Category: Science fiction /

Two New Short Stories

Like all writers, I get a LOT of rejection letters. It’s par for the course. This week was really nice though, with two publications! My short piece, The Offs, won first place in The Pete Wood Challenge writing competition for November 2024 and was published by Stupefying Stories.

https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-offs-by-ted-macaluso.html

And another short story, Greeter Pastures, was published by Little Old Lady Comedy.

https://www.littleoldladycomedy.com/all-works/greeter-pastures

Stupefying Stories … The Pete Wood Challenge … and Little Old Lady Comedy are all worth checking out.

Vincent, Doctor Who, and Perseverance

I sometimes wonder if the novel I’m working on will ever get published. What will people think of it? Every creator goes through this. Whether you are writing fiction or cooking a special dinner, there may come a time when you lose hope. So, for my inspiration and yours, here is my favorite Dr. Who clip—the time when Vincent van Gogh visits the museum.

Kindle Vella–a new reader experience for serial fiction.

Amazon.com’s Kindle Vella is launching to the public in July. It features serialized fiction (i.e., read on the subway or whenever you have a short break). Many genres, many authors. And, don’t forget to look for my new sci-fi mystery.

Know Your Spaceships — But Think Big

Science fiction has generated lots of spaceships. Whether you’re primarily an author or fan, it helps to know them.

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Elizabeth Howell, writing at Space.com, put together a list entitled The 25 Greatest Spaceships of Science Fiction. It has the can’t-do-without classics, such as the Millennium Falcon, the USS Enterprise series, Doctor Who’s TARDIS, the Battlestar Galactica, and–my personal favorite– the Rocinante.

It’s a great list. But it stops with star ships, which are really quite small. The biggest ship on her list is the mothership from the movie Independence Day, which comes in at over 300 miles long.

51zn0RcEtnL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_Two masters of science fiction, Gregory Benford and Larry Niven, think way way bigger. In their book, Bowl of Heaven, and its sequel, ShipStar, they envision a species that turns a star into a ship to travel through the universe. Humans on an interstellar voyage encounter a bowl-shaped artifact that half envelopes a star. Mysteriously, the star is heading toward the humans’ destination. The bowl has a habitable area bigger than a million earths. The humans land and…OMG.51gcohxevul-_sx304_bo1204203200_

 

Can’t think bigger than that! The books are great reads and an essential addition to your list of space ships

 

Full disclosure: if you click on a book and then decide to buy it, Amazon gives me a few pennies. Your cost is the same whether you buy here or some other way. (This is why Jeff Bezos is as rich as a shipstar is big.)

 

Text © 2018 by Ted Macaluso.