Argos Index

The final issue

Argos was a short lived (3 issues) magazine that appeared in 1988. It ought to have been successful: it featured some big-name writers – Larry Niven, Keith Laumer, John Brunner, Janet Morris and Mike Resnick (who had a story in every issue). It is always difficult for a new magazine to gain prominence on news-stands and this may have been part of the problem.

The rather amateurish cover for issue 1 probably did the magazine no favours either. Later covers were better and in my view the best was Deborah Skilton’s illustration for Jack Lovejoy’s “The Gatekeeper” that graced the final issue.

Issues 2 & 3 featured a non-fiction column by Keith Laumer and Issue 3 added a multi-author book review column.

Fantastic 1980s Index

The front cover of the final issue dated October 1980

This is a rather short index as the magazine folded in 1980, with the October 1980 issue being the final one. Circulation had declined to fewer than 15,000 per issue and the magazine was simply not economically viable.

endofanera

“Fantasy Centre” in Holloway Road, North London, has closed for the last time. I had heard in May that this was due to happen because of a combination of the lease expiring and the partners being of retirement age.

Have SF Magazines Had Their Day?

On reading “Brass Tacks” (Analog‘s letter column) I noticed one reader commented that he had taken out a subscription since retailers no longer seemed to stock the magazine.

(SF) Impulse Index

Impulse (later SF Impulse) was a a successor to Science Fantasy and was published in the same paperback book format as Science Fantasy had been in its later years.

Rowling’s Billion

The Guardian’s Zoe Williams does not appear to like fantasy. In her “This Week” column on the back of today’s paper, she observes that JK Rowling’s wealth had remained at $1billion, same as last year and compares this with the fact that other billionaires such as Bill Gates and Roman Abramovitch have lost substantial fractions of their net worth. She concludes:

“What did Rowling know that all the financial acuity in the world couldn’t predict? Could she not have told us that instead of writing that stupid fairy book?”

Despite being neither a finance wizz-kid nor in any way aquainted with Ms Rowling or her accountant, I am going to venture an answer. I rather think that the “stupid fairy book” might have had something to do with it by generating enough income to cover her losses on the stock market. There are people in the world who want fantasy whereas nobody really wants or needs Windows Vista, they just get lumbered with it if they buy a new PC. Just like you get lumbered with Williams’ stupid comments if you buy the Guardian.

Unearth – The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries

Unearth was one of the titles that appeared during the brief  renaisance of magazine SF that began in 1977. The magazine’s policy was to find and develop new writers (it was sub-titled “The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries”). Initially, apart from the reprint “First Sales”, the fiction was by entirely unknown writers. During the magazine’s existance this policy
was expanded to include writers who had made three or fewer professional sales and all writers whose first sale had been to Unearth. Somtow Sucharitkul and William Gibson made their first sales to this magazine.

Fantasists and Monotheists

Thirty years ago the science fiction and fantasy writer L. Sprague de Camp expressed the view that religious believers were in general not as good at creating believable fantasy societies as are non-believers.

The Saga of Felimid the Bard

These are a series of fantasy novelettes by the Australian writer Dennis Morethat might be of use to a GM setting a campaign during the period of Anglo-Saxon settlement in southern Britain.