Thursday, March 21, 2024

032124



I hated waiting a whole month for the next installment of a serial. Analog magazine had a lot of them when I was in my early teens and a month still seemed like a long time. The magazines aren't monthly anymore; I guess it was no longer a workable business model, but that's not really what I miss most about those days. In 1967, Analog came wrapped in fairly stiff brown paper, and the covers arrived in pristine condition. At some point (in the 70s, I think) the publisher decided they couldn't afford brown paper, or maybe they couldn't afford the machines to wrap it around the magazines. The covers started showing up wrinkled and bent. Then, they had the gall to go to lightweight paper, still slick, but as thin as the interior pages. You can't read the magazines now without the cover getting all curled and bent up. I would probably subscribe to Asimov's now if it wasn't for that irritating disability. Analog is the same way (same publishe). I'm not going to reward them for being cheapskates. Of course, I don't have to make any money with Dreams and Nightmares, but I use coverstock and it holds up to the wear. Back when I started reading them, the argument was whether Analog or F&SF was the best SF magazine there was. Now, the magazines that get the most award nominations are all online. However, there is just something about holding a physical object with your work inside it that you can't get from online publication. Or perhaps I'm very old-fashioned.

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