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Anonymous
What the hell happened? 2016-02-10 18:23:40 Post No. 7682791
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What the hell happened? 2016-02-10 18:23:40 Post No. 7682791
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This is just bad. What happened to this magazine? When I was a kid in the 90's, my father had a subscription and it was amazing. The stories were interesting and well written, the science was always on the edge of possibility, and the nonfiction pieces were fucking solid. It was just a fantastic little magazine. When I was a teenager I always had a copy stuffed in my jeans. I recently discovered a box of old issues in my closet and started reading them again. It reignited my love for short fiction and I ordered a subscription. The only problem is that the stories and writing overall are just bad now. Take the current issue, the novella The Charge and the Storm reads like it was written by a freshman creative writing intern. The characters have no real motivation, they behave irrationally, and the science fiction feels more like half-baked science fantasy complete with "alien" insect aliens. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I just want to read cool stories about philosophical science, robots, extradimensional matter, and spaceships.
Can someone recommend me a a good magazine that actually publishes Science Fiction that doesn't read like FanFiction? Are there even any Science Fiction fans in /lit/?
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>>7682791
Asimov's isn't a "classic science fiction" monthly like it used to be. It's about what's hot in more academic circles. Dating back to around '05 or '07 Asimov's Science Fiction has been less interested in thoughtful stories featuring experimental science that deal with philosophy, and more interested in popular stories in the trapings of scifi. Basically, they began catering to a younger, less thoughtful, more emotional, crowd.
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>>7682838
That's insane. Just crazy. A magazine named after fucking Isaac Asimov, the father of dry science fiction is more concerned with poorly written, emotional stories than fucking science fiction! What the hell, man? Is it just another example of a magazine adapting to a new market or was there a massive change in leadership or something?
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>>7682848
They've had the same editor for over a decade and won stacks of awards, if that means anything to you.
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>>7682791
>the science was always on the edge of possibility
>>7682791
>the science fiction feels more like half-baked science fantasy complete with "alien" insect aliens.
>>7682791
>I just want to read cool stories about philosophical science, robots, extradimensional matter, and spaceships.
lmao. I'll never understand that autistic obsession scifi fans have with the most arbitrary definitions of what's realistic and what isn't. Sci-fi is just technology/science-based fantasy for pretentious nerds who think STEM is the coolest thing ever.
Also, if anything, people acting irrationally is a lot more realistic than them acting rationally because people are emotional and fucking stupid. Rational thinking is the real fantasy.
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>>7682885
It's more about characters making swift jumps in logic that don't make sense. Or introducing characters that fall into very basic tropes and focusing on the emotions of these limited characters instead of approaching the story as a vehicle for philosophical exploration.
It's not that STEM is the coolest shit ever, in the same way that Star Trek isn't about science. It's using the science as a backdrop to do so much more.
Dune is an excellent example of scifi with a minimal focus on science, because it's well written and features well written characters who behave in logical ways(even when they are illogical, their actions make sense for the character).
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