A Sense of Doubt blog post #1982 - Top Sites for Science Fiction Writers and News

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1982 - Top Sites for Science Fiction Writers and some News

Quickie today but full of great stuff. Writing, places to sell writing, and tons about SCIENCE FICTION.

FIRESIDE QUARTERLY - This is a great quarterly publishing great fiction.


https://www.everywritersresource.com/top-10-science-fiction-magazines/

Top 10 Science Fiction Magazines

In creating our Top 10 Science Fiction Magazine list, we used 3 main factors to decide what we feel are the best magazines out there. 1. We looked at the popularity of the magazine. 2. We looked at the awards the magazine has won. 3. We looked at how long the magazine has been publishing. If you check around the web and in your local library or a neighborhood used book store you might be lucky enough to run across an old pulp science fiction magazine from the “golden age.” You’ll also notice that there are many more defunct science fiction magazines out there than science fiction magazines that are currently in publication.

This list was very difficult to put together, and we do not think it is perfect. We have tried to put high quality science fiction magazines on this list. We’ve found that the amount of professionally published science fiction magazines in publication are too few to make this list a completely professional list, so we’ve picked what we felt were the best professional and the best fanzines. We did not want them to be transient, but the market for science fiction magazines is tough. Many people love scifi, but too few support the publications. The following list is our Top 10 Science Fiction Magazines publishing today. You’ll find that some of these websites aren’t the most aseptically pleasing, but the print publications behind them are. We hope you find this list helpful. All of these magazines have worked hard to keep science fiction writing alive.  If you have a comment you can post it in the comments.
1. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 

This is a professional magazine that began publishing in 1949 which makes it the second oldest continually publishing science fiction magazines in the country. They have one up on the oldest however, popularity. The publication is tremendously popular. It is the most widely read science fiction magazine in the country. It is consistently outstanding and publishing outstanding authors like (from their site) “Stephen King’s Dark Tower, Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz.” This magazine is the cream of the alien crop.” Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines represents all of what’s best in science fiction today. The publication has an Alexa rating of about 135,000.

2. Analog Science Fiction and Fact

This is a professional magazine that began publishing started publishing 1930 and is as they say “often considered the magazine where science fiction grew up.” They do it very well and have published many outstanding science fiction authors including “Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Spider Robinson, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Michael F. Flynn.” The publication is the oldest science fiction magazine in the country, and they are consistently nominated for award after award. This publication has done an unequivocal job over the last 80 years of keeping great science fiction writing alive in print. They have an Alexa rating of about 691,000.

3. Asimov’s Science Fiction 

This is a professional magazine that began publishing began publishing in 1977 and is simply a high quality science fiction magazine that showcases some of the best in science fiction today. They publish great authors and the publication is one of the best science fiction magazines ever published, hands down. They have an Alexa rating of about 304,000,

4. Strange Horizons 

Began publishing in 2000. They are a very popular online science fiction magazine. In 2007 they were nominated for a Hugo award. Works from their issues are consistently chosen for inclusion in many national anthologies. They are a science fiction magazine of the best kind. Strange Horizons represents where science fiction magazines are going in the future. The publication has an Alexa rating of about 200,000.

5. Space and Time Magazine  
Space and Time Magazine began publishing in 1966. They publish high quality speculative fiction, and they have been doing it for a long time. The magazine publishes 4 times a year.

6. Interzone 

Began publishing in 1982. They are the longest running science fiction magazine in the UK. They have published many greats including: “Brian Aldiss, Sarah Ash, Michael Moorcock, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, M. John Harrison, Stephen Baxter, Iain M Banks, J.G. Ballard, Kim Newman, Alastair Reynolds, Harlan Ellison, Greg Egan,” and many more. They are an outstanding magazine that has fought the odds to keep science fiction alive. Has an Alexa rating of about 1.4 million.

