The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection Read Free

even if they go to a newsstand specifically searching for it. Perhaps the Kindle and the iPod and other similar text readers (and there are new and improved generations of them coming along all the time) will save the magazines by making them easily accessible to readers once again.
    Considering the problems that have lately plagued Borders and other brick-and-mortar bookstores, they may save the publishing industry too, if anything can. Certainly everything in the publishing world is going to look very different ten years from now, and in twenty years it may be completely unrecognizable. Even today, many people are as likely or more likely to read a book on their iPod while commuting to work as they are to walk into a bookstore and buy a book. It’s worth noting that online bookseller Amazon was one of the very few businesses in the entire country to actually turn a profit in the fourth quarter of 2008.
    The print magazines had a good year creatively, in terms of the quality of the material published, although circulation continued its slow decline. Asimov’s and Analog changed their trim size, getting larger although dropping pages, losing about 4,000 words’ worth of content in the process, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction changed from their decades-long monthly format to a bi-monthly format of larger but fewer issues, losing about 10 per cent of their overall content in the process. Opinion among industry insiders was divided as to whether these were sensible money-saving measures that will help the magazines survive or bad ideas, risky last-ditch attempts to save the magazines that could backfire; time will tell, I guess. With another big postal hike looming on the horizon in 2009, rising printing costs, and some major magazine distributors (including two of the nation’s biggest) beginning to charge a seven-cent-per-copy surcharge for all the magazines they distribute, a surcharge many magazines just can’t afford, things are looking precarious, and if the cost-cutting moves that Asimov’s , Analog , and F&SF are taking turn out to be ineffective in offsetting rising costs, all of these magazines could be in serious trouble. (Just as I was finishing work on this Summation, word came in that Anderson News, the huge magazine wholesaler and distributor who had been one of the distributors demanding a seven-cent-per-copy surcharge for every copy of the magazines they handle had been forced to suspend operations because many publishers had balked at paying the surcharge and stopped shipping them product. The CEO there says that the company is working “towards an amicable solution” with the publishers, and it remains to be seen how this situation will ultimately play out.)
    Realms of Fantasy magazine threw in the towel early in 2009, citing disastrously plummeting newsstand sales (although the declining advertising revenue due to the recession – ROF was always heavily dependent on advertising – may also have been a factor). The magazine would die after the April 2009 issue, a sad loss to the field.
    The good news, such as it is, for the so-called Big Three magazines is that sales were nearly flat this year, with only minuscule declines from 2007. Asimov’s Science Fiction registered only a 2.7 per cent loss in overall circulation, from 17,581 to 17,102, not bad when compared to last year’s 5.2 per cent loss, 2006’s 13.6 per cent loss, or 2005’s disastrous 23.0 per cent; it seems that declines in circulation here are at least beginning to slow, even if they haven’t yet turned around. Subscriptions dropped from 14,084 to 13,842, and newsstand sales dropped from 3,497 to 3,260; sell-through rose from 30 per cent to 31 per cent. One encouraging note is that digital sales of the magazine through Fictionwise and Kindle were on the rise, although that rise is not yet reflected in these circulation figures. Asimov’s published good stories this year by James Alan Gardner, Mary Rosenblum, Michael