Элинор Арнасон: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection

PS Publishing is launching a mass-market paperback imprint, Drugstore Indian. Penguin/Berkley/NAL added a graphic novel imprint, Inklit. Orbit will launch a new “commercial fiction” imprint, Redhook. Random House announced four new digital imprints: Alibi, to publish mysteries/thrillers/suspense; Hydra, to publish SF/fantasy; Loveswept, to publish romance; and Flirt, to publish “New Adult” fiction targeting women in their twenties and thirties. HarperCollins announced a new digital YA imprint, HarperTeen Impulse. Pearson, the parent company of Penguin, acquired self-publishing company Author Solutions, Inc. Barnes & Noble has put its Sterling Publishing arm up for sale. Amazon made a deal to acquire over four hundred titles from Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books. Betsy Mitchell has been hired by e-book publisher Open Road Media as a “strategic advisor” for their SF and fantasy titles. Patrick Nolan became editor in chief and associate publisher of Penguin Books. Madeline McIntosh became Chief Operating Officer for Random House. Devi Pillai was promoted to executive editor at Orbit, and Susa Barnes to associate editor. Therese Goulding was hired as managing editor for Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s Cheeky Frawg Books imprint. Editor David Pomerico left Del Rey to become an editor at Amazon.com’s SF imprint, 47North. Steven H. Silver resigned as editor and publisher of ISFiC Press.

It was a mostly stable year in the professional print magazine market. After years of sometimes precipitous decline, circulation figures are actually beginning to creep back up, mostly because of sales of electronic subscriptions to the magazines, as well as sales of individual electronic copies of each issue.

Asimov’s Science Fiction had another strong year, publishing excellent fiction by Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Indrapramit Das, Megan Lindholm, Steven Popkes, Robert Reed, Gord Sellar, Tom Purdom, and others; their SF was considerably stronger than their fantasy this year, with the exception of a novella by Alan Smale. For the third year in a row, circulation was up. Asimov’s Science Fiction registered a 10.8 percent gain in overall circulation, up from 22,593 in 2011, to 25,025. There were 21,380 subscriptions; Newsstand sales were 3,207 copies, plus 438 digital copies sold on average each month in 2012. Sell-through jumped sharply from 28 percent to 42 percent. Sheila Williams completed her eighth year as editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction , and won her second Best Editor Hugo in a row.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact published good work by Richard A. Lovett and William Gleason, Michael Alexander and K.C. Ball, Linda Nagata, Michael Flynn, Sean McMullen, Alec Nevala-Lee, and others. Analog registered a 4.9 percent rise in overall circulation, from 26,440 to 27,803. There were 24,503 subscriptions; newsstand sales were 2,854; down slightly from 2,942, but digital sales were up sharply, from 150 digital copies sold on average each month in 2011, to 446 in 2013. Sell-through rose from 30 percent to 31 percent. Stanley Schmidt, who had been editor there for thirty-three years, retired in 2012, and has been replaced by Trevor Quachri. The year 2012 marked the magazine’s eighty-second anniversary.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was almost exactly the reverse of Asimov’s Science Fiction ; lots of good fantasy work appeared there in 2012, including stories by Ted Kostmatka, Rachel Pollack, Peter S. Beagle, Felicity Shoulders, John McDaid, Alter S. Reiss, and others, but little really memorable SF, with the exception of stories by Robert Reed and Andy Duncan. The magazine also registered a 20.4 percent drop in overall circulation, from 14,462 to 11,510. Print subscriptions dropped from 10,539 to 8,300. Newsstand sales dropped from 6,584 to 5,050. Sell-through rose from 38 percent to 39 percent. Figures are not available for digital subscriptions and digital copies sold, but editor Gordon Van Gelder said that they were “healthy,” and that “our bottom line in 2012 was good.” Gordon Van Gelder is in his sixteenth year as editor, and his twelfth year as owner and publisher.

Interzone is technically not a “professional magazine,” by the definition of The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), because of its low rates and circulation, but the literary quality of the work published there is so high that it would be ludicrous to omit it. Interzone had good work by Aliette de Bodard, Sean McMullen, Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Bourne, and others this year. Exact circulation figures are not available, but is guessed to be in the 2,000-copy range. TTA Press, Interzone ’s publisher, also publishes straight horror or dark suspense magazine Black Static, which is beyond our purview here, but of a similar level of professional quality. Interzone and Black Static changed to a smaller trim size this year, but maintained their slick look, switching from the old 7¾" by 10¾" saddle-stitched semigloss color cover and 64-page format to a 6½" by 9¼" perfect-bound glossy color cover and 96-page format. The editors include publisher Andy Cox and Andy Hedgecock.

If you’d like to see lots of good SF and fantasy published every year, the survival of these magazines is essential, and one important way that you can help them survive is by subscribing to them. It’s never been easier to do so, something that these days can be done with just the click of a few buttons, nor has it ever before been possible to subscribe to the magazines in as many different formats, from the traditional print copy arriving by mail to downloads for your desktop or laptop available from places like Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), to versions you can read on your Kindle, Nook, or i-Pad. You can also now subscribe from overseas just as easily as you can from the United States, something formerly difficult to impossible to do.

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. 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 ’ssite 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. The annual subscription rate in the U.S. is $34.97, $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, Cambs 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 for the Kindle, the Nook, and other handheld readers.

In truth, there’s not that much left of the print semiprozine market; in 2011, several magazines transitioned from print to electronic format, including Zahir (which subsequently died altogether), Electric Velocipede, and Black Gate, and in 2012 they were joined by criticalzine The New York Review of Science Fiction . 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.

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