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science fiction

Announcement: Under a New Star, by Leo D’Entremont

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Leo d’Entremont at Dreamspinner has a new sci fi story out, part of the Advent Calendar package: In the 26th Century, mankind has breached the light speed barrier and begun to colonize other planets. They’ve also learned to Design human beings, known as Morphs, for specialized colony missions. Adrian is an Aerial Morph, on his way to colonize the low-gravity planet Eridani VI with his scientist Partner, Michael. In violation of the rules of the Morph Projects, they’ve been lovers for months. Michael cares more about his work than anything, while Adrian doesn’t take anything seriously except Michael. Before they … Read more

Announcement: A Christmas Cactus for the General, by Angel Martinez

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Today’s announcement is from QSFer Angel Martinez: Exiled to Earth for perhaps the worst failure in Irasolan history, General Teer must assimilate or die. Earth is too warm, too wet, too foreign, but he does the best he can even though human males are loud, childish louts whom he can’t imitate successfully. When a grieving seaplane pilot strikes up a strange and uneasy friendship with him, he finds he may have been too quick to judge human males. They are strange to look at, but perhaps not as unbearable as he thought. Excerpt Chapter One: Exile So much water. General … Read more

Where Are Our LGBT Time Travel Stories?

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Tammy Jenkins: “How about a discussion thread that looks at successful books/series/TV programs in heterosexual literature/entertainment that is either not being written in the LGBTIA or is underwritten in the LGBTIA or has yet to be done successfully. For the sake of this conversation, I will call this topic, Where is ours? Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Serious Sci Fi?” Let’s start with Time Travel stories. There have been some great mainstream sci fi tales, going all the way back to HG Wells and The Time Machine to more modern takes like The Time Traveler’s Wife. So … Read more

5 Reasons We Need Openly-Gay Speculative Fiction Writers

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Note: This article was originally posted on Council of Peacocks, M. Joseph Murphy’s blog, and was written by him. Reposted with permission. My second book, A Fallen Hero Rises (available on Amazon, B&N or Smashwords) features a main character who just so happens to be gay. People I trusted and respected advised me against it. They said it would ruin sales and alienate fantasy readers. I said screw it. I’m telling the story I want to tell because I know there’s an audience for it. I just had to find it. So I decided to research openly-gay speculative fiction writers … Read more

Hey! Where’s the Funny Stuff?

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Most people (especially non-SF fans) think of science fiction as deadly serious. Because of the often deadly serious topics SF tackles–oppression, climate destruction, discovery vs. ethics–they believe the stories don’t easily lean toward the humorous. However, comedy is the oldest form of social commentary and science fiction has a long, legitimate history with it. From Keith Laumer’s Retief books to the Stainless Steel Rat, from Red Dwarf to the Hitchhiker stories, science fiction humor may not always get the attention it deserves, but it’s always been with us. As a long time science fiction reader, (don’t ask how long, that’s … Read more

Writing the Future

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One of the most difficult things for me as a sci fi author is figuring out what I think the future will look like. Not just socially – that’s often the fun part, coming up with new social constructs to hang my story on. But also physically. What will the cities look like? What will gadgets look like? How will they work? How ill we eat? Communicate? Have sex? These can be fun things to figure out too, but they can also be writing minefields. Take, for example, computers. 50 years ago, they existed only as huge, room-sized things that … Read more