Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about the number of genre magazines that I subscribed to. Things have changed over the year, so I thought I could present an updated list.
Print Magazines:
- The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
- Realms of Fantasy
- Weird Tales
- Talebones
- Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
- Sybil’s Garage
- Shimmer Magazine
- Flytrap
- Full Unit HookUp
- Diet Soap
Online Magazines
- Fantasy Magazine (which I used to subscribe to)
- Strange Horizons (comes out WEEKLY!)
- Clarkesworld Magazines
- Farrago’s Wainscot
- ChiZine
- Heliotrope Magazines
- Ideomancer
- Mytholog
- ElectricSpec
I have a subscription to Locus (which needs renewing), but I didn’t list it above as it doesn’t publish any short fiction. However, its well worth the price of subscription for the reviews, magazines received, forthcoming books, etc.
I also bought every issue of Rabid Transit and Say… when they come out. The Rabid Transit series has transitioned into a novella series (which is very cool) and the Say… series hasn’t come out for many years, altough I hear a new issue is in the works.
I used to have a subscription to Asimov’s and I’ve often thought about re-subscribing, but haven’t. I never subscribed to Analog. I think Stanley Schmidt does a great job selecting fiction for Analog, it’s just not what I look for in short stories.
I was once a subscriber to Trunk Stories, Farthing, and Grendelsong, but those magazines are currently not publishing. Also, I used to buy/receive copies of Artemis, Century, and CRANK!, but none of those magazines are with us any more either.
At one time I used to get all of the DNA publications–Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadance, Fantastic, Chronicle, and Pirate Writings–in the mail, but I haven’t seen any issues from them in more than five years.
So I’m curious, do any of you subscribe to the genre magazines? And if so, to how many? Here’s a short poll to find out. If the poll doesn’t show up, you can go to my blog and answer it there:
Asimov’s, Interzone & Apex.
Of course, I then feel guilty as the issues pile up unread on account of too much else to do.  I do a chunk of short story reading around awards time when the nominees for the Hugos & Nebulas are made available online.  Long may that practice continue.
In the main, I use the filters of the awards nominations & editors of the year’s Best collections like Gardner Dozois & David Hartwell to winnow down the short stories to a more managable number.
The poll does not show up. (not for me anyway)
 
Me I don’t. All the magazines I get now, I get for free and they are all technical.  I do pay for an on-line subscription of Linux Journal.  Well worth it.
These days, short stories make up the bulk of my reading. Up until I closed the bookstore last year, I’d say the number of magazines I was regularly reading was well over 40. It’s a bit more difficult obtaining them now. If anyone knows a good places to shop for the lesser known magazines, especially imports, let me know.
Eeeep. I don’t subscribe to magazines. I read some online ones but honestly, my short story intake is pretty limited these days. Juggling my free time between gaming, keeping up with my writing, reading Good Books and my wife just isn’t leaving much room at the moment.
Although, I do try to get to some of the free Online mags pretty regularly, including “Clarkesworld”-and may I say, Mr. Clarke, Nice Work! You got yourself a good mag there.
(Incidentally, if anyone has any recommendations for good free online magazines, I’m always happy to know! Right now I mostly consume Podcasts (Psuedopod, Escapepod, Podcastle, Variant Frequencies) and free magazines like Abyss and Apex, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons. Any other good ones?)
I have subscribed to both Asimov’s and Weird Tales, but let both lapse. Asimov’s because I wasn’t too impressed with the stories. Weird Tales because of the expense, but I wish I still had a subscription to that one.
Electric Velocipede (issue by issue), the occasional LCRW.
Online:
Subterranean
Strange Horizons
Chizine
Clarkesworld
Fantasy
I’d like more magazines to show up in my mailbox, like Apex Digest.
Oh, and I have an issue of the Rabid Transit, liked it, and want to support their novella series.