7. Weird Tales 

Weird Tales began publishing in 1923. They stop publishing a couple of times and started again in in 1988 and was “revamped” in 2007. They are currently publishing speculative fiction.

8. GUD 

GUD is a publishes genre fiction, poetry and much more. Check them out, if you haven’t read them already.

9. Challenger 

Was established in 1993. They have been nominated for a Hugo award many times. They work hard to publish great science fiction. The publication has an Alexa rating of about 6.1 million.

10. Clarkesworld Magazine

Clarkesworld is the newest magazines on our list established in 2006, but the magazine came on in a blaze of glory. They have won many many awards in the science fiction world, and they publish a yearly chapbook of all the stories that have appeared in their magazine. Clarkesworld is where we hope science fiction magazines are going. It is professionally done, full of outstanding science fiction writing, and devoted to creating a presence on the web and in the real world. Everyone science fiction writer trying to publish their stories should give series consideration to this magazine. They have an Alexa rating of about 1.1 million.

Apex Magazine

Lightspeed

Mithila Review

Sci Phi Journal

Tor.com





https://writingcooperative.com/top-5-sites-for-science-fiction-writers-503eb062aac5

Top 5 Sites for Science Fiction Writers

Erica Verrillo

All the fiction genres, sci-fi — aka speculative fiction — stands as the one most likely to inspire devotion. Sci-fi buffs are die-hards. That’s because sci-fi authors are required not just to do world-building, but to do universe-building. That’s real escapism.

Traditionally, a background in science has been virtually mandatory for sci-fi writers, and there are still many sci-fi magazines that require a strong scientific element in their published stories. But, as the concept of science has marched on to include not just the “hard sciences” (notably, physics and biology) but the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, history and, to a certain extent, linguistics), sci-fi has matched pace.

At this point, the subgenres are almost too numerous to name: cyberpunk, steampunk, apocalyptic, dystopian, space opera, spy-fi, and “soft sci-fi,” which originally meant anything written by a woman. (For decades, sci-fi has been an all-male club.) Naturally, such a variety allows for considerable leeway, not just in what may be considered sci-fi, but how to write it. There is perhaps no other genre that has encompassed such a broad range of writing styles and voice.

How lucrative is the sci-fi market? It’s hard to say. Compared to romance novels, which generate a huge amount of revenue, sci-fi is a country cousin. But, what the sci-fi market lacks in big bucks, it makes up in sheer gutsy iconoclasm.

As a case in point, Hugh Howey sold the print rights to his self-published underground sci-fi hit, Wool, to Simon & Schuster for a “mid-six-figure” advance. Howey had turned down “multiple” seven-figure advances because he’d already raked in over a million dollars of royalties from his eBook, and he was determined to keep electronic rights. And Howey isn’t the only word-of-mouth wonder in the sci-fi world. This is a genre that thrives in the dark, subterranean alleys of the net, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no man, woman, or cyborg has gone before.

These sites will help you on your mission.

1) Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction

There aren’t many institutions of higher learning that offer programs in science fiction. The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas is, to our great delight, one of them. Their vision is stated clearly and unequivocally on their home page: “We are working to save the world through science fiction! To help achieve this, we have built a comprehensive program to serve SF students, educators, scholars, and fans, and through this extend the influence of this literature of change and the human species onto the world at large.”

You may think it doesn’t get much better than saving the world, but it does. Their resources list is the most comprehensive I have ever seen. Here you will find websites for writers, teaching and scholarly resources, awards, magazines, review sites, anthologies, fandom, blogs, artists, conferences, author websites, and more. When you are done browsing this site, I guarantee you will feel as if you are not in Kansas anymore.

2) Internet Science Fiction Database

This site is shamelessly geeky. However, it contains the most complete catalog of science fiction, fantasy, and horror you will find anywhere. It links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content listings, and forthcoming books. You can find a huge list of magazines and fanzines on this site if you are interested in submitting short work, as well as publishers, awards, and statistics.

