F&SF Forum » Issue Contents

1. Gordon Van Gelder
   Editor/Publisher

   THE MAGAZINE OF
   FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION
   October/November • 61st Year of Publication

   NOVELLAS
   Halloween Town -129- Lucius Shepard

   NOVELETS
   The Far Shore -9- Elizabeth Hand
   Bandits of the Trace -51- Albert E. Cowdrey
   The Way They Wove the Spells in Sippulgar -71- Robert Silverberg
   I Waltzed With a Zombie -232- Ron Goulart
   Another Life -274- Charles Oberndorf

   SHORT STORIES
   Logicist -96- Carol Emshwiller
   Blocked -105- Geoff Ryman
   Mermaid -197- Robert Reed
   Never Blood Enough -222- Joe Haldeman
   The President’s Book Tour -259- M. Rickert
   Through Time and Space With Ferdinand Feghoot LXXI -273- Ron Partridge
   Shadows on the Wall of the Cave -304- Kate Wilhelm

   DEPARTMENTS
   Editorial -7- Gordon Van Gelder
   Books to Look For -36- Charles de Lint
   Musing on Books -44- Michelle West
   Plumage From Pegasus: Sugar and Spice -125- Paul Di Filippo
   Coming Attractions -213-
   Science: Seeing Red -214- Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty
   Films: Anti-Trek -253- Lucius Shepard
   Competition #78 -319-
   Curiosities -322- David Langford

   Cartoons: Bill Long (35), Arthur Masear (128), S. Harris (258), Frank Cotham (318).

   Cover: “Retro Rocket” by David A. Hardy

   Posted 3 months ago #

2. C.C. Finlay
   Charles Coleman Finlay

   Wow, that looks like a great issue! And fourteen new stories, if you count Plumage from Pegasus.

   Posted 3 months ago #

3. JohnWThiel
   Member

   Looking forward to s super issue.

   Posted 3 months ago #

4. galaxie500
   Member

   This has, what, 322 pages.
   The biggest the fattest F&SF in history?

   Posted 3 months ago #

5. Gordon Van Gelder
   Editor/Publisher

   Without checking, I think it's the same size as the Fiftieth Anniversary issue.

   Posted 3 months ago #

6. GusG
   Member

   What an amazing lineup! Can't wait.

   By the way, I am so glad that there is one Sci Fi digest that cares about their magazine's physical quality. I just picked up the new Analog, which is thin, awkwardly oversized, and has covers that feel like candy bar wrappers.

   October 1979 and October 1999 were both 322 pages. (Shameless attempt at becoming F&SF's official archivist)

   Posted 3 months ago #

7. galaxie500
   Member

   I've checked, and yes, both 30th and 50th anniversary issues were that big.
   The only difference is that 1979 issue was the best of compilation and 1999. all new issue.
   But both still look great and impressive.

   Posted 3 months ago #

8. Gordon Van Gelder
   Editor/Publisher

   A brief blog post about the issue: http://14theditch.livejournal.com/294378.html

   Posted 3 months ago #

9. rkrowe
   Member

   Personally, I'm looking forward to further insights following up on the April/May editorial about publishing in print and online. In the Aug/Sept issue, we learned that _F&SF_ is now available to ebook readers via Sony. This issue of _The New Yorker_ has a great piece by Nicholson Baker on Amazon's Kindle. It's funny and makes some salient points about what we're up against going completely digital:
   http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker

   --Rebecca

   Posted 3 months ago #

10. Gordon Van Gelder
    Editor/Publisher

    Thanks, Rebecca. I've started a couple different editorials following up on the subject, but every time I start one, I feel like reality passes the piece by before I can finish writing the editorial. (I've heard lots of science fiction writers make the same complaint over the years, that reality outpaces their speculations.)

    At the moment, I'm mulling over the post that Brianna Harris put up here lsst week: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/blog/2008/08/21/questions-about-publishing-short-fiction-online/

    She suggests that free fiction online can help keep people hooked when they can't afford to pay for fiction, but I find some troubling implications in that. I mean, it would be one thing if all free fiction were inferior to bought fiction, but that's obviously not the case. I worry that 17-year-olds who get in the habit of reading fiction for free might never accept the idea that they should have to pay for fiction.