I’m not much of a hoarder (quite the opposite, actually), but the exception to that has always been printed matter of all kinds. Some years ago, in order to put a stop to the clutter, I got rid of all my printed magazines (except for my comics collection, of course), and canceled all subscriptions. Asimov’s was one of them, but due to the difficulty of finding SF magazines in pre-internet Puerto Rico (where I grew up), that was about it for me as far as genre rags went.
Online, I read Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Subterranean. But something tells me that thanks to this post, my online reading is going to grow substantially. Shiny.
Ashamed to say that I used to subscribe to a couple of genre magazines, but let everything drop, even Locus, because I’m so overwhelmed with reading matter in my day job — bookseller — PW, catalogs, locus online and the voracious readers in my circle keep me up to date.
I don’t. Print magazines are too expensive and too problematic to even try getting here (Sri Lanka) regardless – they’d likely wind up in someone else’s home. As for online, it’s not presently in the budget. And I should add that I still have a few hundred more books in my husband’s pre-wedding library to go through, and at the rate I’m going, it’ll be another two years, maybe three. At that point, I’ll start looking for new sources of literature. :)
I have the same problem as Rich there. Reading stories is less useful in a professional capacity for booksellers. I miss it like you wouldn’t believe, though. How much does a year of EV cost John?
@SoonLee We’re working on getting the poll to show up here. It is working on my blog. As of writing this comment, no subscriptions has a slight lead over 10 or more, although I think I inadvertently voted twice (I’m in the 10 or more category) so that number is inflated a little.
I’m not surprised to see that most people do not subscribe, or do not subscribe to much. I won’t say too much here, as I have some follow-up posts about this manner coming soon.
@jsherry Apex Digest is going online, so you won’t see any of those in your mailbox any time soon.
@Gursky it’s $20 for four issues of Electric Velocipede. That used to mean a two-year subscription. I intended to put out three issues this year, but would have needed to rush the second issue. I’m publishing a double issue (the same content as the individual issues) towards the end of this year. So this year, you are getting three issues worth of content, just in two volumes. My plan is to do four issues next year (which would take me to issue #20).
I’ve toyed with the idea of creating a PDF subscription version, or even going online, but again, that’s for another post.
The magazines (and short stories in general) occupy an important niche in genre ecology. We’d be the poorer without them. The market is changing though: subscriptions are trending down, more magazines are going online-only. But I still look to the magazines & short stories as pointers to new hot writers to watch.
Aside from the aforementioned, there are two (rather pulpy)online mags I like and subscribe to (well, they’re free but you can contribute)They are:
Ray Gun Revival
“What is Ray Gun Revival (RGR)? Just the best online source for golden age space opera going!
What are we doing? We’re attempting nothing less than re-invigorating space opera itself. Think of all that classic literature, from Doc Smith to Edgar Rice Burroughs to James Blish, and then think of more recent stuff from Star Wars (EP IV – VI, especially), Orson Scott Card to Lois McMaster Bujold to Joss Whedon’s Firefly, and you’ll have an idea of what we’re shooting for.”
Trashy but good fun!
SpaceWesterns
Well, western stories in space, sometimes very well written.
This pretty much shows my bad taste, but I like it!
I subscribe to ASIM. I read slush for them, so it could be argued that some pressure was applied :D.
I used to subscribe to Interzone, many years ago, but found I didn’t like the stories they published, so I stopped. It’s hard to get the US sf magazines here in the UK–a friend who tried to subscribe to Asimov’s was told they had no system for handling overseas subscriptions–so mostly I do without. Dozois’s Year’s Best is eagerly anticipated!
Same problem here, as I live in Luxembourg!
You may subscribe to some mags online, though. There are really good ones, like Clarkesworld or Strange Horizons that are even free. Do not forget to donate, though, as they do depend on that.
