It’s the latest trend in all the spec fic magazines. Flash fiction! Write a short story that’s anywhere from a hundred words to the upper limit of a thousand words or less. Check it out! More stories in one issue! Isn’t that spectacular? Except that it isn’t. It’s really a scam by magazine publishers. It’s […]
Read More Why Flash Fiction is a ScamThe imagining of possible worlds is the staple of science fiction. As expert Bruce Sterling puts it, science fiction (or SF or sci-fi for short) is ‘a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals’. In speculative fiction this impact can be strictly technological (as in novels featuring […]
Read More 43 Must-Visit Sci-fi Websites for WritersI have not read all of these yet, but the ones I have read were astounding! Like many popular terms, “space opera” was coined as an insult. It’s based on “soap opera” (nothing to do with music) and its original meaning was a “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn.” For the purposes of this list, […]
Read More The 21 Best Space Opera BooksWhat a great article! Are your cooking skills up to the Apocalypse? Good Morning / Evening / Afternoon, wherever you are in the world I hope it’s good. In Book 1 of “Welcome to the Apocalypse – Pandora”, there are two game presenters who instruct the players on items to hunt and gather in order […]
Read More Cooking During the ApocalypseI got into a discussion with a friend on Facebook who wanted to know what was current in Sci-fi. This is what I said at the time. Understand that this is an excerpt from a casual discussion, not a researched article, and as such should be looked at as a blurb of general interest only, […]
Read More What’s Current in Sci-Fi?By Dan Koboldt It’s hard to put a number on how many books I’ve read that feature characters in the woods. Sometimes they’re fleeing, sometimes chasing, sometimes just looking for something to eat. As someone who spends a lot of time in the woods, I should tell you that most authors get it wrong. Here […]
Read More 10 Things Writers Don’t Know About the WoodsI read a lot of apocalyptic fiction. I love apocalypse stories. I love to read about how, when the worst happens, humans can discover levels of ingenuity we never knew we had to overcome even the most insurmountable odds. You see the worst of humanity in these stories, but you also see the best. That’s […]
Read More Sexism in the Apocalypseby Mark Niemann-Ross I’ve learned that my esthetics skew heavily to the bizarre. Helpful when writing speculative fiction; not so helpful when marketing that work. Repeated experimentation has convinced me to look for other opinions on what the buying public will find attractive. Surveys have become my friend, and have provided me with an answer to a very important question: who […]
Read More Who Reads Science Fiction?
