News Roundup – including an uncomfortably large number of articles dealing with bias, racism, harassment and BS that just has got to stop!, Time Machine roundup of the week’s most popular posts, and Mark A. Garlick’s artwork featured in this week’s IAAA Gallery.
The Experimenter Publishing Company is pleased to announce the reintroduction of the world’s most recognizable science fiction magazine – AMAZING STORIES!
Set to relaunch with a Beta Test of its new Social Magazine Platform, Amazing Stories will feature content from 50+ bloggers, covering an enormous array of subjects of interest to genre fans.
“We’ve got authors and agents, bloggers and editors, pod casters and broadcasters; we’ve got gamers and game designers; artists and art collectors; pulpsters and indie authors; we’ve got Hugo winners, John W. Campbell Memorial Award winners, John W. Campbell Best New Writer winners, Nebula and Hugo Award winners and nominees and winners and nominees of many other awards; people who review films, people who make films; we’ve got fanboys and fangirls; we’ve got former editors of Amazing Stories, writers who’ve become synonymous with the field and writers who are just getting started; comic artists, book reviewers; traditionally published authors, self-pubbed authors and authors who’ve done it all. The response to my request for participation was phenomenal – it couldn’t be more perfect if I had set out with a list of must-haves!” said Steve Davidson, publisher.
Amazing Stories’ Social Magazine platform is designed to create an interactive environment that will be familiar to fans with blog content designed to encourage discussion and take things beyond the usual user-generated content model for social networks.
The Amazing Stories Blog Team will cover (for now – more coming!) fourteen popular topics – Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, (lit), Film, Television, Gaming, Comics and Graphic Works, the Visual Arts, the Pulps, Audio Works, Anime, the Business of Publishing, Science and Fandom itself.
“We are diverse – and we are all in this together.”
We are diverse – and we are all in this together, a sentiment that captures the very heart and soul of what it means to be a fan. Amazing Stories aims to be a vehicle through which the diversity of fandom can come together.
Amazing Stories’ relaunch will take place in two phases. Those interested in participating in the Beta Test of Phase 1 should contact the publisher at steve.davidson33@comcast.net. Participants will receive full access to the site with Member status and will receive on-site benefits as the project moves forward.
Phase 2 will introduce additional interactivity and user-customization to the site. Following the completion and testing of Phase 2, the magazine, featuring both new and reprint fiction, essays, photo galleries, reviews and more will begin publication. Readers who are interested in what the magazine will look like can read two Relaunch Prelaunch issues on line, or download them from the Amazing Stories store. (Additional Amazing Stories themed product is also available here.)
Experimenter Publishing is pleased to introduce the Amazing Stories Blog Team:
Cenobyte, Mike Brotherton, Ricky L. Brown, Michael A. Burstein,
Catherine Coker, Johne Cook, Paul Cook, Gary Dalkin, Jane Frank,
Jim Freund, Adam Gaffen, Chris Garcia, Chris Gerwel, Tommy Hancock,
Liz Henderson, Samantha Henry, M. D. Jackson, Monique Jacob,
Geoffrey James, J. J. Jones, Peggy Kolm, Justin Landon, Andrew Liptak,
Melissa Lowery, Barry Malzberg, C. E. Martin, Farrell J. McGovern,
Steve Miller, Matt Mitrovich, Aidan Moher, Kevin Murray, Ken Neth,
Astrid Nielsch, D. Nicklin-Dunbar, John Purcell, James Rogers,
Diane Severson, Doug Smith, Lesley Smith, Bill Spangler, Duane Spurlock,
Michael J. Sullivan, G. W. Thomas, Erin Underwood, Stephan Van Velzen,
Cynthia Ward, Michael Webb, Keith West, John M. Whalen, Ann Wilkes,
Karlo Yeager, Leah Zeldez
BACKGROUND:
Originally published in 1926 by the father of science fiction, Hugo Gernsback, Amazing Stories helped to launch both the science fiction genre and its most enduring feature, science fiction fandom. The magazine is well known for its Frank R. Paul covers and for publishing the first stories by many iconic authors such as Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson and Ursula Le Guin. Published continuously from 1926 until 1995, followed by two brief resurrections from 1998 till 2000 and again from 2004 thru 2005. In 2008 Hasbro, the then current owner, allowed the trademarks to lapse and publisher Steve Davidson applied for and eventually received them in 2011.
