One of our part-time reviewers, Martin Dugas, sent me some information about his latest short story “Romano, The Great Magician” so I am passing it on to you. He is offering the story as a free download during the next 3 days, so be sure to check it out.

“Romano, The Great Magician”, a 2012 flash fiction by Martin Dugas, is about a magician who attempts to time travel right before the eyes of his spectators. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Inez Ponce de Leon.

I love reading – and I love looking beyond how words are arranged, and how a plot is ordered. A story is so much more than its characters and its tale. There are symbols in it. There is a history behind it. There are people who will love it and people who will hate it.

I also like reading reviews because they give me a chance to know what I should sink my teeth into, and which stories I should avoid before I end up spitting it out. There are reviews that were spot on. There are reviews that were so off base that I wanted to hunt down both the author AND the reviewer.

In my years as both writer and reviewer, however, I’ve found that there are things that you should avoid when writing reviewers. Here are my top five peeves that might help you write a better short story review. …read the rest

"The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and into the Black" is a 2008 science fiction short story by Jay Lake. It is about a former astronaut who has traded his freedom to work on dangerous jewelry for a Chinese crime boss. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Inez Ponce de Leon.

What happens if you teach a cat how to talk?

Saki (H.H. Munro) answers this question in his short story “Tobermory,” which tells a brief, meaty tale of the eponymous cat and his short adventure with British society. Being a lover of classic writers and fresh takes on science fiction, I decided to dive headlong into the many layers of the very short, but nevertheless engaging Tobermory. What I found was a surprising treatment of what would otherwise have been a cheesy Dr. Doolittle rip-off. …read the rest

Something fun today!

A little over a year ago I reviewed a flash fiction story called “Chameleon” by Colin Harvey. It was a great story and many people mentioned to me how much they liked it.

Well, last week one of my readers, Sam Lemberg, wrote in to let me know that he had created a video based on the short story: …read the rest

This is a guest post by Inez Ponce de Leon

I love me a good science fiction story. After all, I worked in a science lab for a decade. My own novelist brain tells me that every corner of that lab has a story to tell. I’ve worked with DNA, organic chemicals, and industrial poisons. No, it wasn’t fun, but it sure beat just reading books! …read the rest

This is a guest post by Kate Croston

Since both of these stories are pretty short and written by the same author, I thought it would be safe to recommend them both.

First off, these stories are available for free and written under the pen name Spookysister7. I happened to run across them by a strange set of events. …read the rest

"The Frightened Planet" is a 1948 science fiction short story by Sidney Austen. It is about a Cro-Magnon man who is taken by aliens to their home planet. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Martin Dugas.

“Monument”, a 1961 novelette by Lloyd Biggle, Jr., is about destructive tourism on an idyllic world. …read the rest

"Ass-Hat Magic Spider" is a 2008 science fiction short story by Scott Westerfeld. It is about a teenage boy who is desperately trying to lose weight for his space colonist flight. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Angelita Williams

There’s a (not so secret) secret to writing great short science fiction that new writers should know about: less is more. When writing science fiction, you don’t necessarily have to possess the intellectual ambition to create an alternate universe or dream up a new alien race. Particularly if you’re writing a sci-fi short story, you won’t have the time to flesh out lengthy exposition about the emergence of a mutant race or how an army of robots came to establish dominance over the earth. Short fiction doesn’t grant the luxury of major plot development. …read the rest

The Boneless One, a 2011 short story by Alec Nevala-Lee, is about a group of scientists at sea that come across an unusual cluster of octopuses. …read the rest

"The Merchants of Venus" is a 1972 science fiction novella by Frederik Pohl. It is about a prospecting guide on Venus who leads a rich couple in search of ancient alien artefacts. …read the rest

All The Painted Stars, a short story by Gwendolyn Clare, is about an alien that gets roped into helping some humans travel to the home planet of an extinct species. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Paul Franceschi.

“Just Like Old Times”, a 1993 short story written by Robert J. Sawyer, is about a disembodied serial killer who is sentenced to travel back in time by linking his mind to that of a Tyrannosaurus rex about to die. …read the rest

"Bubbles" is a 1987 science fiction short story by David Brin. It is about a huge robotic trader that gets stranded between galaxies. …read the rest

"Metamorphosis" is a 1915 science fiction novella by Franz Kafka. It is about a man who awakens to find himself transformed into a horrible, insect-like vermin. …read the rest

This is a guest post by Alvina Lopez.

Most people know of Philip K. Dick’s great science fiction novels, but despite having multiple short stories adapted into feature films, a lot of people aren’t as aware of his large proliferation of short stories. The fact of the matter is that Dick wrote around 121 shot stories, many of which appeared in science fiction magazines. While I haven’t had the joy of reading all of them, I recently came across one that was available online for free titled “Beyond the Door.” …read the rest

Description of Story:

This is an unusual and odd little tale that brings to mind the colorful poetics of Ray Bradbury and echoes of the imagery in early Arthur C Clarke works.

It’s set on a world that rotates so quickly the nights and days last only four hours each. The odd little place contains cities called Dreamlands, orange sands and silver waterways with twin moons constantly racing low overhead. And of course, there’s the Diamond Rain. …read the rest

Mail Order is a short story about a group of explorers that land on an alien planet with the intention of establishing first contact. …read the rest