Warren Ellis is taunting me

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Even though he promised not to berate the dying Big Three science fiction magazines, Warren Ellis just can't help himself--pointing out with bitter glee that the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had to cut its frequency in half to survive. Meanwhile, Analog and Asimov's dropped their per-issue word counts by 4000 apiece. Taken together, these are the latest death tremor of printed short-form sci-fi. Put another way, people won't be putting short-form sci-fi onto bundles of dead trees much longer.

To be narcissistic, Warren Ellis is taunting me with my own Sci-fi Magazine 2.0 concept. Because, clearly, starting two businesses isn't enough to do in 2009. I also need to wade into the publishing quagmire and try to fight not just the Big Three, but Baen's Universe, Brutarian, Cemetery Dance, Clarkesworld, Chizine, Cosmos, Dark Wisdom, Dragon, Odyssey, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Pedestal, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean.

Stop badgering me, Mr. Ellis. I don't have time for this dream. Seriously. I don't.

(Maybe next year.)

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