Don’t be daft. Of course print isn’t dead. I make a reasonable living off it. Over in the world of words-and-pictures, I can write 44 pages that
do little more than fetishise the English longbow and make a profit. The peculiarities of distributing comics through a firm-sale system -- one that
is actually open to sf magazines, too, though I don’t doubt the process is difficult for them -- have kept the Anglophone medium alive in all its
weird breadth for almost thirty years now. Additional distribution systems are of course required, because that market is dependent on new stories
opening faster than old stores die, and that’s not a trick that’s yet been pulled off to anyone’s satisfaction. And, you know, I could list a dozen
other things wrong with it. And have. But when everyone else is muttering that Print Is Dead, comics continues to quietly move millions of units
a month. Last month, I wrote a comic that did in excess of 100,000 copies on firm sale.
[...]
All of which is to say: when I run the sf magazine figures, I’m not saying that Print Is Dead. I’m not even saying that No-One Wants
Short Fiction. I’m saying, I’m afraid, that something is wrong with those magazines. Not even, necessarily, with the content. That’s
entirely subjective. The objective view seems to me to be inescapable: the packaging and marketing just isn’t working. And I think it’s
probably too late for them now.
I know why the magazines are dying: because they're incredibly dull and have been for decades while they have ceased to be the centre of
the genre for even longer. I've been reading science fiction since I could read, at first throught the local library and later the local
second hand bookshop and even the specialised science fiction bookshop, but it was books I read, not magazines. There were no sf magazines
were I grew up, just science fiction books talking about them in awe so imagine my disappointment when I got my hands on my first ever
sf magazine and it was this dull, grey, tiny wodge of newsprint. There was no need for the stories to be crap, as the magazine itself had
already turned me off, looking like nothing so much as some granny orientated low rent Reader's Digest clone.
To be honest, in my occasional samplings of the socalled big three science fiction magazines, -- Analog, The Magazine of Science
Fiction and Asimov -- I've never been particularly impressed by the quality of either the stories or the editorial content. To
read the best short story science fiction you don't need the magazines, you just need to read one or more of the various Year's Best Science
Fiction anthologies. If these magazines die, I won't mourn them.
This is just a place for me to jot down some random thoughts and reactions to the news so I don't have to yell at the television or radio, or mutter to myself whilst reading the news.
Waffle
In which Reinder Dijkhuis, Adam Cuerden, Timm Brand, Geir Strøm and Jeroen Jager talk about comics, music, politics and the impending apocalypse.
Deltoid
A science orientated weblog by Tim Lambert.
Encyclopedia Astronautica
Incredibly cool site about the history of space travel, with lots of info about
the various space programs. Recommended for all spacenuts.
The Loom
A blog of biology and bioscience, written by Carl Zimmer.
Panda's Thumb
On evolutionary theory and the fight against the intelligent design loons
Pharyngula
Science, politics and the intersection between them. By PZ Myers.
Real Climate
A commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists.