The Experimenter Publishing Company was created in 2012 for the purpose of returning Amazing Stories magazine to regular publication. The company shares the name of the original magazine’s publisher as homage. The trademarks for Amazing Stories were acquired by Steve Davidson in 2011, the previous owners having allowed the marks to lapse in 2008, at which time application was made for a new incarnation of the same title.
CONTACT:
For more information regarding Amazing Stories, the Blog Team and the Beta Test of the new site, please contact Steve Davidson via email at steve.davidson33@comcast.net.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AMAZING STORIES are just one click away! Amazing Stories, the world’s first science fiction magazine, opens for Beta Testing of Phase 1 on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013. Fifty+ Bloggers Sign On to provide oodles of genre-related content! The Experimenter Publishing Company is pleased to announce the reintroduction of the world’s most recognizable science fiction magazine – AMAZING STORIES! Set to relaunch with a Beta Test of its new Social Magazine Platform, Amazing Stories will feature content from 50+ bloggers, covering an enormous array of subjects of interest to genre fans. “We’ve got authors and agents, bloggers and editors, podcasters and broadcasters; we’ve got gamers and game designers; artists and art collectors; pulpsters and indie authors; we’ve got Hugo winners, John W. Campbell Memorial Award winners, John W. Campbell Best New Writer winners, Nebula and Hugo Award nominees and winners and nominees of other awards; people who review films, people who make films; we’ve got fanboys and fangirls; we’ve got former editors of Amazing Stories, writers who’ve become synonymous with the field and writers who are just getting started; comic artists, book reviewers; traditionally published authors, self-pubbed authors and authors who’ve done it all. The response to my request for participation was phenomenal – it couldn’t be more perfect if I had set out with a list of must-haves!” said Steve Davidson, publisher. Amazing Stories’ Social Magazine platform is designed to create an interactive environment that will be familiar to fans – especially those who attend conventions or enjoy club activities – with blog content designed to encourage discussion and take things beyond the usual user-generated content model for social networks. The Amazing Stories Blog Team will cover (for now – more coming!) fourteen popular topics – Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Literature, Film, Television, Gaming, Comics and Graphic Works, the Visual Arts, the Pulps, Audio Works, Anime, the Business of Publishing, Science and Fandom itself. At this year’s Worldcon (Chicon 7, Chicago), Toastmaster John Scalzi offered up these words during the convention’s opening ceremonies: …who are we as a community? This year at least, we are bloody fantasy, we are epic-scale space opera, we are an intimate picture of growing up geeky, we are ready to take on the zombie apocalypse. We speak in alien tongues, we are super heroes and we are on the spectrum. We cry like children and we cradle our awards. We sing, we write, we draw, we edit. We talk on every subject science fictional or fantastical. We’re men and we’re women. We’re gay and straight. Cis gender and trans. Majority and minority. Left and right. First time nominees and old hands. We are diverse – and we are all in this together. “We are diverse – and we are all in this together”, a sentiment that captures the heart and soul of what it means to be a fan. Amazing Stories aims to be the vehicle through which the diversity of fandom can come together. Amazing Stories’ relaunch will take place in two phases. Those interested in participating in the Beta Test of Phase 1 should contact the publisher atsteve.davidson33@comcast.net. Phase 2 will introduce additional interactivity and user-customization to the site. Following the completion and testing of Phase 2, the magazine, featuring both new and reprint fiction, essays, photo galleries, reviews and