3) Links to Science Fiction Websites

This page features a very long list of sci-fi sites (over 300). It is not as well organized, or as broad in scope, as the Gunn Center’s page, but there is a greater focus on contemporary sci-fi magazines, fan pages, and review sites, which makes this list quite useful to those trying to get stories published.

4) Top 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Novels Blogs

This is simply the best blog list out there. There isn’t a blog on this list you shouldn’t read. That being said, start at the top and work your way down. (You will notice that SFsite is at the top. There’s a reason for that.) The advantages of reading good blogs about your genre (and others) are almost too numerous to list — great writing tips, the latest news, reviews, entertaining stories, all the industry scuttlebutt — but essentially all these benefits boil down to one thing: you will not know what is going on in your field unless you read these blogs. Being up to date is something all agents and publishers expect of writers.

5) Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

SFWA is the professional organization for authors of science fiction and fantasy. Past and present members include Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, and Andre Norton. It goes without saying that if you join SFWA, you will be in good company.

In their own words: “SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members. We host the prestigious Nebula Awards, assist members in legal disputes with publishers, and administer benevolent funds for authors facing medical or legal expenses. Novice authors benefit from our Information Center and the well-known Writer Beware site.

SFWA Membership is open to authors, artists, editors, reviewers, and anyone else with a professional involvement with sci-fi or fantasy. Affiliate membership is $90 a year. Professional membership is $100.

http://www.sfwa.org/about/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/

Additional sites of interest

Locus Magazine

News about science fiction publishing and coverage of new science fiction books and magazines. The site also provides a chronological listing of upcoming science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions, conferences, and symposia; author events; sci-fi awards database; and a huge sci-fi index (books, magazines, anthologies, collections).

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Erica Verrillo has published five books. She blogs about the publishing world, posts useful tips on how to get an agent, lists agents who are looking for clients as well as publishers accepting manuscripts directly from writers, explains how to market and promote your work, how to build your online platform, how to get reviews, how to self-publish, and how to keep your spirits up on Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity.

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At The Writing Cooperative, our mission is to help each other write better. We’ve teamed up with ProWritingAid to do just that. Try it for free!

http://www.superheronation.com/2007/12/30/list-of-superpowers/

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Science Fiction, news, views, blues... and amuses...

Here's a Sci Fi roundup to offer a breather from Earthly troubles.

For starters...  We’re watching the excellent Amazon Prime show COUNTERPART. Two parallel worlds divided in 1982. They remained similar til one of them lost half a billion people to a flu that they blamed on the other world. Some creepily prescient scenes re masks and distancing and paranoia. Truly excellent actors and scripting.

And yes, pandemics have been common in science fiction. From PLAGUE YEAR about a nanomachine apocalypse (by the late Jeff Carlson: very worthwhile) all the way back to Mary Shelley's THE LAST MAN. My own "The Giving Plague" was guardedly optimistic about infectious diseases coming to terms with their hosts. In HEART OF THE COMET the physician on an expedition to Halley had the job of regularly releasing "challenge diseases" to keep crew healthy.

Here's a kewl little piece on 5 Great Books That Show The Range Of Science Fiction. Well, that’s four bright up-and-comers and one old fart. 

And the brilliant young sci fi writer S.B. Divya (author of RunTime) and I interviewed each other for the magazine of our alma mater, Caltech, in this fine older piece.

The mighty Annalee Newitz offers us an interesting article about how some recent science fiction has featured riffs about the “dismal science”… economics. It’s entertaining, though it focuses mostly on recent fixations. Even the excellent and more-serious-than-average series THE EXPANSE is economically silly. (Like there’s grinding poverty when they've accessed that much automation and unlimited asteroidal resources? How many babies would human women have to make, in just two centuries, in order Malthus-away that kind of wealth-generating capacity? The same illogical notion propels Bladerunner 2049. And yes, excellent flicks, despite my nitpicks.)

