Follow Friday - ASCII Has Definitions for 128 Characters

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - My Little World - Books 'n' Things and Defiantly Deviant.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: What are some of your favorite magazines?


Genre fiction was built on magazines. In the 1940s and 1950s, a science fiction author could, and many did, make a very comfortable living selling short fiction to one of the many science fiction magazines. Many of the stories that became classics of the genre appeared in science fiction magazines, which were much more relevant than the science fiction and fantasy novels of the era. Novels that were, at least in the early days were often little more than pulp adventure fantasy with science fiction trappings or were "fix-ups" consisting of pastiches of short fiction such as A.E. van Vogt's War Against the Rull, that had originally appeared in the magazines but were hastily, and often badly, rewritten into longer novel length stories. Authors such as Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Anderson, Simak, and Silverberg built their careers on short fiction stories in magazines before moving on to novels later in their careers. Sadly, many of these magazines are now defunct, but some still live on, and I subscribe to and read a couple of these remaining survivors, doing my part to keep short fiction alive. I regularly read Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. These three magazines are full of the best short genre fiction available, and I hope that they continue publishing for a long time to come. I still have issues of now-defunct magazines that I wish were still in print, including Realms of Fantasy, Galaxy, If, Amazing Stories, and Fantastic Stories (and the short lived combination of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Stories named Amazing/Fantastic). I love magazines that feature short genre fiction, and I wish the market was there to support more of them.

I also read a couple of other magazines, one of which is directly related to the science fiction genre, and the other is tangentially related. The first is Locus, which bills itself as the "Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field". In my view, Locus is a magazine that it is necessary to read if one wants to have an understanding of the science fiction and fantasy publishing industry, supplying all kinds of information about the doings of authors, editors, and publishers in the genre world. The magazine also provides updates on all of the major genre award winners, reports on selected conventions, and interviews with both established and up and coming authors. The second is Science News, which is the "Magazine of the Society for Science and the Public", which I initially began reading after seeing a recommendation for the publication from science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer. This biweekly magazine highlights articles culled from scientific and medical journals and summarizes them in a manner that a reasonably well educated person can understand. It is, quite simply, the best way to keep up with what is happening in the world of science.

There are a number of magazines that I used to get, but don't any more. I didn't dislike them, but I either don't have time to read them any more, or I just stopped getting them and have been too disorganized and lazy to restart my subscriptions. I used to subscribe to The Economist, but even though it is by far the best news magazine in print, it is terribly difficult to keep up with it, and I found myself falling behind every week and unable to complete the current issue before the next one came to my mailbox. I keep meaning to renew my subscription, but I'm not sure I want to get back on the hamster wheel again. Plus, it is an expensive magazine. Quality costs. Another publication that I used to get that I don't any more is Poets & Writers, a magazine aimed at (naturally enough) writers and poets that focuses on writing, publishing, and other industry concerns. I subscribed for a few years and decided that it was really aimed at people who were interested in a style of writing that I simply was not, and allowed the subscription to expire. The last magazine I used to subscribe to, but let lapse for no particular reason other than the unsettled chaos that my life has fallen into for the last couple of years is National Geographic. I like the magazine, and always have the intention to start my subscription again, but I just never seem to get around to it when I have money on hand. Maybe next month.

So, the answer to the question is that my favorite magazines - as evidenced by the fact that I subscribe to them and read them - are Analog, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Locus, and Science News.

Go to previous Follow Friday: In 127 A.D. Carpocrates Decided Private Property Ownership Was Un-Christian

Go to subsequent Follow Friday: Galen Was Born in 129 A.D.

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