Gordon Van Gelder (editor) Fantasy and Science Fiction 586 (2000)
Skipping two whole decades on from my previous issue, by the turn of the century Fantasy & Science Fiction has a new editor and is generally more readable - closer to the modern incarnation with which I am loosely familiar. I assume there must have been a point at which it no longer seemed practical to serialise entire soon to be published novels in the digests, and so this issue presented a much lighter, more enjoyable read, having been spared Robert Silverberg droning on about castles and fealty for a million pages. Gregory Benford comes across as a bit of a bore, and is a poor substitute for Asimov, but the rest is otherwise a major improvement. Not everything here is amazing, but neither is any of it lousy; and Brian Stableford's tale of mandrake farming in ancient Rome gets a thumbs up from me, as does Nancy Etchemendy's telling prediction of the current political climate in America; and Amy Sterling Casil's satisfyingly screwy account of George III supplying beings from outer space with mints sort of illustrates why Fantasy & Science Fiction has historically pissed over much of the competition.
Skipping two whole decades on from my previous issue, by the turn of the century Fantasy & Science Fiction has a new editor and is generally more readable - closer to the modern incarnation with which I am loosely familiar. I assume there must have been a point at which it no longer seemed practical to serialise entire soon to be published novels in the digests, and so this issue presented a much lighter, more enjoyable read, having been spared Robert Silverberg droning on about castles and fealty for a million pages. Gregory Benford comes across as a bit of a bore, and is a poor substitute for Asimov, but the rest is otherwise a major improvement. Not everything here is amazing, but neither is any of it lousy; and Brian Stableford's tale of mandrake farming in ancient Rome gets a thumbs up from me, as does Nancy Etchemendy's telling prediction of the current political climate in America; and Amy Sterling Casil's satisfyingly screwy account of George III supplying beings from outer space with mints sort of illustrates why Fantasy & Science Fiction has historically pissed over much of the competition.
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