Oh, sure, the fundamental need in a story is to have dire problems for the protagonists to face and either overcome or dramatically fail. (I explain how that need drives most writers and directors into narrow and often repetitive paths.) 

== A fine new magazine ==

New from the Berggruen Institute and the World Post comes Noema Magazine. It will cover the overlapping realms of philosophy, geopolitics, economics and technology. From artificial intelligence and the climate crisis to the future of democracy and capitalism, we seek a deeper understanding of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.

In ancient Greek, the word noēma means “thinking” or the “object of thought.” "In this era of social transformations, many of which are accelerated by COVID-19, there is a dire need for new ideas and paradigms to frame the world we are moving into."

Meanwhile... Wil McCarthy – one of the most innovative SF writers of the 1990s, whose super-tech speculations were so plausible they led to patents - is back with two incredible novels. First, THE COLLAPSIUM takes off from Wil’s epic Queendom of Sol society, where programmable matter and miniature black holes drive the ultimate Utopia - with the ultimate dark side. “If any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, then any sufficiently advanced society should come to resemble a fairy tale.”

Follow this with ANTEDILUVIAN:  Before disaster erased the coastlines of the Antediluvian age, men and women struggled and innovated in a world of savage contrasts. It was a time when archetypes and myths were written upon the fabric of humanity, that are still preserved in our oldest stories.  In a brilliant and dangerous brain-hacking experiment, Harv Leonel and Tara Mukherjee are about to discover entire lifetimes of human memory coded in our genes, and reveal ancient legends that are very real - and very deadly. Follow all that next year with RICH MAN'S SKY: “When billionaires control the space program, where does that leave the rest of us?”

== A wonderful universe, despite nits to pick ==

This NPR article offers some sci fi media notes, starting with “Troop Zero,” which - while a bit clichéd - was charming with unexpected SETI/scifi angles. But moving on to the Big Leagues… what could be more exciting and hopeful a sign, than Michael Chabon being put in charge of the new  CBS All-Access Star Trek series “Picard”?  A total pro and visionary, who never let success go to his head and who never disowned science fiction.

Plumbing deeper into the series, here’s an interesting rumination on “Picard,” carrying Patrick Stewart’s iconic captain into a future when the Romulan Empire has been shattered by the supernova that divided two universes, the “ortho” Trek cosmos and that of JJ Abrams (as usual, vivid but illogical). I don’t have CBS-AA and can wait a bit. But I think the prospects for this show sound very good. And I do care about that, a lot! Star Trek is the most logically consistent and well-maintained of all science fiction cosmologies and the one that keeps urging us to be better than we are. That contrasts sharply vs. the epically dumb and generally immoral competitor I denounce in Star Wars on Trial.

Alas there is one deeply flawed aspect of the Trek universe - a truly nerdy but vexing complaint - and that is the distribution of intelligent species. If the Klingon and Romulan and Cardassian empires were all large enough to be a threat to the Federation then they were of comparable - if somewhat lesser - size. Then should they not have contained comparable numbers of star systems with intelligent races? And in the Shatnerverse wasn’t it alluded to that none of those empires were kind to those “natives”? Consider the depiction of a Federation filled with noisy, rollicking and sometimes bickering free peoples. What about the peoples who were suppressed by neighboring empires before the Klingons had their Chernobyl and the Romulans their supernova?

This has been a major blind spot in the Trek universe.  That we would see a sense of mission to the Federation’s righteous struggles against the three empires. (This is hinted at in the laudable fan-flick “Prelude to Axanar.”)

We saw this a bit in the Federation liberating Bajor in DS9 and in the Gamma Quadrant War.  It should have been a major plot element of the Klingon Chernobyl plot line and even bigger in the Romulan Supernova calamity, in Picard.

== And finally... ==

A fascinating – almost sci-fi-ish – tale about some nerdy young women in WWII who played war games that revealed U-boat tactics and helped to win the Battle of the Atlantic.  

