Pretty much what the title says. I've got an idea for a setting about Earth in the near future where we have "simple" scifi tech. Pre-FTL kind of stuff, probably even lower than that.

I wanted to incorporate some of the military assets that we already have in this day & age so as to make us relatively primitive but also advanced enough where I can add a few stuff that would more or less revolutionize how war is done so that military geeks won't hunt me down for not studying modern strategies & combined arms tactics.

Ooh! And also, would y'all care to help me think up of a name for the unit/s who's purpose is to act as a sort of QRF from the orbital bases that get shot down to Earth via the drop pods?

Hello everyone, I'm looking for advice and opinions on, as the title says, starting a story from the POV of an Alien.

I'm in the planning stages of a First Contact Story. And I'm trying to decide how to start the story itself. I have a few ideas, and one involves a Prologue from the Point of View of an Alien character, a member of the Alien species that comes into contact with humanity in the opening chapters. This Prologue would provide some background on the Aliens themselves and how they begin their journey to the Sol System.

What I'm unsure of is if this approach is ill advised. Since the story's opening chapter would lack that immediate human connection and would plunge the reader into a Galactic Community and Setting that, for the rest of the story, does not appear in a significant way.

How do you as a writer and as a reader feel about this?

Hi all,

Many many moons ago I came across this concept in SF, somewhere. The idea of an image - like an optical illusion, or magic eye images / autostereograms - which, when viewed, has an effect on the brain's deep neural structure. For the life of me, though, I can't find where this is from, and it's really bothering me (it's not the weird images required to commune with the Pattern Jugglers in the Revelation Space universe, though that's pretty close, and nor is it the neurolinguistic stuff from Snow Crash). I think it was called something like a "chimera" within the fictional world in question, but Googling that yields nothing to do with this concept.

Is this familiar to anyone? Thanks! :)

EDIT: solved (and some interesting suggestions added as well), thanks everyone!

Hello. Posting a short sci-fi. I'm trying out new themes and writing style and would like feedback on world building, themes and to see if there's general interest in growing it into something bigger.

Short synopsis: A traveler with interest in local cuisine arrives at a new destination eager for a new culinary experience that promises to be unlike anything they've encountered.

Link

Are there any websites, blogs or forums where people share sci-fi horror stories? I'd also welcome cosmic horror or any kind of speculative horror communities where people share and read each other's stories.