    Oh, and yes, that article by Nicholson Baker is very good.

    ---Gordon V.G.

    Posted 3 months ago #

11. mlibling
    Member

    Rebecca, GVG: I'm not sure if iTunes in the USA is offering it at the moment, but iTunes Canada is currently giving away the audiobook "FREE! The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson. Although I have yet to listen to it, the blurb suggests it may well address exactly this topic. To quote the promotional text from iTunes: Anderson "...makes the compelling case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them.... Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival."

    Posted 3 months ago #

12. Gordon Van Gelder
    Editor/Publisher

    There's a lot of good commentary about FREE, including

    Cory Doctorow's review: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/28/cory-doctorow-free-chris-anderson

    and Malcolm Gladwell's review: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell

    I share the skepticism about Free---I think it works as a promotional tool but not as a business model.

    ---Gordon V.G.

    Posted 3 months ago #

13. robertbrown
    Member

    I've been dithering on the ereader issue, and I think Baker's wonderful article has pushed me in a direction.

    Nope.

    Amazon wants to make all the money. Probably so does everyone else. But that's not what's good for readers or writers. Can't anyone be satisfied with SOME money? No, it's all about stock value and blah blah blah. Push out the competition, dominate, exterminate, and sell, sell, sell. Blearch!

    Capitalists keep asserting that their system is superior, but it makes me ill.

    As inconvenient as it is to haul my magazines and books around (and I've divested 90% of my collection in the last six months-- and it hurt like hell!) I'll take that over phantom electrons owned by who knows who, and distributed upon their indulgence, whatever my bank account records have to say on the matter.

    Gordon promises 164-- oops, 236 pages every month-- oops, every other month, and he delivers. Barring fire, flood or pestilence (or, let's be honest, absentmindedness on my part) those stories are mine forever.

    Robert Brown

    Posted 3 months ago #

14. GSH
    Member

    As much as we're loyal to the printed page, no one can deny the serious challenges posed for the traditional book and magazine formats by changing markets and escalating production and distribution costs. I was watching a TV program earlier today that focused on that very thing, from the perspective of owners of brick-and-mortar bookstores. One owner attributed the problem not just to cost issues, but also to the fact that the new electronic media are changing our relationship with words. People want information quickly, and want it to be short and to the point. He commented sadly that we're probably coming to the end of the Gutenberg print revolution and entering a new era.

    I have hopes that electronic displays may in the not-too-distant future become inexpensive and provide a truly excellent simulation of ink on paper. A standardized, non-proprietary digital format might emerge, along with some system that safeguards against unauthorized redistribution of downloaded content while still giving the purchaser permanent and unrestricted personal use. Such a device could be revolutionary for writers, readers, and publishers--particularly for those having marginal or as yet unknown levels of demand.

    I've also got high hopes for the future of the actual printed word with coming advances in print-on-demand technology. Bookstores and newstands could stock display shelves with sample copies and print out a perfect physical book or any current or past edition of a magazine within minutes. Over-runs wouldn't waste away in warehouses, or sadly go into dumpsters out back.

    The USPS can figure out for themselves how to deal with their own resultant diminished revenues. They should have been more reader-and-publisher friendly, IMHO. They increasingly overcharge for mailing things I want, but fill my mailbox with loads of crap that goes straight into the trash can for pennies.

    Posted 3 months ago #

15. GSH
    Member

    A tangentially related news item; 'Harry Potter-style' video ads to be run inside U.S. paper magazine:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1207944/Harry-Potter-meets-Minority-Report-video-adverts-magazines-reality.html

    Unfortunately, e-ink technology may bring television ads to cereal boxes before it brings literature.

    Posted 3 months ago #

16. Gordon Van Gelder
    Editor/Publisher

    Some of the subscription copies that we send to our offices for checking purposes arrived today (8/31/09).

