Magazines are divided into three categories:
- Those you never even want to read.
- Those you buy.
- Those you don’t buy but read in WHSmiths.
These days the only magazines that get bought by me are the occasional guitar magazine, when I get inspiration to get a bit better or there is a very cool guitar on the front cover. Science Fiction magazines slipped from buy, to read at WHSmiths to never want to read at about issue 20 of SFX.
However, I have a feeling that there may be a new magazine that I want to buy: Wired UK, which launches today. Looking at the sampler makes me go “oooh”. I feel the need for a good print magazine, I think print may be the new online. Plus Ben Hammersley is the associate editor: he had one of the first blogs I ever read, wrote a book about RSS when no one knew what it was and seems to have a rather interesting life. Ben says We’re making something great specifically for the Wired audience which I think may well include me.
I find I can't stomach modern SF magazines. They're a bit too specialized towards movies and TV, a bit too professional, and too dedicated to puff journalistic stories like "Why Terminator: Salvation will be the greatest science fiction movie of all time."
Lately, though, I've discovered I really really like *old* SF magazines, mostly from the 70s, in the 3 or 4 years prior to Star Wars, up through about the time Kerry O'Quinn sold Starlog to a bunch of moon-faced assasins of joy.
There's something wild-eyed and fanatical (In a good way) about these barnstorming magazines, and how aggressive they were about their now-totally-irrelevant material, and I love the messianic pie-in-the-sky stuff like "Why Wait? We Can Have A Man On Mars By 1988!" (From Future: Life Magazine) and so on. Terrible journalism, barely high-school-level writing, confused on every level, but there's something giddy about them that I love.
I understand what you mean about modern SF magazines, the last issue I bought of SFX was years ago. However as Wired is a tech magazine and a UK specialisation of a US tech magazine at that, I think it's an interesting move and I'm looking forward to checking out a copy.
I was gutted, I couldn't find a copy in WH Smiths when I was in town on Friday. Will have to have a look at Sainsburys tonight.
Not in Sainsburys either... darnation!
Got it! And am now a subscriber as well. Great magazine, first one I have read from cover to cover since the ill-fated Future Publishing's Discovery attempted to launch against Focus and New Scientist. Can't wait for the next issue.
Went to WHSmiths at the weekend. SOLD OUT. Might have to subscribe just to get a copy.