plug for Locus magazine

Locus magazine
01’2011
02’2011
03’2011

I wrote about "Locus" last year, since in the magazine some important changes have been made. The most important of them is that the magazine is now distributed in digital form. Now it's fast and cheap (foreign subscribers receive digital version for free). If earlier you would have to wait for weeks, now the magazine can be read on the first day of sales. The second major change is the interviews. Previously, "Locus" mainly publishes interviews with writers. But fandom is not just writers and, accordingly, readers. It is also artists, critics, editors, podcasters etc etc. All these figures were often unnoticed. Now you can read in a magazine interview, for example, with the editor Sharyn November (02-2011), and in the January issue the main theme is e-books with dozens of interviews in the magazine.

What I always liked in interview in "Locus" is the fact that they were not short-term. Today interview with the author often turns into a way to just make a PR for a book, reduced to combinations of the samequestions. How did you write this book, what are working on now, who you are influenced by - these plus some other questions are compiled, and interview is done. The interviewer will not go deep, and the author does not want to strain (especially if the author after the book is out this month has to give several dozens of interviews). So, what lies deep in the interview - a conversation - disappears, replaced by a quick chat, not binding to anything. In "Locus" a figure of interviewer is generally removed, there are no questions, only a monologue of the interviewee, but in this monologue you can see an interviewer carrying on a conversation. One interview is never like another. Interview in "Locus" is something like an interview in science fiction The Paris Review.

In addition to the interview in the magazine, of course, there are lots of news, obituaries, the results of the year in the February issue, as well as reviews.

"Locus" as it was as remains the most influential magazine in the world of SF and fantasy.