Reading science fiction like it matters since 1989.
The title of this editorial is borrowed from a Marilyn Hacker sonnet sequence, referring to an older comment that all poetry is about love, death, and the changing of the seasons. Award season is upon us, too. We are still eligible for the Hugo Award as Best Semiprozine, and we hope that you nominate us and vote for us.
It has taken a few years to recenter and recast that Hugo category, and it is now sort of settled down, pending a confirming vote at Worldcon this August, and we’re happy to be part of it.
As I write in January 2012, the December issue of NYRSFhas not yet been mailed to subscribers from our new printer, though they promise to finish the January issue and mail it “in a couple of weeks.” It is our sincere hope that you will receive this February issue before the end of February. The whole back-story is recounted in the December editorial, which we hope you will have read before you are reading this one (it’s available at <www.nyrsf.com>).
You will note that we have new subscription terms as of the January issue (see page three of this issue for the full info). We will include them in our renewal letters too. This is going to be a hard year, and we will survive it only substantially transformed.
And now, news of fresh disasters, if I may be unabashedly hyperbolic: the Monday after the last work weekend, we discovered that the company that owns the storage facility where the NYRSF back issues have been stored for 15 or more years was closing that facility at the end of December, 2011, and so we had to vacate. Jen Gunnels is the hero of this story. She spent five half-days the next week with me, sorting and recycling thousands of back issues. Those issues are a part of us, and we hate to lose them rather than put them before the eyes of avid readers. We had been moving slowly for two years on this, but now we are a downhill freight train.
We are keeping a small supply in Westport, and a slightly larger supply in Pleasantville temporarily, to fill orders this year. We are still sorting the cartons in Pleasantville that were not in the locker and recycling more. In the event you want back issues, let us know now and we’ll make you a deal. Of course our standard offer of 40 issues for $20 and 80 for $40 (our choice) stands. But if you want to choose your issues, you’d better consider doing so soon. (A full index of the magazine is available in Excel format.
We believe we have complete files available, but now less than 50 copies of many issues. Some of the issues will not last. In the end, we hope to scan our early issues and preserve them for sale in PDF format.
—David G. Hartwell & the Editors
A PDF copy of the NYRSF issue in which this article first appeared is available for purchase at Weightless Books.