SciFiNow? HopeNot

I wandered into Forbidden Planet today and was surprised to see that Imagine Publishing have launched a new glossy SF magazine in an attempt to rival the increasingly decrepit and creatively bankrupt SFX.  Called SciFiNow, the magazine has some quite long features on Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Spiderman 3.  Aside from these features, the mag has a number of  sections such as reviews, a couple of columns, some historical stuff, the traditional spoilers  and a TV guide telling us what SFnal stuff is due to appear on our tellyboxes in the near future.

Cosmetically, the magazine's 148 pages make it feel a good deal more substantial than SFX.  The large number of rubrics and features give the impression of a magazine that has some proper content to it rather than the series of pictures and adverts that makes up its chief rival.  However, visually speaking, SciFiNow is catastrophic.  Despite proclaiming "We are different" on the editorial page, the magazine looks just like SFX and shares its horribly busy design and organisation.  This actually makes some articles difficult to concentrate on as you're trying to read text that's constantly interrupted with graphics, trivia and other sundry comments.  Having read a number of the pieces, I actually suspect that this graphical style might also be influenced by a need to pad out the ambitiously large 150 pages of the magazine.  If you were to lay this magazine out in a more traditional manner, I suspect that it would struggle to fill 60 pages once you took the adverts out.

Editorially, SciFiNow is desperately timid.  Its features on various TV series are completely content to trot out received opinion.  Lost is panned for having a "vague narrative" (whatever that means... Lost actually has a very strong cliff-hanger and flash-back based narrative structure), BSG is praised for being a bit morally ambiguous and talking about politics and the piece on Heroes is evasive because it was clearly written quite a while ago forcing the piece's uncredited writer to platitudinously gush.  The individual pieces' edgeless received opinions are then repeated back in Matthew Handrahan's plodding ode to how great TV is at the moment.  Indeed, this slightly patronising attempt at sub-cultural cheerleading suffuses most of the magazine including a column by genre journalist MJ Simpson.  An insightful reviewer and thoughtful writer, Simpson is a man who conjures up words such as "solid", "respected" and "dependable".  Watching him attempt to get people excited about SF by telling them in quite a patronising way that they're not all freaks and weirdoes is a bit like watching a policeman dancing at the Notting Hill Carnival.  His heart's in the right place clearly but there's something just... wrong... with this picture.  As poor as Simpson's first column may be, it is nonetheless better than that of Gray Nicholson (who?) who devotes his column to plugging a website that allows you to buy clothes similar to those that appear in TV shows.

Critically, SciFiNow is incredibly hit and miss.  Graham Taylor ("Do I Not Like That!") does well with a couple of nicely bitchy but competent film reviews. while magazine editor Aaron Asadi provides the magazine's stand out review with a nicely nuanced and intelligent luke-warm review of Pan's Labyrinth.  Unfortunately though, these well written accessible reviews are immediately off-set by the likes of Craig Gilmore's witless review of Bong Joon-Ho's The Host in which he criticises the intentionally genre-breaking film for refusing to stick within the safe formulae of genre cinema.  Matthew Handrahan also shows that he is no more edgy a reviewer than he is a feature writer with his predictably hagiographic review of the new DVD edition of the LOTR trilogy while Daniel Pearce bizarrely comments that Sunshine's premise is far fetched... unlike the TV series featuring a man traveling through time in a phone box whose picture graces the magazine's front cover.  While the quality of SciFiNow's reviews is decidedly uneven, their choice of things to review is downright depressing.  This magazine only contains one new book review and it's of Jeffrey Thomas' undemanding, predictable but perfectly readable populist thriller Deadstock.  Indeed, the "Books and Comics" section is only three pages long and in this issue two of those pages are devoted to reviewing reprinted collections of old comics.  Hopefully, this lack of interest in reviewing books is a one-off aberration due to a lack of ARCs, but seeing as the staff on the magazine is mostly culled from a DVD review magazine, I would not be surprised if the editor actually has little knowledge or interest in reading SF books.  Hopefully the situation will improve with the second issue as the ARCs start to flood in and the editor finds people to write book reviews, but if issue one's reviews policy is a reflection of the future of the magazine then SciFiNow is doing not just SF fans but the genre itself a grave disservice.

Comments

[Martin]

I think it is quite telling that the editorial describes this as a "magazine where we can explore the very best franchises." Only later in the list of things to explore come films and books.

