A Plea on Behalf of Science Fiction and Fantasy

I am going to ask you to sacrifice a cup of coffee, or at least the price of one. I would love it if you sacrificed the price of your next movie out, DVD purchase, or trip to KFC, and instead spent the same money in the exact same place. I’m talking, in this instance, about science fiction and fantasy magazines.

Fantasy and science fiction magazines are in decline—digitally, in print, and across the English-speaking world. (Perhaps broader, I don’t know.) While some of the specific data I found comes from the magazine Fantasy & Science Fiction, which hasn’t published reliably in years and was once a tentpole of the two genres, this problem isn’t limited to that magazine alone. Readership of these magazines has dropped for decades. 

F&SF Magazine sales through the years

Some people say it’s because of the rising cost of the print medium. Some say it’s because the readership is gone. Others blame the decimating effect Amazon had on subscription services when it changed its policies more than a year ago. Still others argue subscriptions are low because these magazines are hard to find. As a writer looking for places to put my work, I can certainly relate—once you move beyond the top 5–10, they can be very hard to find.

That’s why this month, I want to ask you to focus on fantasy and science fiction magazines. I believe in stories and reading in general, but these are genres particularly fruitful for the imagination, and they have driven real science and real sociology in our world for the better. For the price of your morning coffee at Starbucks, you can buy a single issue of almost any of them. And for the price of a DVD, most of the ones I’ll list below offer yearly subscriptions; sometimes quarterly, sometimes monthly.

Now of course you might ask: why bother? I like books, not short stories.

Because if you want a new stream of authors rising up, they need somewhere to cut their teeth. The odds of achieving mainstream book publication sit at something like 1 in 50,000 for a novel. Your chances of success at smaller magazines might be 1 in 100, or for the mid-size to largest, around 1 in 3,000. Either way, the best rise to the top (or so we hope), but the pool is more accessible. These magazines give unknown authors a platform to launch their careers and begin the teaching and vetting process. They also improve an author’s ability to publish books, because mainstream publishing has more interest in authors with these accolades than without.

Why else? Because you can get a lot of stories on the cheap. I, for example, subscribe to Clarkesworld, one of the F&SF magazines listed below. I don’t jive with a large portion of what gets published—almost half is a complete miss for me. The other half isn’t. And at four dollars a month, that’s still a bargain for a half-dozen new stories I do like, by both new and established authors, helping support the ecosystem.

If you think you’re not a fan of short stories, I’d still say give it a shot. I also prefer novels—and even then, I prefer them on the meatier side. But I’m constantly faced with a choice in my short spans of downtime: scroll the internet (which, I swear, gets worse in measurable ways every few days), or… read a short story: one that’s been vetted by editors who can tailor to your preferences. There’s a magazine out there that fits your taste. I’ll prove it with the list below.

So, for the future of my genres, I’m begging the hundred or so of you who visit weekly: know that you can make a difference. If every one of you went out and purchased one magazine this month, you would represent a bump in F&SF sales by nearly 5%. Think about that. You can save an industry.

Traditional F&SF magazines (with links to their subscription and purchase pages):

Clarksworld Magazine: Science fiction, running ten years strong with a focused voice by predominantly a single editor.

Asimov’s: As big as it gets in science fiction, comes in print and has art which makes it totally worth it. Ten dollars an issue for in print, but in my personal experience 70+ percent positive reviews for the pieces in Asimov’s.

Analog SF&F: Hard science fiction. The sister magazine to Asimov’s. If you like authors like Andy Weir you will love Analog. Comparably priced to Asimov’s

Some of the smaller hits worth visiting:

Apex Magazine: A darker take on science fiction with a touch of the horror. If you like Aliens, you’ll like Apex. 5 $ an issues, digital only.

Lightspeed Magazine: 700,000 words of fiction for 40 $ a year.

Fantasy focused:

Uncanny Magazine: Lyrical in nature short fiction and poetry for SF&F.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Focuses on literary secondary-world fantasy. (No urban fantasy or such.) Totally biased: This is my single favorite ezine.

Pulpy goodness: Want pieces that remind you of the original Conan, and space operas of old?

Cirsova Magazine: Straight-up pulp-inspired adventure fiction. Think Conan, Barsoom, cosmic horror, space battles.

Galaxy's Edge: A modern magazine started by Mike Resnick it has a classic-feel sci-fi.

And there are others. Search for a magazine with bent you like and you will find it. Guaranteed.