Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 29

So in hopes of making it easier for you to subscribe, I’m going to list both the Internet sites where you can subscribe online and the street addresses where you can subscribe by mail for each magazine: Asimov’s web address is www.asimovs.com, and subscribing online might be the easiest thing to do, and there’s also a discounted rate for online subscriptions; its subscription address is Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10007-2352. The annual subscription rate in the U.S. is $34.97, $44.97 overseas. Analog’s site is at www.analogsf.com; its subscription address is Analog Science Fiction and Fact , Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10007-2352. The annual subscription rate in the U.S. is $34.97, $44.97 overseas. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’s site is at www.sfsite.com/fsf; its subscription address is The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , Spilogale, Inc., P.O. Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030, $34.97 for an annual subscription in U.S., $44.97 overseas. Interzone and Black Static can be subscribed to online at www.ttapress.com/onlinestore1.html; the subscription address for both is TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambridge CB6 2LB, England, UK. The price for a twelve-issue subscription is 42.00 Pounds Sterling each, or there is a reduced rate dual subscription offer of 78.00 Pounds Sterling for both magazines for twelve issues; make checks payable to “TTA Press.”

Most of these magazines are also available in various electronic formats through Fictionwise.com, or for the Kindle, the NOOK, and other handheld readers.

There were more losses from the print semiprozine market this year, with Zahir transitioning from print to electronic format and then dying altogether, Weird Tales being sold, with its future in doubt, and Electric Velocipede, Black Gate, and criticalzine The New York Review of Science Fiction on the verge of transitioning to electronic formats as well. I suspect that sooner or later most of the surviving print semiprozines will transition to electronic-only online formats, saving themselves lots of money in printing, mailing, and production costs.

The semiprozines that remained in print format mostly struggled to bring out their scheduled issues. Electric Velocipede, edited by John Kilma, managed two issues, publishing interestingly eclectic stuff from Peter M. Ball, Karl Bunker, Genevieve Valentine, William Shunn, and others; they announced their intention to go online exclusively in 2012. Sword and Sorcery print magazine Black Gate , edited by John O’Neill, managed one large issue with strong work by Chris Willrich, Emily Mah, and others, and also announced their intention to transition to electronic format in 2012. The longest running of all the fiction semiprozines, and usually the most reliably published, the Canadian On Spec, which is edited by a collective under general editor Diane L. Walton, managed only three of its scheduled four issues this year, somewhat atypically. Another collective-run SF magazine with a rotating editorial staff, Australia’s Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine, managed only four issues this year. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, the long-running slipstream magazine edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, managed only one issue in 2011, as did Neo-Opsis, and Ireland’s long-running Albedo One . Fantasy magazine Shimmer managed two issues, as did Space and Time Magazine and Weird Tales before being sold. The small British SF magazine Jupiter , edited by Ian Redman, produced all four of its scheduled issues in 2011, as did the fantasy magazine Tales of the Talisman . A new start-up SF magazine, Bull Spec , produced three issues. If there were issues of Aurealis , Greatest Uncommon Denominator , Sybil’s Garage , Space Squid, or Tales of the Unanticipated out this year, I didn’t see them.

With The New York Review of Science Fiction, a long-running critical magazine edited by David G. Hartwell and a staff of associate editors, scheduled to move to electronic format in 2012, the venerable newszine Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field is about all that’s left of the popular print critical magazine market. It was always the best of them, though, and certainly your best bet for value, a multiple Hugo winner, which for more than thirty years has been an indispensable source of news, information, and reviews. Happily, the magazine has survived the death of founder, publisher, and longtime editor Charles N. Brown and has continued strongly and successfully under the guidance of a staff of editors headed by Liza Groen Trombi, and including Kirsten Gong-Wong, Carolyn Cushman, Tim Pratt, Jonathan Strahan, Francesca Myman, Heather Shaw, and many others.

Most of the other surviving print critical magazines are professional journals more aimed at academics than at the average reader. The most accessible of these is probably the long-running British critical zine Foundation.

Subscription addresses are: Locus, The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, Locus Publications, Inc., P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA, 94661, $72.00 for a one-year first-class subscription, 12 issues; The New York Review of Science Fiction , Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570, $40.00 for a one-year subscription, 12 issues, make checks payable to “Dragon Press”; The Science Fiction Foundation, Science Fiction Foundation, Roger Robinson (SFF), 75 Rosslyn Avenue, Harold Wood, Essex RM3 ORG, UK, $37.00 for a three-issue subscription in the U.S.; Black Gate , New Epoch Press, 815 Oak Street, St. Charles, IL 60174, $29.95 for a one-year, four-issue subscription; On Spec, The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic , P.O. Box 4727, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6E 5G6, for subscription information, go to www.onspec.ca; Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine , 4129 Carey Rd., Victoria, BC, Canada V8Z 4G5, $25.00 for a three-issue subscription; Albedo One , Albedo One Productions, 2, Post Road, Lusk, County Dublin, Ireland; $32.00 for a four-issue airmail subscription, make checks payable to “Albedo One” or pay by PayPal at www.albedo1.com; Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet , Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant St., #306, Easthampton, MA 01027, $20.00 for four issues; Electric Velocipede , Spilt Milk Press, go to http://www.electricvelocipede.comfor subscription information; Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine , go to www.andromedaspaceways.comfor subscription information; Tales of the Talisman , Hadrosaur Productions, P.O. Box 2194, Mesilla Park, NM 88047-2194, $24.00 for a four-issue subscription; Jupiter, 19 Bedford Road, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 5UG, UK, 10 Pounds Sterling for four issues; Shimmer, P.O. Box 58591, Salt Lake City, UT 84158-0591, $22.00 for a four-issue subscription.

In only a few years, the online world of electronic magazines has become one of the most reliable places to find quality fiction; already more reliable than most of the print semiprozine market, they’re giving the top print professional magazines a run for their money too, and sometimes beating them.