more will begin publication. Readers who are interested in what the magazine will look like can read two Relaunch Prelaunch issues on line, or download them from the Amazing Stories store. (Additional Amazing Stories themed product is also available here.) The Amazing Stories Blog Team: Cenobyte, Mike Brotherton, Ricky L. Brown, Michael A Burstein, Catherine Coker, Johne Cook, Paul Cook, Gary Dalkin, Jane Frank, Jim Freund, Adam Gaffen, Chris Garcia, Chris Gerwel, Tommy Hancock, Liz Henderson, Samantha Henry, M. D. Jackson, Monique Jacob, Geoffrey James, J. J. Jones, Peggy Kolm, Justin Landon, Andrew Liptak, Melissa Lowery, Barry Malzberg, C. E. Martin, Farrell J. McGovern, Steve Miller, Matt Mitrovich, Aidan Moher, Diane Severson Mori, Kevin Murray, Ken Neth, Astrid Nielsch, D. Nicklin-Dunbar, John Purcell, James Rogers, Doug Smith, Lesley Smith, Bill Spangler, Duane Spurlock, Michael J. Sullivan, G. W. Thomas, Erin Underwood, Stephan Van Velzen, Cynthia Ward, Michael Webb, Keith West, John M. Whalen, Ann Wilkes, Leah Zeldez Originally launched in 1926 by the father of science fiction, Hugo Gernsback, Amazing Stories helped to launch both the science fiction genre and its most enduring feature, science fiction fandom. The magazine is well known for its Frank R. Paul covers and for publishing the first stories by many iconic authors such as Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson and Ursula Le Guin. Published continuously from 1926 until 1995, followed by two brief resurrections from 1998 till 2000 and from 2004 thru 2005. In 2008 Hasbro, the then current owner, allowed its trademarks to lapse and publisher Steve Davidson applied for and eventually received them in 2011. For additional information, to find out how to join the Amazing Stories Blog Team or to request an invite to the Beta Test of Phase 1, please email the publisher, Steve Davidson.
Amazing Stories, the World’s First Science Fiction Magazine, is preparing for its return and is now seeking experienced bloggers with interests in science fiction, fantasy and horror, their sub-genres and their impact on or relationship to film, television, gaming, anime, comics, audio works, visual arts, fandom, publishing and science.
Since completing two well-received Volume Zero Relaunch Prelaunch issues (required for Trademark registration & to honor our friends) the Experimenter Publishing Company has been notified by the USPTO that it will be granted its marks; during that same time work was begun on the first stage of the Amazing Stories website, Frank Wu has completed the artwork for Amazing Stories’ first new cover in over seven years and numerous other great things have been happening.
In anticipation of the forthcoming roll out of the new website, Amazing Stories is now seeking the assistance and participation of fans and bloggers from across the genre spectrum.
If you think you might like to write for Amazing Stories, now is your chance. Please email (Steve.Davidson33@comcast.net Amazing Stories and request an information packet.
Any time Steven Spielberg comes to television, it’s always with something different. He honored the anthology series of his youth with Amazing Stories and lent his storytelling expertise to get ER launched, making that into a smash hit for NBC. So, when Fox heard of a series about humans and dinosaurs and Spielberg, it seemed like a no brainer. If anyone could get dinosaurs to work convincingly on the small screen, it was the director of Jurassic Park. What the network couldn’t count on was the full extent of Spielberg’s involvement and in time the series was placed under showrunner Brannon Braga’s control. Braga cut his teeth on Star Trek: The Next Generation and has gone on to do other genre fare, but he can’t seem to repeatedly sacrifice characterization in favor of conspiracy and that’s where Terra Nova fell off the rails.
Delayed by schedule issues as the massive CGI prehistoric creatures proved more difficult to execute on a budget, the series debuted last fall and for 14 episodes, we were treated to a series with tremendous potential, most of it wasted.
