Science Fiction writers guides (my favorites)
Discover the best science fiction writers guides with my top book picks! Explore essential resources and favorite fiction guides for aspiring sci-fi authors and enthusiasts.
Book
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
by Orson Scott Card
Defines both genres, tells how to write a successful story, and where to find markets to get published.
Book
World Building
by Stephen Gillett
With Stephen Gillett's help, you'll be on solid ground, no matter what kinds of worlds you create for your science fiction. World-Building explains science to help you make your fiction plausible. You'll give your worlds the pull of gravity, aware of the effects on inhabitants and the planets themselves. Mix elements and build planets with chemically credible, geologically accurate characteristics - and anomalies - that affect those who live there. Create planetary "engines," convincing atmospheres and fact-based weather patterns. Colonize a truly weird world: ancient Earth. Explore our neighboring planets and their satellites for SF possibilities. Light and heat your landscapes with the right types of stars. See how things might be on a "chloroxygen" world and other hypothetical places.
Book
The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe
by George Ochoa
To hold the interest of knowledgeable sci-fi readers, a writer the genre must stay within certain fuzzy boundaries of scientific belief. This volume provides some of the scientific detail that will make a writer's adventures compelling and consistent with current views of the universe. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Book
The Physics of Star Trek
by Lawrence M. Krauss
An introduction to physics uses Star Trek as a reference point, explaining the intricacies of warp speed and describing the difference between a holodeck and a hologram.
Book
Aliens and Alien Societies
by Stanley Schmidt
A thoughtful, clear and utterly fascinating reference, this book is absolutely vital to writers who want to put extraterrestrial life-forms in their novels and stories.
Book
The Science of Star Wars
by Jeanne Cavelos
The scientific possibility of the world of Star Wars is examined by former NASA astrophysicist Jeanne Cavelos.
Book
Masterpieces
by Orson Scott Card
A collection of the best science fiction short stories of the 20th century as selected and evaluated by critically-acclaimed author Orson Scott Card. Featuring stories from the genre's greatest authors: Isaac Asimov • Arthur C. Clarke • Robert A. Heinlein • Ursula K. Le Guin • Ray Bradbury • Frederik Pohl • Harlan Ellison • George Alec Effinger • Brian W. Aldiss • William Gibson & Michael Swanwick • Theodore Sturgeon • Larry Niven • Robert Silverberg • Harry Turtledove • James Blish • George R. R. Martin • James Patrick Kelly • Karen Joy Fowler • Lloyd Biggle, Jr. • Terry Bisson • Poul Anderson • John Kessel • R.A. Lafferty • C.J. Cherryh • Lisa Goldstein • Edmond Hamilton In much of the science fiction of the past, the twenty-first century existed only in the writers’ imaginations. Now that it’s here, it’s time to take a look back at the last one hundred years in science fiction through the works of the most celebrated and acclaimed authors of the century—to see where we’ve been and just how far we’ve come. Along with a critical essay by Orson Scott Card reassessing science fiction in the twentieth century, Masterpieces includes short fiction by writers who have forged a permanent place for science fiction in the popular culture of today...and tomorrow. It offers a glimpse of the greatest works that mixed science with fiction in trying to figure out humanity’s place in the universe. Featuring bold, brave, and breathtaking stories, this definitive collection will stand the test of time in both this century and those to come.