panguitch's Full Review: Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine
Though there are over a dozen professional-level speculative fiction magazines and e-zines, Fantasy & Science Fiction is one of the "big three," along with Analog and Asimov's. Since its beginning in 1949 (only Analog is older) F&SF has always sought to publish genre stories of a higher literary quality, and despite evolving through a series of editors and ownership changes has remained true to that vision.
Fiction
Over the years F&SF has amassed an impressive resume of landmark stories, including: Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon," Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Thomas M. Disch's "The Brave Little Toaster," Harlan Ellison's "Jeffty is Five," and Stephen King's "The Gunslinger" (The Dark Tower).
It's not uncommon to see big names in the pages of F&SF with Kate Wilhelm, John Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Ted Chiang, Lucius Shepard, and Gene Wolfe making appearances in the past year. At times I feel there is an overreliance on regular contributors, though it's hard to fault the many appearances of Robert Reed, Albert E. Cowdrey, or M. Rickert. But my favorite stories are the ones that represent discoveries of great new-to-me authors, people like Alex Irvine, James L. Cambias, Fred Chappell, Chris Willrich, or Ted Kosmatka.
The current editor, Gordon Van Gelder, who also owns the magazine, has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Editor every year since 1998, finally winning in 2007 when the short and long forms became separate categories. His stated preference for content for F&SF is 45% fantasy, 45% science fiction, and 10% horror, though he worries he doesn't publish enough science fiction. My own opinion is that there's not quite enough high fantasy, but the variety of sub-genres represented is ideal for the omnivorous reader.
Fiction is predominantly of the short story and novelet length, though big novellas sometimes dominate issues. Thankfully it's not common for F&SF to publish long, serialized stories.
Departments
In addition to fiction F&SF includes book review columns from Charles de Lint and several others, with de Lint's being the most regular and the most worthwhile. Lucius Shepard writes some of the best film reviews I've read, and the less regular film reviewers are also quite good.
Another feature is "Curiosities," which occupies the final page of each issue and highlights an old or obscure work of speculative fiction that deserves either to be remembered or lampooned. These are contributed by a variety of people, including Paul Di Filippo, who also provides a fairly regular humor column titled "Plumage from Pegasus." Every once in a while there's a science column from Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. Gordon Van Gelder only rarely prints an editorial, though one of the magazine's trademarks is his brief introductions to each story.
F&SF also runs contests once or twice per year, with subscriptions and advanced reading copies of novels as prizes. For example, I earned myself a free issue by receiving a dishonorable mention in the "Adapted?" competition, where I outlined a mash-up of Star Wars and Of Mice and Men.
Subscriptions
F&SF puts out eleven issues per year, each 160 pages long save for the October/November double issue. Subscription rates are $34.97 per year ($46.97 for international customers), or $55.97 for two years ($79.97). The newsstand price for a single issue is $4.50. Digital versions are available from eReader.com and fictionwise.com, and an audio version is available at audible.com. Update: Beginning with with April 2009 F&SF has gone to a bi-monthly schedule, publishing six 258-page double issues each year. The price has not changed. The move was prompted by increasing postal costs.
I subscribe in print and the issues usually arrive in a timely fashion. In one instance when my issue failed to arrive an email inquiry received a response within 24 hours and I had a replacement issue within a few days.
F&SF is routinely praised by fans for cover art that's superior to its rivals. However, there are no interior illustrations, save a few cartoons of varying quality. This digest-sized magazine emphatically presents itself as a fiction magazine, so don't expect the eye-candy and general interest or media-related pieces that you might find in Realms of Fantasy or even the revamped Interzone. On the plus side, this means there aren't very many advertisements (which means fewer cringe-inducing cover images of erotica). The interior paper quality is higher than similar fiction-focused magazines, like Analog or Asimov's, and the overall feel is similar to a paperback novel, if a bit taller, wider, and thinner.
Submissions
A significant percentage of those who subscribe to magazines like this are aspiring authors themselves. Without regurgitating their submission guidelines, if you want to submit to F&SF here's what you should know:
Rather than having to wait three months you will likely receive a rejection letter within a few days of mailing your submission. It may seem impossible they could even have opened your manuscript in this amount of time. Rest assured, John Joseph Adams, the assistant editor, really is that fast. In fact, F&SF's commitment to a fast turnaround has played a key role in attracting submissions (it's one of the reasons I usually submit to them first) and other markets are beginning to follow suit.
Should you make it past John Joseph Adams you've accomplished something to be proud of. You'll likely receive a rejection letter from Gordon Van Gelder after only a few more days. This is as far as I've gotten. If you don't receive a speedy rejection it's likely Gordon is mulling it over or harvesting additional opinions from people he trusts. If you haven't heard back in two weeks you might allow yourself to hope you've gotten this far.
But if you're an unknown your chances are still slim. F&SF has the pick of the litter, and could content itself to publish only recognized authors if it chose. Instead, a handful of beginning authors, even one or two first-timers, are published every year. In my experience these stories tend to be better than the average F&SF story, likely a reflection on the fact that unknowns have to work that much harder in this business.
Recommendation
Since I have the pleasure of working in a library that subscribes to most of the major genre magazines, I don't subscribe to many myself. The one fiction magazine I consider my must-have is F&SF. It provides a wide variety of science fiction and fantasy, with a bit of light horror at times, making it a good choice if you can only pick one magazine.
The quality in F&SF is top shelf, setting the standard for the field and invariably having stories in play for the Nebula and Hugo awards and appearing in the various "Years Best" anthologies. Although an occasional story fails to interest me, or veers too far off into slipstream or other obscurities of literariness, there's usually a knock-your-socks-off story, and several more that are very good.
I eagerly look forward to each issue. Finding one in my mailbox is almost enough to take the sting off JJA's speedy SASE bouncing.
- Panguitch
Since my personal subscription began I've been posting reviews of individual issues, which you can find here: http://andyspackman.wordpress.com/category/fsf-reviews/
Visit the F&SF website: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/
Founded in 1949, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine is a leader in publishing the latest offerings by award-winning and up-and-coming authors, includi...More at Magazineline
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