Forgotten Fiction

Life Naturally I spent today looking for displacement activities which included a visit to Liverpool University for a book sale and found a copy of the 24th edition of The Saturday Book an annual publication that ran from 1941-1975. It's an anthology of writing on a range of random topics from women painters to the old school tie and includes the reason for my interest an essay by Brian Aldiss on SF Art. It's very much in the mode of the article Dave Langford writes for SFX Magazine and includes extraordinary images from the covers of contemporary sci-fi fiction magazines.



Within Aldis talks about the golden age, when WH Smiths would stock dozens of different magazines, from Amazing Stories to if granted of various quality but still very impressive and generally readable. Of course these were superceded by comic books and eventually, now I suppose, dvds and books are far cheaper and more readily available.

Could a mass market textual fiction magazine be successful now provided it was marketed right and featured shorts or serials from top writers and a nice cover? It needn't be genre specific and might even make a virtue of the fact that it'll cater for a range of audiences at the same time tucking into the crossovers that seem to exist now in media. Oooh and it could include existing franchises such as Life On Mars next to original material as an incentive. It could look something like this:



Meanwhile I received an invited for a preview screening of a new film in London which is 'solely for influential bloggers such as yourself'. I can't go obviously but the real question is -- am I really? Now and then I have received screeners for things, which accounts for odd random review for Region One dvd titles you'll sometimes see here. But it's odd to be called 'influential'. Sure, it's marketing flattery and graciously received but once again it makes me wonder who and exactly how many people are reading. It's sure to go to my head. Hello to all my many readers...