Jonathan Dowland: Interzone's new home
The long running British1 SF Magazine Interzone has a new home and new editor,
Gareth Jelley, starting with issue 294.
It's also got a swanky new format ("JB6"): a perfect-bound, paperback novel
size, perfect for fitting into an oversize coat or jeans pocket for reading
on the train.
I started reading Interzone in around 2003, having picked up an issue
(#176) from Feb 2002 that was languishing on the shelves in Forbidden Planet.
Once I discovered it I wondered why it had taken me so long.
That issue introduced me to Greg Egan. I bought a number of back issues on
eBay, to grab issues with stories by people including Terry Pratchett, Iain
Banks, Alastair Reynolds, and others.
A short while later in early 2004, after 22 years, Interzone's owner and
editorship changed from David Pringle to Andy Cox and TTA Press. I can remember
the initial transition was very jarring: the cover emphasised expanding into
coverage of Manga, Graphic Novels and Video Games (which ultimately didn't
happen) but after a short period of experimentation it quickly settled down
into a similarly fantastic read. I particularly liked the move to a smaller,
perfect-bound form-factor in 2012.
I had to double-check this but I'd been reading IZ throughout the TTA era and
it lasted 18 years! Throughout that time I have discovered countless fantastic
authors that I would otherwise never have experienced. Some (but by no means
all) are Dominic Green, Daniel Kaysen, Chris Beckett, C cile Cristofari, Aliya
Whiteley, Tim Major, Fran oise Harvey, Will McIntosh.
Cox has now retired (after 100 issues and a tenure almost as long as Pringle)
and handed the reins to Gareth Jelley/MYY Press, who have published their first
issue, #294.
Jelley is clearly putting a huge amount of effort into revitalizing the
magazine. There's a new homepage at interzone.press
but also companion internet presences: a plethora of digital content at
interzone.digital, Interzone
Socials (a novel idea), a Discord server, a podcast,
and no doubt more.
Having said that, the economics of small magazines have been perilous for a long
time, and that hasn't changed, so I think the future of IZ (in physical format at
least) is in peril. If you enjoy short fiction, fresh ideas, SF/F/Fantastika; why
not try a subscription to Interzone, whilst you still
can!
- Interzone has always been "British", in some sense, but never exclusively so. I recall fondly a long-term project under Pringle to publish a lot of Serbian writer Zoran ivkovi , for example, and the very first story I read was by Australian Greg Egan. Under Jelley, the magazine is being printed in Poland and priced in Euros. I expect it to continue to attract and publish writers from all over the place.