In 2149, mankind has choked the world so badly that time travel to resettle humanity in the past was the best hope for survival. A colony was established and those fortunate enough to be picked were sent in waves, controlling the impact of man altering the past. We follow the Shannon family from this wretched dystopia to the clean air of the past and see if people can do better when given a better chance. Jim Shannon (Jason O’Mara) is in jail for violating population laws and conceiving a third child but is broken free and joins his wife, Dr. Elisabeth Shannon (Shelley Conn), 17 year old son Josh (Landon Liboiron), 16 year old daughter Maddy (Naomi Scott), and five year old Zoe (Alana Mansour), as they join the Tenth Pilgrimage 85 Million years back in time.
Terra Nova is a thriving colony under the command of Commander Nathaniel Taylor (Stephen Lang) and contains enough raw power to protect the populace from the mammoth critters that wander the jungles just beyond their walls. While the thrust of the stories should have been the struggle to adapt to the environment and its deadly inhabitants, Braga had other ideas. Apparently, The Others, I mean the Sixers split back during the sixth pilgrimage and are working with unknown forces back in the future to seize the pristine world’s resources. Then there’s the mystery of Taylor’s son, a genius who was either part of the conspiracy or its pawn. Add in a blackmarketeer, a teen turned traitor to save her ill mother, young romance, and a few other threads, you get a crazy quilt of plots that could actually be told in any other environment.
The show failed to be different from its genre competitors because it avoided the most unique element going for it: dinosaurs! Man versus nature! How do the people adapt to diseases, microbes, and minerals they never encountered before? How do they ensure each step they take beyond the colony does not in some way create a vastly different tomorrow? Nope, the show skips all of those possibilities for conspiracies and soap operas.
The appealing cast does its best with weak material but by the end of the series, it was clear that there would be little progress in solving these dilemmas and when the plug was mercifully pulled in March, it vanished without much of an imprint in the genre or prime time television.
The complete series is presented on four standard definition discs from 20th Century Home Entertainment. In addition to fourteen hours of drama, the set comes with complete with some vaguely interesting deleted scenes and an extended version of “Occupation/Resistance”, the two-part finale (there’s also an audio commentary from Stephen Lang, Brannon Braga and Rene Echevarria). There are a handful of somewhat interesting “Director’s Diaries – Making the Pilot” with comments from Alex Graves, whose work I have generally admired. Finally, there is a brief look at “Cretaceous Life: The Dinosaurs of Terra Nova”, which should enlighten younger viewers who can’t get enough dinosaurs, and “Mysteries Explored”, delving into the less interest aspects of this failed series. Rounding things out is a gag reel.
A series with potential like this is all the more disappointing when it does not embrace its strengths in favor of a creator’s personal interests. Had Spielberg been more hands on, things might have turned out differently, but as it stands, the show is a mildly engaging misfire.
Howard Chaykin will revive Buck Rogers. The veteran cartoonist has been announced as writer and artist on a new Hermes Press comic book series.
Best known for its reprints – including some of the legendary pulp hero – the publisher has promised an “all new take” on the character by the American Flagg! creator.
“When [Hermes publisher Dan Herman] casually asked me whether I had any interest in reviving Buck Rogers, my reaction was first physical – genuine goose bumps – followed by complete delight at the thought of paying back a concept that was so utterly seminal in my thinking about our medium and our field,” said Chaykin.
The science fiction hero first appeared in Armageddon 2419 AD in the pages of the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, written by Philip Francis Nowlan.
The comic will be unveiled at the “Buck Rogers, Past, Present and Future” panel at 6pm on Friday, July 13 at San Diego Comic-Con International.
AMAZING STORIES Relaunch Prelaunch Launches July 1, 2012. Hillsboro, NH
Amazing Stories, the world’s first science fiction magazine, will begin its return to regular publication this July 1st with Volume 0, Number 1, the Relaunch Prelaunch issue.
All kinds of wonderful things have been happening at Amazing Stories over the past several months and some of them have prompted a change to the overall plan for Amazing Stories return.
As some of you may recall, I was planning on beginning the funding effort following the presidential elections in November. I’d originally wanted to go for the whole enchilada all at once and scale back from there as necessary.
Recent developments have caused me to accelerate certain aspects of the plan and to modify my approach to launching.
