On Friday, July 20, 2018, Tor.com will turn 10 years old.

In that span of time we have published, along with over 700 pieces of award-winning original fiction, more than 30,000 articles. To commemorate this exceptional, intense, unicorn-dappled run of non-fiction, we have assembled Rocket Fuel, a free collection of some of the best feature articles from Tor.com’s 10-year history as an online sci-fi/fantasy literature magazine!

Experience:

An intimate moment under the covers that bloomed into a lifetime lived through sci-fi/fantasy.

A fierce defense of fanfiction.

The history of Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan, and the story of the reader who had her future rewritten in turn.

A deeply unwise thought experiment that explains how centaurs eat.

The story of one writer’s amazing day, starting out on her last dime and ending with her somehow hugging her idol, Terry Pratchett.

And so much more!

Rocket Fuel is free to download at your preferred ebook outlet.

Selecting articles that represented the myriad authors, writers, and voices that have graced our shores was a months-long task. We are an odd rocket, veering our way through a universe full of epic fantasy rereads, lists featuring our favorite musical horse videos, deep dives into the history of military fantasy, nakedly open personal essays, Game of Thrones recaps, rankings of the kloo horn players in Star Wars, and more How do you contain that into a singular voice?

We needn’t have worried. When everything was arrayed before us, one article brought to mind another, which immediately brought to mind another, and another… Soon, Tor.com was telling its own story in its own voice.

You’ll find that, too, as you flip through the collection. Rocket Fuel is full of miniature journeys; writers informing each other without ever having met; fiction informing life informing new fiction informing…you.

We’re excited to be able to share it all.

Table of Contents

Preface – Bridget McGovern

Under the Covers with a Flashlight: Our Lives as Readers – Emmet Asher-Perrin Sometimes, Horror is the Only Fiction That Understands You – Leah Schnelbach The Bodies of the Girls Who Made Me: Fanfic and the Modern World – Seanan McGuire Writing Women Characters as Human Beings – Kate Elliott Meet My Alien Family: Writing Across Cultures in Science Fiction – Becky Chambers So How Does a Centaur Eat, Anyway? – Judith Tarr Fantasy, Reading, and Escapism – Jo Walton The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (and Why You Should Read It) – Leigh Butler Robert Jordan: The American Tolkien – Michael Livingston The Trial of Galadriel – Jeff LaSala Good Idols: Terry Pratchett & the Appropriate Hug – Lish McBride Orwell and the Librarian, a Love Story – Alex Brown Beloved: The Best Horror Novel the Horror Genre Has Never Claimed – Grady Hendrix The Peril of Being Disbelieved: Horror and the Intuition of Women – Emmet Asher-Perrin What Rape Apologists Need to Learn From Jessica Jones – Natalie Zutter In Defense of Villainesses – Sarah Gailey Queering SFF: Writing Queer—Languages of Power – Brit Mandelo Sleeps With Monsters: There’s A Counter In My Head – Liz Bourke Apologize to No One: V for Vendetta is More Important Today Than it Ever Was – Emmet Asher-Perrin Five Books about Loving Everybody – Nisi Shawl Safe as Life: A Four-Part Essay on Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle – Brit Mandelo The Complete American Gods Mix Tape – Bridget McGovern Rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: “Far Beyond the Stars” – Keith R.A. DeCandido The POC Guide to Writing Dialect In Fiction – Kai Ashante Wilson Homecoming: How Afrofuturism Bridges the Past and the Present – Tochi Onyebuchi Nobody Gets Mad About Hamlet Remakes: Why Superheroes Are the New Cultural Mythology – Ryan Britt Sowing History: A Gardener’s Tale – Ursula Vernon Not Saving the World? How Does That Even Work? – Jo Walton Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” Defies Genre – Gabrielle Bellot Soon I Won’t Know What the Future Looks Like – Chris Lough Bouncy Prose and Distant Threats: An Appreciation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (or Sorcerer’s) Stone – Mari Ness Joy, Sorrow, Regret, and Reassurance: The Singular Beauty of The Last Unicorn – Bridget McGovern One Day You Wake Up and You Are Grown: Fairyland and the Secrets of Growing Up – Molly Templeton Preparing Myself for Death with Joe Versus the Volcano – Leah Schnelbach

Rocket Fuel is free to download at your preferred ebook outlet.