Which sci-fi magazine is best and why?

Post Reply New Topic

I am considering getting a subscription to a sci-fi magazine (well, pending the stupid "government shutdown" in my state having some of its effects reversed, but that's another matter entirely) and so far I have found these that sound like they might be good: Neo-Opsis, Analog, and Asimov's. Currently, Analog seems to be more interesting since it is supposed to be having stories using real physics rather than merely technobabble excuses for a social story using a space background, but I only know what I've read about it on Amazon. Anyone have any knowledge of these sci-fi magazines or other suggestions?

I can’t remember the last time I read any sci-fi published after 1980...

Is that because you lost interest or because of a decline in quality after 1980? Both or something else?

I'm just bored and unsatisfied every time I try to read anything post-1980, even if it's from an author who gets a ton of praise from the sci-fi community, like Neal Stephenson or William Gibson.

Frankly, I haven't even heard of those authors. The books I have read have been by Isaac Asimov (Caves of Steel, Robots and Empire, Foundation, Robots and Dawn), Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker series), C.S. Lewis (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress [well, almost done reading that one]), Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game), Robert Aspirin (Tambu), Kim Stanley Robinson (this is an author from the 90's actually. I read half of Red Mars before getting tired of reading about the love triangle between Moya, Frank, and the murder victim John. One of his characters, Nadia, goes into complaining about not wanting to hear anymore about it as well ... but that still doesn't cover the fact that he wrote such annoying tripe. I wanted to read about the colonization and terraformation of the planet Mars, not a blasted convoluted love story centered around some random loose Russian woman), Ian Douglas (Star Strike wasn't as bad as it could have been, which it would have been if he focused on the relationships between spacers more than he did in his contrived scenario. The space battles sounded pretty well thought out and the use of nanotechnology in warfare was rather cool). I've also read two of the Halo novels, Contact Harvest and Fall of Reach, both of which weren't the best in literary achievement, but the Tiara complex of planet Harvest was an interesting set up using multiple space elevators in Contact Harvest and the use of a massive space station as a shield for the UNSC fleet against a barrage of plasma in orbit of planet Reach was rather interesting also. The authors of the past decades do seem to have put more into their works than the later authors though.

Is The Magazine Of Science Fiction And Fantasy still on the market? I used to have a subscription to the magazine when I was in high school (it was a Christmas present from my Dad). I didn't have enough money to renew it after the subscription ran out, though I remember the fiction as being nothing short of amazing. Today, I tend to read more horror fiction than anything else, though I do have fond memories of that particular magazine.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

It appears to still be. What kind of stories did it have? My favorite sci-fi sub-genre is "Space-Opera", so did it have many stories to do with interplanetary or interstellar travel, technology, warfare, or economics?

You know, I don't think it was anything quite as grand as space opera sort of thing at the time I was one of their readers. I recall some time and inter dimensional travel stuff, as well as some stuff bordering on horror. It's been years since I picked up the magazine in question, so I've forgotten a lot of what I read. There's also the possibility that the type of scifi they buy now is different from my day.
I admit, the only real space opera scifi stuff I had ever gotten into, beside some Star Wars movie novelizations, was E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman series which I used to read in junior high, after my Dad had gotten me hooked on it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer