If you like science fiction, fantasy and/or horror, this is the website for you. While Tor.com publishes their own physical books, it also has a website with a massive collection of short fiction (for free!) and articles galore covering all corners of pop culture from books to movies to tv shows and everything in between.
Let’s take a quick look at what it has to offer.
The Basics
Tor.com is different from Tor Books, which publishes similar genre content, and you can view more information about their publishing here at https://www.torforgeblog.com/. Tor.com specializes in hosting and publishing shorter fiction and curating its community-built blog feed.
While you do not have to make an account to view the free content on the website, I highly recommend creating one and also signing up for the newsletters. You’ll get tons of neat perks, including a free ebook sent directly to your email once a month!
The website has a few basic features that we’ll go over now so you can start your investigation of the amazing content.
On the front page, there is a blog feed which has multiple updated blog posts almost every weekday. It covers everything from book and television reviews, to essays and thinkpieces. If you’re searching for something in particular, you can use the magnifying glass at the top of the page to do a keyword search. You can search the blog Archive of the site by going to the very bottom of the page and clicking on the blue “Archive” link and view blog posts per month starting way back in 2010.
If you create an account, you can favorite blog posts to bookmark and read for later, or just because you liked them enough to want to read them again in the future. You can also message other registered users, edit your comments and be the first to know when there’s new content!
You can automatically sign up for some of the Tor newsletters on the registration page, simply by clicking on the check boxes next to the ones that you’re interested in when you’re creating an account.
Original Free Fiction
Under the Fiction tab at the top of the page, it will show you excerpts from upcoming releases as well as original short fiction that you can read for completely free. Under the main header tab up top you can search via type: All Fiction, Original Fiction, Comics, Poetry, Reprints, Excerpts
You can also use the filters to organize the page via Newest to Oldest, by title, author or editor. And you can also filter it further by searching the drop down menu of genres.
The Blog
One of the main appeals of Tor.com is the blog feed. Curated by the moderators and filled with content submitted by readers of the site, the blog is what shows up on the main page when you go to the site. You can leave comments and have conversations with fellow blog readers at the bottom of the page.
Blog posts cover a wide range of topics – too many to list here. There are also blog series, which are ongoing and can be viewed via the Series tab at the top of the screen. The small gray link at the top of the blog posts is the Series name and you can click there to be brought to the rest of the series. If you have an account you can also follow the series that interest you so you know when new posts are added to it.
Published Books
If you hit the Publishing tab at the top of the page, it will bring you to another webpage that shows all of the officially published novellas and novels from Tor.com. You can search and browse in many ways. You can look at New Releases or upcoming publications displayed on the main page.
You can also simply look at everything that has been published by Tor.com by searching via author (under the “Author” tab) or by hitting “All Books” under the “Books” tab.
Newsletters
Aside from the general newsletter of the site, you can also sign up for the free E-book newsletter. In fact,Tor.com has four different types of newsletters.
There is a weekly newsletter, a monthly publication newsletter, a free E-Book newsletter and a free short fiction newsletter which offers you some of that month’s new, free short stories in a format that is easy to read on any device.
Submissions
If you’re a writer yourself and want to give publication a try, Tor.com has open submissions (currently) for blog submissions which are reviews, think pieces and essays. You can check out the process and criteria here https://www.tor.com/submissions-guidelines/ or you can access it through the website at the very bottom of the page as a large blue link.
Wrapping up
If you’re interested in fiction that’s a little out of the box, or just are really into fandom, pop culture and current media, Tor.com is a great place for you. They cover topics and media that I’ve never heard of before, nor would I have without the site. The essays are insightful, the free content is always high quality, and the best yet, Westfield and the C/W Mars catalog carries many of Tor.com’s published novellas and novels, so if you see something you like, check to see if you can pick it up or request it!
