Why Aliens Look Like Octopuses
Nicola Alter
Have you ever noticed that extra-terrestrials in most “aliens-make-contact” science fiction usually resemble octopuses, squids, or other cephalopods? At least, when they don’t just look like humans in Halloween masks…
science fiction
Monthly Short Story Winner: Young Love
Xiagan
This month’s stories are about people experiencing true love (or what they believe to be love) for the first time. I know that writing about feelings – and especially love…
Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells – Cover Reveal & Announcement
Overlord
We’ve heard some great news from Angry Robot today. They’ve picked up another author for their already hugely impressive list, Alex Wells. Rumour has it that Alex Wells is a…
Invisible Planets edited and translated by Ken Liu
Charlie Hopkins
Invisible Planets is superb anthology of short fiction that offers Westerners in particular a series of totally unique entry points and perspectives. There is plenty of impressive science fiction and…
The Rise of Io by Wesley Chu
Stephen Rhodes
The Tao books hold a very special place in my heart. I discovered them by accident and instantly fell in love with the characters and the adventures they had. I…
The Emperor’s Railroad by Guy Haley
Jonathan Thornton
Tor’s novella series was started in 2015, with the aim of promoting this shorter medium. The line includes both established authors and those just making their debut, and has included…
Human Stories
Aaron Miles
I’ve been working my way through the Honorverse by David Weber, a military science fiction series focused on the life and career of Captain Honor Harrington. The books centre on…
Star Wars: Life Debt by Chuck Wendig – Spoiler Free Review
Zachary A. Matzo
The second volume in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy—filling in some of the timeline between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens—Life Debt differs from its predecessor in tone, scope…
50 Years of Star Trek
Geoff Matthews
Let me make this clear from the start; I wasn’t alive when the first episode of Star Trek was broadcast on the BBC. The last episode (discounting the ‘banned’ episodes…
Where do you get your ideas from?
James Barclay
Sometimes out of the mouths, well hands, of babes and sucklings it seems… It’s a question many writers dread and I think it’s because it’s so hard to give any…
Time Siege by Wesley Chu
Time Siege, by Wesley Chu, is the second book in the Time Salvager series. It picks up right where the first book left off. James Griffin-Mars and his allies are…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Politics, Scheming, and Intrigue
Scheming courtiers with different goals, layers of conflict, strings being pulled behind the scenes, power shifting, social climbers, too cocksure of themselves to be careful, poison… Political fantasy stories (think…