[Brewhaha]

I have recently discovered sub-novel level sci-fi and fantasy (i.e. novella, novellette, and short stories.) How is the best way to feed my addiction? Should I subscribe to magazines? If so, what magazines offer the best writing for the cost? Or should I stick to picking up anthologies? Are there some anthologies that you would recommend purchasing religiously every year?

[Ward]

Actually I'd recommend the first thing you do is buy collections from specific authors you like or have heard good things about, older sci-fi authors in particular tend to have a very large body of short story work. Names to look for in shorts are Bradbury, Ellison, Zelazny, Sheckley, Silverberg, Wolfe, Heinlein, Shepard, Le Guin, Knight, Kuttner & Moore, Cordwainer Smith, Clarke ... too many to name really, it all depends on what you like.

Magazines are good too, most now-a-days cater to lit-fic style sf and urban fantasy/ magical realism -- if that's your thing grab a copy of f&sf magazine or relams or asimov's. Analog still goes the hard sciences route, smaller magazines offer a different take on things (like weird tales). There are tons of small press horror mags if that is your thing. I'd always check out a few issues (some even offer free samples or whole issues on their website). Be wary of buying based on covers...many modern magazines liek to promise one style of story on the front while focusing on something else (Realms is a good example). If you don't like what's being offered in modern mags check out those classic authors at the top.

I'm not a tremendous fan of years best anthos myself, as I find them unwieldy and generally over-comprehensive. The one I enjoyed the most was the David Hartwell Year's Best SF paperbacks as they were managable and overall very well chosen. I never cared much for the Dozois or Datlow offerings (each in the neighborhood of a billion pages), but tastes vary of course.

[tdeanatoz@yahoo]

Brewhaha: I would first recommend, as you go along, to keep a list of which authors impress you the most, so that you can follow their stories as you see them come and go (my list includes Stephen Baxter, Nancy Kress, Ian R. MacLeod, Lucius Shepard, Michael Swanwick, David Marusek, etc.).

Both magazines and original anthologies provide good value; I often purchase Asimov's Science Fiction & The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as almost any original anthology that contains the authors I just listed. Right now, the original anthology scene is emerging from, in my opinion, a very weak period; hopefully, this will continue.

Probably the best place to get quality short fiction is from the annual Year's Best anthologies that Gardner Dozois, Ellen Datlow, David Hartwell, Jonathan Strahan and Rich Horton put out at various times of the year. Also, an awful lot of short fiction is put up on the internet for free reading and download; authorized hotlinks to them can be found at www.freesfonline.de, as well as Project Gutenberg and its Science Fiction Bookshelf.

One final piece of advice: don't be fooled by the fact that a piece of short fiction has won either the Hugo or the Nebula Award. This doesn't mean much of anything (at least, to me it doesn't).

[suciul]

There is a ton of free short fiction on the net (the link above is the best comprehensive, check also the archive for the original stories published by scifi.com)

There are 2 great sites for shorts reviews: www.bestsf.net, www.tangentonline.com.

Personally I prefer Asimov's to any other magazine, and of the recent original anthologies I found Lou Anders ones (Live Without a Net, Futureshocks, Fast Forward) the best overall, though I liked several others too (Solaris 2007, Forbidden Planets - both, Constellations, 1M AD).

Usually I check out Dozois annual, rarely the others, it's worth going to a good bookstore and browsing through them, see whichever if any tempts you. Also a good library system has many of these anthologies so that can be a way to try them.

Of upcoming stuff, Dozois has 2 new very tempting anthologies (New Space Opera and Galactic Empires??) coming this year that I will get, but again it's a matter of taste.

I have many single author/series collections too, but again that depends on taste a lot.

[Spacejock]

The thing with a magazine vs an anthology is that you generally pay a lot less per copy, and there are usually non-fiction pieces as well as reviews and news. I guess it's a bit like watching TV for the evening vs catching a movie - a different sort of entertainment.

(Disclaimer: I'm involved with Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, who publish a new issue every couple of months. We're a print mag, but we recently started offering PDF issues as well because of the cost of postage.)

[Avi_stetto]

I really like anthologies. They can be big, but they're comprehensive. I'm a college student, and my address changes often, so it is really inconvenient to subscribe to anything. There are a lot of e-zines out there, like Ray Gun Revival (http://www.raygunrevival.com/index.html), Heliotrope (http://www.heliotropemag.com/), and Strange Horizons (http://www.strangehorizons.com/), just to name a few. You can find a lot more at Spicy Green Iguana (http://www.spicygreenigquana.com).

Another tip: if you're a college student or have access to an academic library, you can log into the search engine Academic Search Premier. If you do a publications search, you can find free .pdfs of "Fantasy & Science Fiction" (http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/) on the 2nd page of the "F" section. I spent many a homework hour reading that rather than doing serious research.