Fiction semiprozines continue to proliferate, here in the era of cheap and sophisticated desktop publishing technology—and the life expectancy of most of them remains, to be polite about it, problematical. Because almost all semiprozines are severely undercapitalized and run on shoestring budgets, they are unable to survive the first cash-flow crunch that comes along. The odds against any one of them surviving are, dismayingly, even higher than the odds against a new professional publication surviving. Still, each one of them hopes to be the lucky exception that will survive and establish itself—and perhaps one or more of them will. Stranger things have happened.
Of the newish fiction semiprozines, by far the best, and one of the best semiprozines launched in some time, is Century, a new bimonthly (supposedly) fiction magazine edited by Robert K. J. Killheffer. This is a thoroughly professional magazine, operating on a level of sophistication, eclecticism, and literary quality rarely seen in the semiprozine market. Of course, even though most of the writers to appear in the magazine this year were writers whose names will be familiar to genre readers, Century itself is, quite consciously and deliberately, far out on the edge of the science fiction/fantasy spectrum … if not considerably beyond that edge. Several good to excellent stories appeared in Century this year, although most of them are hard to justify as science fiction or even, occasionally, as fantasy. My favorite story from Century this year was Kelly Link’s rich and eccentric “Water Off a Black Dog’s Back,” from Century 3, which was one of several stories this year (Terry Bisson’s “There Are No Dead” was another one) that remind me of the kind of story that Bradbury used to write, forty years ago: evocative, richly nostalgic, and yet with a bit of a weird twisted edge to it to keep it from being too cloying or sappy. Century also published good to excellent work this year from Avram Davidson, Holly Wade Matter, Jim Cowan, J. R. Dunn, Don Webb, William Browning Spencer, Kelley Eskridge, Michael Bishop, Beverly Suarez-Beard, Mary Rosenblum, Greg Abraham, Gerald Pearce, and others, and one of those stories, the Eskridge, showed up on this year’s final Nebula ballot, an almost unheard-of achievement for a newly launched semiprozine. Of course, literary quality is no guarantee of survival—the field is littered with the corpses of literarily ambitious semiprozines, only the most recent of which belonged to Strange Plasma and New Pathways—and the magazine is not going to reach its full potential until it appears on a more reliable schedule (they only managed three out of a scheduled five bimonthly issues this year). But certainly Century is a magazine that deserves to survive, for what that’s worth, and most definitely deserves your support, in that most practical form of all: money sent in for a subscription.
The only other fiction semiprozine that is operating on a similar level of quality to Century is Crank!, edited by Bryan Cholfin, although it is perhaps even further out over the edge than Century. The stories in Century may not be science fiction or fantasy, but they usually hew closer to the conventions of traditional narrative than do the stories in Crank!, which tend to push more aggressively into avantgarde fictional territory. The magazine has more of an Attitude (it is well named), priding itself on being deliberately eccentric in a contentious, in-your-face, what-are-you-looking-at? confrontational sort of a way. It is also even more unreliable in keeping to its publishing schedule, managing to publish only one issue out of a projected four in 1995. That issue, though, Crank! 5, contained good to excellent work by Michael Bishop, Eliot Fintushel, Jim Marino, and others.
Of the more science fiction–oriented of the newer semiprozines, your best bets are Absolute Magnitude, The Magazine of Science Fiction Adventures and Pirate Writings, Tales of Fantasy, Mystery & Science Fiction, two slick, professional-looking, full-size magazines with full-color covers. Absolute Magnitude is the better-looking of the two magazines, slicker, with more evocative covers (although, strangely, it is much more poorly copyedited on the inside than Pirate Writings is); but, although both magazines published good work in 1995, Pirate Writings continues to have a slight edge in the overall quality of the fiction it contains. Pirate Writings published professional-level work this year by Jack Cady, Paul Di Filippo, Terry Bisson, Uncle River, Larry Tritten, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Roger Zelazny, and others. Absolute Magnitude published professional-level work by Allen Steele, Janet Kagan, Terry Bisson, Hal Clement, Barry B. Longyear, and others. Both Absolute Magnitude and Pirate Writings publish a lot of reprints from other SF magazines and anthologies, sometimes reprinting stories that are only a couple of years old, which is a practice I find perplexing, considering the limited amount of space that both magazines have for publishing original fiction of their own. I could perhaps—perhaps—see this if they were doing classic reprints from twenty or thirty or forty years ago, stories that might be hard to find these days, but why devote all that valuable space to reprinting stories that were widely available only a few years before and are still easily accessible? I must admit that I don’t understand the reasoning behind this.