Now the plan is to break the project up into smaller pieces and fund those individually. Instead of scaling back, we’ll be building up.
This change has been engendered by a very exciting recent development that will both strengthen Amazing’s brand and create a revenue stream. The details of this development will be announced the weekend of July 14-15. The announcement will take place at the San Diego Comic Con (CA) and Readercon (MA) conventions.
I felt that it would be foolish to waste such an opportunity and decided to create the Relaunch Prelaunch issue of Amazing Stories so that there would be somewhere to go and something to look at when the announcement was made,
Since I had already gathered a fair amount of material for the blog, I decided to put it all together and create an issue of the magazine with it. The content ranges from reminisces on Amazing from Robert Silverberg, Barry Malzberg and Patrick L Price, to fiction by Jack Clemons (all of which is being reprinted from earlier renditions of the magazine) to an extensive series of round-robin interviews with 13 of the Book View Cafe authors – Maya Bohnhoff, Brenda Clough, Chris Dolley, katharine E. Kimbriel, Sue Lange, Vonda McIntyre, Linda Nagata, Pati Nagle, Phyllis Radford, Deborah J. Ross, Sarah Smith, Jennifer Stevenson, Judith Tarr and Dave Trowbridge and some (short) editorializing from me.
I think there’s plenty of good stuff there that will be released throughout the course of the month. Anyone who hears about Amazing Stories from the announcements (I’ll be sending it out to you all as well) will find several pieces to read when they visit and the promise of more to keep them coming back. And this will not be the last Relaunch Prelaunch issue; I’ve already started getting stuff in for the next one (an essay on Tarzan & Burroughs from John M Whalen) and more on the way (though I am not anywhere close to the three-months-out I ought to be). Hold on to your fiction, but if you’ve got an interesting article, interview, review, feel free to send it inI. I’m not paying and I can’t promise I’ll use it, but….
It now seems that the time to pull out all of the stops has arrived a few months earlier than I had originally anticipated. I am now putting together the outline of a Kickstarter (or similar) crowd-funding plan and presentation that will be released in the next couple of months.
In order to make it all work I will need everyone’s help.
So what can you do?
Nothing if you’d prefer. Or you could:
Visit the site. Share it with your friends. Comment on something you find here. Link to it. Sign up on the Facebook page. Sign up here.
Say nice things and think good thoughts.
The more Amazing Stories resembles a going concern, the easier it will be to obtain the funding and the closer we will all be to seeing what we want to see, the return of Amazing Stories!
I have plenty of space on the site to help promote and publicize fellow travelers. If getting a spot up on Amazing’s site will help you promote the magazine, please send your artwork and link or get in touch so we can put a plan together. I’m happy to do what I can in return for your support.
And finally
Thank You All for your support, your kind words and your good wishes.
Experimenter Publishing Corp, Hillsboro, NH, November 24, 2011 – Robert Silverberg, award winning author and SFWA Grand Master, has joined Barry Malzberg, Joe Wrzos, Patrick Price and Ted White on the Amazing Stories Project Editorial Advisory Board.
Mr. Silverberg, multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winning author ofThe Majipoor Chronicles , Hawksbill Station, Dying Inside (to name just a very few) and editor of the seminal anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, was selected for SFWA’s Grand Master Award in 2004 and has been a fixture of the genre since the 1950s; among his many achievements, he is particularly noted in SF Fandom for his role as Toastmaster of the Hugo Award ceremonies.
His newest book is Tales of Majipoor, a collection of stories set on the planet he first wrote about in his 1981 best-seller, Lord Valentine’s Castle. Subterranean Press will publish a limited first edition of it in 2012, followed by the regular trade edition from Berkley.
Mr. Silverberg, whose fiction first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1956, will serve in an advisory capacity and will author an updated version of his Introduction to Amazing Stories for the first issue of the magazine’s latest incarnation, slated to appear sometime in 2012.
The Amazing Stories Project can be followed by visiting
