Fantasy & Science Fiction, Extended Edition [Kindle Edition]

For those of you who have never encountered this magazine before, it has been going since 1949 and has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, Locus, etc. awards for itself and the stories it has published. Its contents regularly reappear in the various 'Best of the Year' anthologies.

The writers who have appeared in its pages read like a who's who of the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror field and have included Stephen King, JG Ballard. Brian W. Aldiss, Robert Bloch, Lucius Shepard, Robert Silverberg, Fritz Leiber, Fred Pohl, Jack Vance and hundreds more.

Publishing a literate and sometimes literary blend of SF, Fantasy and Horror, it is worth much more than the 99p subscription price (UK readers). I already have a paper subscription and have also subscribed to the Kindle one; at this price it is worth the extra to have the convenience of a electronic edition. At the risk of stating the obvious you would be much better subscribing for three issues than buying a single copy.

Will post a paragraph giving a review of this particular issue once I've read it.

Give it a go!!

PS As pointed out in the comments it is 99p per month not issue, so £1.98 per issue.

I subscribed to the extended edition straight away, rather than the freer digest. I am really glad I did. The stories in the editions always make you think. Of course, you can't expect every story in every issue to be to your personal taste, but this does not detract from the overall excellence of the product.

I've read two editions so far and can't wait for the next one. The bi-monthly publishing cycle means I'll have some time to wait, but I know the wait will be worth it. Not a subscription I will be cancelling.

Magazines are one of the staples of science fiction, with many authors getting their first break from them before going on to writing full-length books. Trouble is, they're almost impossible to get hold of. Newsagents don't carry them. Some bookshops do - not many, but some - but they never promote them, instead on the rare occasions that I've found them they've been hiding amongst a load of fashion rubbish. Just about the only place you can reliably get them is in sci-fi specialists like Forbidden Planet, but even then you have to make sure you get to the shop on the right day every two months lest they sell out before you get there - and you have to put up with going to Forbidden Planet too.

So when I saw that Amazon were doing magazine subscriptions on the Kindle, and that one of those magazines was Fantasy & Science Fiction I didn't really have any choice, I had to buy it. And given that Kindle magazine subscriptions include the first copy for free it's a no-brainer.

And I'm so glad I did it. My first copy was chock full of well-written short stories. If one or two were a bit sub-par that doesn't really matter, especially given that once I start paying it'll only be £0.99 a month, about a third of what it costs on paper - it's an absolute bargain, and you should subscribe immediately.

F&SF is an excellent magazine and I was really excited to see that it is now available in a Kindle version. If you know of the mag you don't need me to tell you how good it is. If you don't know the magazine then trust me - it's good!!

I use Kindle for Android, and this is the first magazine sub I've taken out on this app, and I must say that although I love the magazine I'm very disappointed that you can't save your progress or bookmark a "page" so everytime I reopen the mag I have to scroll through to find my place, and when we're talking about novella's that's quite a lot of scrolling! It really destroys the Kindle experience for me.

This is just what the DR kindle ordered. Never mind mommyporn this is my guilty secret, I can sit on the bus to work read some scifi or a little fantasy and folk think I am reading something else. Asimov, Rodenberry et all envisioned folk using tablets instead of books in the future and the future is here and now and the magazines that started it all are still around and reaching new readers. Long may this work be around, it never fails to entertain.

This is excellent value: the extended edition presents a mix of Novella and Short Story length fiction. The standard of writting rarely falls below excellent and the stories cover a wide range of fantasy and SciFi genres. I suppose a note of warning is due; if you do favour a specific genre you may have to wait an issue or two for you preference to turn up, however I don't hesitate to recommend this magazine to anyone who appreciates good short fiction writing.

Loved this mag as a subscriber in the 70s and still love it! I've now received three issues and I can't really speak highly enough on its merits.

So far there have been at least three excellent short stories in each edition, an avarage not achieved by other sci-fi mags (I also receive Asimov's and Analog). I enjoy tremendously the fantasy/horror element in these magazines. Not at all what you would usually expect to find in a fantasy magazine.

The reason I have given the mag only four stars is the preponderance of 'erotic' short stories. In this week's edition, for example, there are three stories which contain 'adult only' messages at the beginning, so I avoided them. I may have missed something good, but I doubt it. Far more likely that I've avoided something distasteful.

That said, I don't want to put anyone off from subscribing. There are no less than five 'novelets', and seven short stories. That's excellent value for money and the bulk of it will be worth reading.