Expanse, Through the Corridor, and Offworld seem to have died, and, as I saw no issues this year of the promising Mindsparks, it may have died as well, although I hope it’s merely on hiatus. Sirius Visions, A Speculative Fiction Magazine Specializing in the Literature of Hope, also died, after producing three largely disappointing issues. As far as I can tell, there were two issues this year of Next Phase, two issues of the new Plot Magazine, two issues of Tales of the Unanticipated (which featured professional-level work by Maureen F. McHugh and R. Neube, among others), two issues of Space & Time (which featured professional-level work by Paul Di Filippo, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and others), one issue of Argonaut Science Fiction, one issue of Xizquil (Xizquil 13, which featured a good story by Sue Storm), and three issues of a promising new Canadian magazine called Transversions (which featured professional-level work by Robert J. Sawyer, Eileen Kernaghan, Steve Carper, Uncle River, Heather Spears, and others).
The British semiprozines Back Brain Recluse and REM are rumored to still exist, although I haven’t seen an issue of one in a long time. A new British semiprozine called Beyond was launched in 1995, but is subsequently rumored to have died. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, in its eighth year of publication, continues to maintain its quarterly publishing schedule reliably, but I remain largely unimpressed by the level of fiction in it. I haven’t been following the horror semiprozine market, but apparently there were single issues of Weirdbook, Grue, Eldritch Tales, and Midnight Grafitti published this year, two issues of The Urbanite, and twelve issues of Aberrations, making it perhaps the most frequently published of the semiprozines. (Aberrations remains largely distasteful to me, since I don’t like their usual blend of hard-core porno and violent splatterpunk horror, but there are some indications toward the end of the year that they are beginning to try to publish “better” stories, or at least stories that are less tightly specialized in the porno/splatterpunk mode; at the very least, rather than filling each issue with total unknowns, they have begun to run some stories by writers who have established some degree of professional reputation, perhaps a sign of the direction in which they’re trying to turn.) Cemetery Dance seems to have gone on hold, owing to editor Richard Chizmar’s health problems.
Of the long-established SF fiction semiprozines, the best bets remain the two Australian magazines, Aurealis and Eidolon, and the Canadian magazine On Spec. On Spec seemed a bit low-energy this year, only producing three issues out of its scheduled four; perhaps the staff is still worn-out from helping to run 1994’s Canadian Worldcon. On Spec is still a handsome and interesting magazine, well worthwhile, with perhaps the best covers of any of the semiprozines (rivaled only by Century), although the overall quality of the fiction seemed a bit down this year, perhaps because they devoted one issue to horror fiction and that issue was weaker than usual; Aurealis also had a “special horror issue,” and it also was weaker than usual. The double issue this year of Eidolon, Eidolon 17/18, was particularly worthwhile, featuring good professional-level work by Harlan Ell
ison, Stephen Dedman, Terry Dowling, and others. Eidolon published three issues out of an announced schedule of four (unless you count their double issue as two separate issues); Aurealis published its scheduled two issues. All three of these magazines are worth your support; they have all been around long enough to be considered fairly stable and reliable, and all have good track records for delivering interesting and unusual fiction. Eidolon had perhaps the best fiction of the three this year, and On Spec had the best covers.
As always, if you are looking for news and/or an overview of what’s happening in the genre, Charles N. Brown’s Locus and Andrew I. Porter’s Science Fiction Chronicle remain your best bet among that subclass of semiprozines known as “newszines.” Along with the digest fiction magazines, they are one of the binding threads that help to give the genre as much continuity and sense of community as it manages to have these days. The New York Review of Science Fiction (which had a big turnover last year, losing Donald Keller, Robert Killheffer, Jenna Felice, and Gordon Van Gelder for one reason or another, although David G. Hartwell remains in overall charge), after seven full years of publication, has become an institution in the field; by far the most reliably published of the “criticalzines,” it is also the one that does the most equitable job of balancing the interests of the scholar and the general reader, and while nobody will be interested by every article they publish, I think that most people will find something of interest in almost every issue. Even the more technical scholarly essays here seem to be less bristlingly formidable and recondite these days than they were in the first few years of the magazine’s life—or perhaps I’ve just gotten used to them! The New York Review of Science Fiction is probably the “criticalzine” to order if you’re an intelligent lay reader interested in the science fiction field, being livelier and less abstract and technical than some of the more formal academic journals devoted to science fiction studies.