SETI Law expert Michael Michaud’s Michael Michaud’s first novel, Eastern Wind, describes the discovery of an unexpected shipwreck off Catalina Island that changes Chinese and North American history. His second science-related novel, entitled Monsters, suggests the potentially threatening implications of genetic manipulation, and how the concentration of great wealth in a small elite could lead to irresponsible use of that technology.

Jean-Marc Ligny reports that “The French Army (and other sober agencies) is recruiting SF writers.” 

Need cheering up? Sample some chapters of my new sci fi comedy novel “The Ancient Ones.”  Enjoy free sample chapters! Stay capable of smiling... and... 

Keep looking upward...

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1982.html

What Happened in 1982 Important News and Events, Key Technology and Popular Culture

What happened in 1982 Major News Stories include Michael Jackson releases Thriller Album, First CD player sold in Japan, Dutch Elm Disease destorys millions of Elm Trees, Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide kill 7 in Chicago, Times man of The Year is THE COMPUTER, Disney Futuristic Park EPCOT opens, Recession starts in the United States, The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII raised in the Solent. New technology continues to change our buying habits with smaller and cheaper electronic gadgets appearing including and a new industry is just beginning with the use of Genetic Engineering human insulin produced by bacteria is sold for the first time. On the world stage Argentina invades the Falkland Islands and Argentina and the UK go to war over a small island thousands of miles away. After many reports of Whales becoming and endangered species the International Whaling Commission decides to end commercial whaling, and a major recession hits the United States.

Jump To 1982 Fashion -- World Leaders -- 1982 Calendar -- 1982 Technology -- Cost Of Living -- Popular Culture -- Toys



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982

January[edit]

• January 1 – New ITV franchises, Central, TVS and TSW, are launched in the United Kingdom.
• January 7 – The Commodore 64 8-bit home computer is launched by Commodore International in Las Vegas^[1] (released in August); it becomes the all-time best-selling single personal computer model.^[2]
• January 8 – AT&T Corporation agrees to break up and divest itself of 22 subdivisions.^[3]
• January 10 – 15 – The second brutal cold snap of the winter sends temperatures to all-time record lows in dozens of cities in the United Kingdom.^[4] It includes the national record from February 1895 being equalled, it would be equalled again in December 1995.^[5]
• January 11 – Mark Thatcher, son of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, disappears in the Sahara during the Dakar Rally; he is rescued January 14.
• January 11 – 17 – A brutal cold snap sends temperatures to all-time record lows in dozens of cities throughout the Midwestern United States.
• January 13 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90 crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78. On the same day, a Washington Metro train derails to the north, killing three people in the system's first fatal accident.
• January 17 – Cold Sunday sweeps over the northern United States.
• January 18 – 1982 Thunderbirds Indian Springs Diamond Crash: Four Northrop T-38 aircraft of the United States Air Force Thunderbirds Demonstration Squadron crash at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nevada, killing all 4 pilots.
• January 24 – Super Bowl XVI sees the San Francisco 49ers and game MVP Joe Montana capture their first National Football League championship by beating the Cincinnati Bengals 26–21 at Detroit's Pontiac Silverdome.
• January 26
  • Mauno Koivisto is elected President of Finland.
  • Unemployment in the United Kingdom increases by 129,918 to 3,070,621, a post-war record number.
• January 27 – The Garret FitzGerald government of the Republic of Ireland is defeated 82–81 on its budget; the 22nd Dáil Éireann is dissolved.
• January 28 – United States Army Brigadier General James L. Dozier is rescued by the Italian anti-terrorism Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza (NOCS) force after being held captive for 42 days by the Red Brigades.
• January 30 – The first computer virus, the Elk Cloner, written by 15-year old Rich Skrenta, is found.^[6] It infects Apple II computers via floppy disk.

Kate Bush The Dreaming - best album of 1982!!






JOUST!

I love that game....

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2007.22 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1846 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.