I don’t subscribe to any of the print SF magazines, for two reasons: first, I found that none of the magazines I read issues of had a high enough hit rate of really good stories for my liking, and that free online fiction provides more good fiction than I could possibly get through anyway. So it just doesn’t seem worth it, I donate to the Strange Horizons fund drive instead, and buy odd issues of the other magazines when I can find them (which is not often, as I’m in the UK).
I am a member of the British Science Fiction Association and the Science Fiction Foundation, so I get their magazines as part of my membership. They don’t regularly carry fiction, though.
I subscribe to Analog, F&SF, and Asimov’s, and have since my college days (or since year two of Asimov’s) – except that Asimov’s seems to have rather unceremoniously dropped me about a year ago.
(Note to self: I guess I should hunt them down and beg them to resume taking my money.)
Asimov, Analog and F&SF currently – my garage has many boxes of back issues of Omni, Galaxy, Amazing and other misc. single issues of SF magazines I can’t recall. My subscriptions go back to the mid 70’s, but I also was given several boxes of back-issues from the 60’s by a colleague at work once – those are in storage and I’m not quite sure what titles those are anymore.
I don’t find the time now to read the paper issues every month, I read most of my short fiction online now. I helped a bit in the early days of an online Spec Fic magazine Coyote Wild and still read it, hope you’ll forgive the plug.
I completely forgot about the UK publications! Thanks for the reminder!
I have considered subscribing to Interzone and Black Static (formerly The Third Alternative) LOTS of times. I’ve even had them in a shopping cart ready to check out. But the price has always been so prohibitive to me.
@mth those two sound like fun, I’ll have to check them out!
Right now, just Asimov’s and Electric Velocipede (yes, really!).
For print magazines, I used to subscribe to Analog (as a high-schooler, no less), but I found that I didn’t have nearly enough time to read the issues I got, and when I did make the time, the stories didn’t really interest me that much. I also thought the stories were rather too long — long enough that I needed to make time to read them as I would with a novel, which usually meant I’d have been better off reading a gorram novel instead. I do try to keep up with Locus, though I read it in the Library instead of subscribing personally.
I used to read Strange Horizons occasionally, but I haven’t been back there in ages. I did subscribe to Sirenia Digest briefly (an online mag), but I found the $10/mo. really quite steep for the value I got out of it.
I did enjoy the copy of F&SF I got for free at a con a couple years ago — the stories were just about the right length to read on the commute I had at the time, and usually of decent interest — so now that I have a commute (different, longer, more frequent) again, I may pick up a subscription.
The mags that feature SF – Asimov’s, Analog, Interzone, JBU.
Also Black Gate, for fantasy.
Whatever online ones are going. Subterranean Online and Helix would be the best to.
I’d give Weird Tales a try, but they are a print-only dinosaur, and people trying to get that here have had a lot of problems it seems trying to get it. The US post office is also a dinosaur, given it can’t handle ships anymore. ;-)
Oh, and FSF.
Bob,
You could ask on the Asimov’s forum – where are my mags? :)
@John klima
Regarding UK publications, you can get reduced subs for Interzone & Black Static if you grab the e-versions from Fictionwise.
Maybe not as nice as a bit of glossy dead tree to sniff but $23.95 a year isn’t too bad for those not lucky enough to live in this green and pleasant land. :)
@weateallthepies Hey, that’s not a bad idea…while I like holding and caressing the glossy covers (yeah, I have a little bit of a problem) it’s the content that I’m most interested in.
It’s been far too long since I visited your lovely green land (London in 2003; Scotland in 2004); I’d sure love to come back.
And why did you eat all the pies? What about us folks who was eyeing them up?
I had a lot of difficulty with my subscription to Fantasy magazine. So much so that even if it hadn’t gone online, there was no way I’d have resubscribed. Fortunately, my New Scientist arrives regularly every week. You’d hear some weeping and complaining if THAT didn’t show up.
I don’t subscribe. Every 3-4 months I pickup an issue of Asimov’s or F&SF at the newsstand and they languish on my headboard. I’ve considered subscribing to Interzone a few times, but at $90 for a year it’s a bit rich for my blood. For my short story fix I just pick up the Dozois anthology every July.