There didn’t seem to be an issue of Steve Brown’s Science Fiction Eye in 1995, and there was only one published in 1994, so I can’t help but wonder if Steve is losing interest in this project; when he does get around to publishing an issue, it’s usually interesting and entertaining. Much the same could be said of Nova Express, edited by Lawrence Person—it’s entertaining and eclectic, when you can find it, but there’s only been one issue produced in the last two years; that issue, however (the spring/summer 1995 issue), does feature a very interesting interview with Bruce Sterling and a transcript of a typically fiery polemical speech by him, plus a pretty complete Sterling bibliography.
The new criticalzine Non-Stop Magazine, edited by K. J. Cypret, also managed only one issue in the last two years; that issue, dated winter 1995, had a lot of interesting stuff in it, most notably an article by Paul Di Filippo and a long interview with Charles Platt, but the magazine’s relentless self-congratulatory preening about how hip it is and how uncool everything else is does get tiresome after a while; still, there is some intriguing material here, including fiction by Barry N. Malzberg, Steve Rasnic Tern, and Steve Carper. Tangent, edited by David A. Truesdale, another newish criticalzine, had better luck keeping to its schedule, publishing its announced four issues this year, although at least one of them was a bit late. Concentrating as it does on the reviewing of short fiction, Tangent is a very welcome addition to the critical scene, and performs an invaluable service to the field; no other magazine devotes itself to reviewing short fiction—in fact, except for Mark Kelly’s column in Locus, very little short fiction, especially short fiction from the magazines, gets reviewed anywhere else—and so Tangent is filling a nearly vacant ecological niche, and, in the main, doing a good job of it. One of their new columnists, Paul T. Riddell, is a Hunter S. Thompson wanna-be of sorts, trying to do Thompson-like self-consciously outrageous riffs on the science fiction world, but I find him more tiresome than entertaining; he’s working the pugnacious, deliberately offensive, spit-in-your-eye, let’s-get-a-fan-feud-going tradition that extends back at least as far as Dick Geis, but some of Riddell’s remarks spin on beyond provocative to a sort of rabid, frothingat-the-mouth raving, and I’m pretty sure that a few of them would prove actionable if anybody went to the trouble of taking him and Tangent to court. Let’s hope that that doesn’t happen—I’d hate to see Tangent destroyed because of Riddell, as it is a genuinely worthwhile magazine, and one that deserves the support of anyone who’s interested in short fiction.
The criticalzine Monad died with Pulphouse Publishing, although one issue may still be in the pipeline. Speculations is not so much a criticalzine as a magazine of writing advice for young or would-be authors, the sort of thing you can find in the SFWA Bulletin if you can find a SFWA Bulletin, plus a fairly extensive section of market reports and market news; many people will probably find this useful.
(Locus, The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field, Locus Publications, Inc., P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, $53 for a one-year first-class subscription, twelve issues; Science Fiction Chronicle, P.O. Box 022730, Brooklyn, NY 11202-0056, $42 for one-year first-class subscription, twelve issues; The New York Review of Science Fiction, Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570, $31 per year, twelve issues; Science Fiction Eye, P.O. Box 18539, Asheville, NC 28814, $10 for one year; Nova Express, White Car Publications, P.O. Box 27231, Austin, TX 78755-2231, $10 for a four-issue subscription; Tangent, 5779 Norfleet, Raytown, MO 64133, $20 for one year, four issues; On Spec, the Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing, P.O. Box 4727, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6E 5G6, $18 for a one-year subscription; Crank!, Broken Mirrors Press, P.O. Box 380473, Cambridge, MA 02238, $12 for four issues; Century, P.O. Box 9270, Madison, WI 53715-0270, $27 for a one-year subscription; Non-Stop Magazine, Box 981, Peck Slip Station, New York, NY 10272-0981, $18 for one year, four issues; Aurealis, the Australian Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Chimaera Publications, P.O. Box 2164, Mt. Waverley, Victoria 3149, Australia, $39 for a four-issue overseas airmail subscription, “all cheques and money orders must be made out to Chimaera Publications in Australian dollars”; Eidolon, the Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Eidolon Publications, P.O. Box 225, North Perth, Western Australia 6006, $45 (Australian) for a four-issue overseas airmail subscription, payable to Eidolon Publications; Back Brain Recluse, P.O. Box 625, Sheffield S1 3GY, United Kingdom, $18 for four issues; REM, REM Publications, 19 Sandringham Road, Willesden, London NW2 5EP, United Kingdom, £7.50 for four issues; Xizquil, order from Uncle River/Xizquil, Blue, AZ 