by Jalyn Fiske, Kristen Koopman, and Jean Asselin As writers ourselves, we understand the energy and passion that goes into writing stories, and we want you to succeed. Paramount to success is reading a market’s guidelines because they let you know: Who we are as a market; What we want for stories; When we [...]
Steam by Joseph Carrabis Arrival The shrieking of my wheels on the tracks as I pull into the station, so like your screams when you realized what they'd done. The hiss of my brakes, my body slowing as my heart began racing. But could not; eyes on meters, release valves turn lest all [...]
This report aims to take a look at genre books published between 1800 and 2018, inclusively.
“STAY OFF GROOMED SURFACES” headlined the resurfacing status page as I skimmed alongside the track groomer, staying well clear of the hundred meter booms snowing frozen nitrogen onto the drag strip. Cockpit audio whooped, startling me ...
A six-foot brown Indian man, with one blue eye, one nostril, full lips, and dishwater blond wispy hair, is dressed in denim jeans and shirt. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, exposing blond hair on his peach-colored forearms. Cracked, leather-topped, diner stools separate him and another man from each other and from me.
My favorite part of the day was cleaning guests’ rooms and imagining what they’d been up to. I liked playing detective, not in a weird way, and not while the room was occupied, which was the case with Room 113 that morning.
I met February-22 on the day of April-14’s execution. On the silver screen, the fifteen-year-old boy faced six rifles pointed at the skies. He stood in front of a roughcast wall, dressed in white shirt and woolen trousers, like a prisoner of the regime that had collapsed.
The family stood in the corner of the launching pad—just me, my grandfather, my father, my mother. Far removed from the troops being loaded into the shuttle, but much closer than the crowds back at base—the closest we could get, my mother told me, without being scorched by the shuttle launch.
The challenge peculiar to SF: You’re trying to show, not tell. But how do you “show" a world that, to one degree or another, is unknown, unique, and may even operate by physics that are different from the laws your reader subconsciously applies?
Why does Science Fiction feel more satisfying in literature than in television series? In a word: Closure. [WARNING: Multiple spoilers ahead] Take Max Headroom, about a reporter taking on the corrupt TV media, or Brimstone, its strict sinners-go-to-hell universe in contrast with the shades-of-gray moral dilemmas faced by the protagonist. Both shows were cancelled [...]