As you say there is nothing really to distinguish it from SFX and I doubt the market is big enough to support two such similar magazines. The only difference seems to be that despite being called ScFiNow - a rotten name - it actually covers "sci-fi, fantasy, horror and cult tv", which explains the presence of reviews of Casino Royale and Peeing Tom. Sort of. This also presumably explains how the "premier science-fiction magazine's team shout about their favourite literary sci-fi stories" feature includes The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy And Other Stories.

Oh, and the juxtaposition of MJ Simpson and Gray Nicholson columns is rather unfortunate, isn't it?

[Martin]

Daniel Pearce bizarrely comments that Sunshine's premise is far fetched...

Well, he's not wrong, is he? The fact that Doctor Who is an irrideemably stupid children's fantasy doesn't mean that SF films get a free pass with regards to plausibility. Pearce's view of the film is actually pretty similar to my own, it is just a shame his review is so cliched and poorly written.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

As you say there is nothing really to distinguish it from SFX and I doubt the market is big enough to support two such similar magazines.

Visually that's definitely the case. As for content, since I've had more of a think about the magazine I've kind of come to the conclusion that unless the content determined by external factors (lack of ARCs etc) then SciFiNow is different to SFX, but not in a good way.

A good niche magazine should be like a good record store. The store should have what you wanted when you walked in but it should also be able to turn you on to a load of other things you might not have heard of. SciFiNow doesn't seem in the least bit interested in doing this, in fact it barely acknowledges the idea that there are SF books.

The review of Peeping Tom was completely out of context in the magazine. Its only justification for being there that it's about killing people.

Oh, and the juxtaposition of MJ Simpson and Gray Nicholson columns is rather unfortunate, isn't it?

Excellent :-) Yes, I hadn't noticed that. "We're not all freaks... but if you do want to dress up like the cheerleader from Heroes, here are the websites likely to sell outfits".

Well, he's not wrong, is he? The fact that Doctor Who is an irrideemably stupid children's fantasy doesn't mean that SF films get a free pass with regards to plausibility

True, but if you're dealing with SF, Fantasy and Horror specifically "it's far fetched" isn't really that interesting a comment to make. I think it's reflective of the fact that Pearce is probably a film buff rather than an SF fan.

I'm aware that SF people have tended to give Sunshine a bit of a panning but I think you're all wrong. I think that there's quite a bit going on in it. The plot's a series of ideas stolen from other films but there is some interesting haecceity to it.

I'm planning on reviewing it in Scalpel.

[Martin]

I'm aware that SF people have tended to give Sunshine a bit of a panning

Take that back! I am no more an SF person than you are. It is true though that I think it is a stupid film that squanders all its promise and ends up being rather shit.

I'm planning on reviewing it in Scalpel.

I look forward to this. There is also a review forthcoming from Adam Roberts in Strange Horizons.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

What I meant was that the usual bloggers have all turned their noses up at it.

I think the film is nice 00's response to the weird reconstructed mysticism of Clarke. It's all about the beauty and horror of living in a vast and indifferent universe and how people who devote themselves to religion are dangerously missing the point... life has the meaning that we project onto it.

all the plot stuff is largely window dressing. The real meat of the film is the visuals and the subtext.

[Graham]

Without wanting to do the tokenism dance, are there any women who've contributed to the magazine?

[Jonathan McCalmont]

That's a very trendy question you have there Graham ;-)

The problem with SciFiNow is that a large chunk of its reviews and features are not credited, so it's difficult to get a complete picture of who writes for them.

Having said that, I do seem to remember having seen a female name in the reviews section, though I couldn't confirm that given that I don't have my copy to hand anymore.

[Martin]

Claire Weaver is a contributor and there are several other female contributors. Two of the four staff members are women as well.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Ah, that's the value of keeping magazines one has read.

By and large these types of magazines tend to be quite representative. SFX has loads of women on staff (though interestingly, I don't think they've ever had a female editor).

[Mr Fantastic]

I think you've largely missed the point, and I think that SciFiNow does indeed have many points of difference with SFX. Plus, another glossy magazine in the market is a good thing. It feels like it's trying to expand the genre's interest to more people, and that can only be a good thing. It's easy to get pompus about this bit I say give it a go. It feels enthusastic and is not up it's arse like SFX.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I think SciFiNow does the exact opposite of what you're praising it for. I think it brings the boundaries of genre further in in a desperate attempt to pander to people.

You like BSG? we've got LOADS of BSG!

You like Doctor Who? We've got LOADS of Doctor Who!

Book reviews? not so much... but who reads when they could be watching Heroes right kids?

At least SFX has book reviews and interviews with writers. SciFiNow has thus far produced ONE book review and a poorly researched history of the genre.