references to “BEM”s or “BDO”s? And do the goings-on in Washington make you want to go into “cryostasis” in your “hobbit-hole”?
Is the Double-Consciousness of ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison Still Relevant Today?
Reading Time: 6 minutesI learned by listening. Dad and his friends did not know it then, but they were describing their experiences with double-consciousness, living as a Black man in a white-dominated society.
‘The Damned Place’ by Chris Miller
Reading Time: 4 minutesChris Miller, with The Damned Place, has written a novel that deserves to launch beyond the trappings of indie horror and into the stratosphere.
‘The Girl Who Owned A City’ Asks What Would Happen if Only Children Survived a Pandemic
Reading Time: 2 minutesPerhaps our contemporary crises brought it back into my mind, as the events of the book take place in the wake of a devastating pandemic that has swept across America, sparing only those under the age of twelve.
Writing Advice of the Week
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for Jun. 6
Reading Time: 12 minutesI 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.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for May. 29
Reading Time: 12 minutesI 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.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for May. 22
Reading Time: 11 minutesI 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.
This week’s top writing advice from around the web for May. 15
Reading Time: 10 minutesI 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.
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