TO BOLDLY (AND QUICKLY) GO

Science-fiction in its short form was arguably even more formative to the genre than novels. If you track back to the days of the pulp magazines, the likes of Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Future Science Fiction, Startling Stories and more were fixtures at newsstands and were the way that most people engaged with SF in the 1930s and 40s. Those magazines gave breaks to and regularly presented works by names that would become preeminent in the field and remain among the titans of the genre.

After that, novels eventually became the predominant force in the genre – though admittedly those novels were rather shorter than what we might associate with the medium now. And while that absolute heyday of science-fiction short stories may never be fully recaptured, there remains a lively and exciting market within the field for those wanting to explore the form. And in this piece we’re going to serve up some tips and techniques for those wanting to