85922, $11 for a three-issue subscription to begin with issue 14; Pirate Writings, Tales of Fantasy, Mystery & Science Fiction, 53 Whitman Ave., Islip, NY 11751, $15 for one year (four issues), all checks payable to Pirate Writings Publishing; Absolute Magnitude, The Magazine of Science Fiction Adventures, D.N.A. Publications, P.O. Box 13, Greenfield, MA 01302, four issues for $14; Argonaut Science Fiction, P.O. Box 4201, Austin, TX 78765, $8 for two issues; Space & Time, 138 W. 70th Street (4B), New York, NY 10023-4432, one year (two issues), $10; Transversions, Island Specialty Reports, 1019 Colville Rd., Victoria, BC, Canada, V9A 4P5, four-issue subscription, $18 Can. or U.S., “make cheques payable to Island Specialty Reports”; PLOT Magazine, Calypso Publishing, P.O. Box 1351, Sugar Land, TX 77487-1351, four issues for $12, “make checks payable to Calypso Publishing”; Grue Magazine, Hells Kitchen Productions, Box 370, Times Square Sta., New York, NY 10108, $13 for three issues; Aberrations, P.O. Box 460430, San Francisco, CA 94146-0430, one year (12 issues), $31; Next Phase, Phantom Press Publications, 5A Green Meadow Drive, Nantucket, MA 02554, one year (three issues), $10; Speculations, 111 West El Camino Real, Suite 109-400, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-1057, a first-class subscription, six issues, $25.)
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It was a mixed year in the original anthology market. There were a few strong science fiction anthologies—even, unusually, some strong “hard science” anthologies—and a few good fantasy anthologies … but there were also a lot of fairly mediocre anthologies, anthologies that might, at best, contain one or two good to decent stories api
ece. Since the trend these days is away from mass-market paperback anthologies, with more and more original anthologies being published as trade paperbacks or twenty-buck-and-up (almost twenty-five dollars in some cases) hardcovers, this can get expensive fast. A quick and dirty—but fairly conservative—estimate indicates that in order to buy all the original anthologies mentioned in this section, it would cost you in excess of four hundred dollars. Even taking out of this total the price of the year’s three or four best original anthologies, the ones that are probably actually worth what they cost to buy, that still means that you’d have to pay in excess of three hundred dollars in order to read, at a very generous estimate, ten or twelve good to decent stories. It seems to me it would be considerably more cost-effective to subscribe to some of the SF or fantasy magazines instead, where you’d get more good stories for a lot less money—but then, since I’m a magazine editor myself, you can safely dismiss this opinion if you’d like.
Only a couple of years ago, I was bemoaning the fact that original fantasy anthologies had become a rare item, if not an endangered species, but this year there was a flood of them; probably there were more original fantasy anthologies than original science fiction anthologies published this year, although a couple of cases are hard to call, containing as they do both fantasy and science fiction stories. On the other hand, like a fever burning itself out, the genre seems to have mostly worked its way free of the shared-world anthologies which seemed poised to take over the field in the mid- to late eighties, the infection having largely moved on to other areas. Most of the shared-world anthologies this year were media-related, comics-related, or gaming-related, with only a few center SF shared-world anthologies left. Almost all of the original anthologies being done today are still theme anthologies, although in a few cases, including some of the year’s best, the themes are at least getting fuzzier or more general, broader, less confining and specific—stories that take place in the far future, stories that examine new frontiers in science, and so on. This may be a good thing. Over the years, I’ve found it to be a good rule of thumb that the more specific and limiting an anthology’s theme is, the more disappointing the overall book is likely to be. Many SF stories don’t fit well into pigeonholes, and often, the more easily pigeonholeable a story is, the more mediocre it is as well—ask ten SF authors to write stories about, say, teleporting Buddhist aliens who are crime-fighting race-car drivers who live in Dallas, and, more likely than not, you’re going to end up with ten disappointing stories. Tell the same ten writers merely to write the best stories that they possibly can, with only the most general of themes, as at least one editor was naive enough to do this year, and the results are likely to be considerably more impressive. (Ideally, you shouldn’t need a theme at all, only the ten good writers—but very few publishers will buy an anthology these days, either original or reprint, that isn’t a theme anthology … which explains the loopiness of some of the themes you see, as anthologists cast desperately around for something.)
The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995 Page 3