    Posted 2 months ago #

17. TJR357
    Member

    Is this available on newsstands in Canada yet?

    Posted 2 months ago #

18. Gordon Van Gelder
    Editor/Publisher

    I'm not sure when it hits the stores in Canada.

    Posted 2 months ago #

19. TJR357
    Member

    Actually, I picked it up last night. It looks great.
    I'm going to savour it, so I won't reading it fast.

    Posted 2 months ago #

20. JohnWThiel
    Member

    Nice issue. I've only read the editorial and the Feghoot, but thought I'd comment to congratulate you on your sixtieth anniversary, especially as the editorial is so sincere in its elation. You want the magazine to last five hundred years, eh? I hope it does. Anything's possible, as we know, even that much longevity for an sf mag. The Saturday Evening Post made it over two hundred years, so a magazine can keep going, it's just that few of them outlast their eras. But what better candidate for such a run than a science fiction magazine?

    One reason I haven't gotten any farther in the magazine is that I read the Feghoot. I was able to stop screaming with laughter long enough to write this comment, but I know looking at the magazine is going to remind me of it for a few days. I don't want to be clutching at my ribs reading Silverberg, Rickert, Wilhelm and Haldeman.

    Posted 2 months ago #

21. gravman
    Member

    Got mine yesterday. Seems like less than a month that I got the previous issue. I think Aug/Sep arrived late and Oct/Nov has arrived early.

    My first thought on seeing the issue on the table at home, "Wow! That's a big one!" Can't wait to read it.

    Posted 2 months ago #

22. GSH
    Member

    That retro-rocket gets around! I've been comparing the 60th Anniversary cover with the Very Best Of cover, trying to decide if there are clues to determine which comes first and which second. In one, we've got either a lunar sunrise or sunset; in the other we can make out the west coast of Africa, so we know up from down and which way the Earth is turning. The puzzle may be too complex for me, if the artist has actually put one there.

    BTW, the local B&N had a stack of Oct/Nov issues out on the shelf Wednesday, which I reduced by 1. I would have happily done so for Silverberg's new Majipoor story alone.

    Posted 2 months ago #

23. Richie
    Member

    I'm sure I have seen the very same cover illustration on an earlier F&SF magazine cover...is that deliberate?

    Posted 2 months ago #

24. Gordon Van Gelder
    Editor/Publisher

    The cover is meant to be retro in the style of Chesley Bonestell's work, but it's not the very same as any of our previous illustrations. You can find all our old covers here: http://www.philsp.com/mags/fsf.html

    Posted 2 months ago #

25. BlueTyson
    Member

    Not much of a cover person, but that looks retro and sharp, sure.

    Double Shepard is cool, too.

    Have actually caught up on mags now, so was wondering if there was an approximate time the electronic version came out each issue, now it has changed?

    Thanks,

    bt

    Posted 2 months ago #

26. JohnWThiel
    Member

    Judging by those covers on the first two and over volumes of F&SF, there seems to have been a kind of motif to the early art--elongated people, modern-art landscapes, invisibility. I have the "Bring the Jubilee" issue and the issue just before it; these are the earliest issues of F&SF I have.

    Posted 2 months ago #

27. GusG
    Member

    David Hardy does an excellent homage to the master Chesley Bonestell. I am a slow reader, but I finished my issue in two days. AWESOME work GVG and everyone involved.

    Posted 2 months ago #

28. GSH
    Member

    Somebody ought to nominate David Hardy's retro-rocket as the design for the 2010 Hugo trophies. Who wouldn't love having a hefty, foot-high chunk of chromium like that sitting on a shelf?

    Posted 2 months ago #

29. galaxie500
    Member

    The cover looks pretty similar to Thrilling Wonder Stories No. 2, issued earlier this year.
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0979671817/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&coliid=I28IGQ4UFRDX0S&n=283155&s=books&colid=2QF0K0RCXKB4P
    This one is by Bob Eggleton.

    Posted 2 months ago #

30. BrianJackson
    Member

    Another great dragon-free cover!

    Posted 2 months ago #

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