@John klima
Do come back, it’s certainly green and mostly pleasant, although rather lacking in fiction magazines at least in the shops.
Eyes/hands/tentacles off the pies though! Thems mine.
@GUDsqrl
:( Used to get New Scientist when I worked for people stupid enough to put me in a lab coat, give me chemicals to play with and pay for subsriptions to vaguely work related publications. I do miss it, great science mag but can’t justify the price if I’m going to pay for it.
I subscribe to F&SF and, as of a few days ago, Weird Tales. Until just recently I was subscribed to Apex Digest, but that’s now online-only. I’ve been subscribed to Night Train (went online-only) and Grasslimb… and Nature Neuroscience, at one point, but gosh was that expensive! :heh:
I’ve tried sample issues of ASIM and have an issue of Murky Depths and Withersin to read through… we’ll see where those go. :)
As for online mags, … if I weren’t reading so much slush, I might, but I just can’t split my time like that at the moment. :) But if I were, Lone Star Stories, Strange Horizons, and Night Train are at the top of my list. :)
@weateallthepies:
It is hard to justify the cost of it to myself. But I know that if I didn’t subscribe, I’d buy it off the shelf anyway, so subscribing kinda works out cheaper, sorta.
Also, subscribers get access to the online archive, which makes finding older stories much easier.
I subscribe to Asimov’s, but I just got a Kindle earlier this year. As a result, I’ll probably be dropping it. First, I now have plenty of reading material. Secondly, the magazines stupidly priced the print subscription ($18 a year) below the cost of an electronic subscription ($33 a year from Amazon, even more from Fictionwise). I’m not going to support that sort of stupidity.
@piaw I never understand why that happens. Aren’t Kindle books cheaper than print books? Why wouldn’t Kindle mags be cheaper than their print counterparts?
Many eBooks seem ridiculously over-priced to me too–not so much those by specialist eBook publishers, but many of those that come out from the major publishing houses.
Our launch issue–Issue 0–is $10 print, $3.50 .PDF and $2.80 Kindle. If you buy a print copy you also get the .PDF for that issue included. This reflects, broadly, the different overheads involved.
Yes, Kindle books are usually cheaper than their paper counter-parts. Even better, Kindle books are sharable — buy one book, and all Kindles registered to your account get that book. I’ve got 2 brothers and 1 friend with Kindles registered to my Amazon account. So one copy of “Saturn’s Children”, for instance, gets shared among all of them, bringing the cost down from $10 to $2.50 a read. And unlike a physical book, we can read the book at the same time.
Magazines, however, don’t get this treatment — they are locked to individual Kindles. And to top that off they cost more. I’m not supporting this mess.
Oh. One more thing. Most magazines on the Kindle are cheaper than their print counter parts. For instance, the NY Times, Newsweek, Time, etc. It’s just the silly fiction magazines that don’t have their act together.
I would also be interested as a Sony Reader owner to know why the magazines would be priced so relatively highly in terms of their subscription costs, although being a UK citizen and paying in pounds I find the prices to be not quite so enormous, at least in terms of US publications: F&SF etc can be quite expensive to buy in print in the UK, and just plain silly when it comes to purchasing them in the Far East. I can buy individual e-copies from Fictionwise, however, for relatively little expense. I too once desired the beauty of the printed page, but I no longer have the space for them, and am now at an age where I find myself valuing the words more than the physical artefact.
In terms of the overall expense of e-books as well as some e-magazines, I suspect this might be to keep distributors and physical bookshops happy by not undercutting them. Or at least, that’s my guess. I might well be wildly off the mark.
@garygibson: Yes, I have a subscription to Interzone, and it’s dirt cheap compared to getting the print subscription overseas. Fictionwise’s subscriptions are ok (at least they’re not DRM’d so you can share them with your family).