Shayol's Pandora - I is in German!

Gott im Himmel!

I have been translated into German!

Yesterday morning I received in the post a copy of the third issue of Pandora, a rather impressive German language periodical dealing with SF and Fantasy.  If you sprechen sie  the lingo you can buy a copy of it HERE from the Shayol website.

The zine is edited by Hannes Riffel and Jakob Schmidt and it contains short fiction as well as articles and my review of Peter Watts' Blindsight (translated by Sara Riffel)

Hats off to Hannes and Jakob as the zine itself is really fantastic to look at.  It has great art as well as a clear, uncluttered and yet stylish lay-out and the content seems good too.  I get the impression that they only do one issue a year but I'm very impressed with what I've seen.  I don't think my work has ever looked better or been in more august company.

I wonder if this publication model would work in English?

Comments

[Adam Roberts]

I got my contibutor's copy today. Amazing, isn't it? There don't seem to be any adverts, it's lavishly illustrated on good quality paper throughout, its content looks (from my v. limited German) consistently intelligent. "I wonder if this publication model would work in English" ... Unless they're charging £75 quid a copy, I don't see how it works in any language ... works commercially, I mean.

[CB]

Since I have yet to see an issue of this magazine in any store, including the big railroad station bookstore which carries any magazine imaginable, I strongly suspect that their business model won't be viable for too long. For the moment, it seems that Pandora is relying on subscriptions and direct orders via the publisher's website. Since the company also publishes books (some interesting titles there, too), maybe the book business keeps the magazine afloat. But then the books aren't the most commercial of offerings either.

Plus, the price of 14.90 EUR per issue is extremely steep for a magazine. For comparison, an issue of SFX, SciFiNow or DeathRay used to cost me between 10 and 12 EUR at inflated import prices, before I gave up on those mags. Of course, Pandora appeals to a different audience than more commercial mags like SFX. But for another comparison, an issue of "Der Stint", a well produced German language lit mag, costs 7.90 EUR, i.e. half of an issue of Pandora. At that price, the content has to be truly exceptional, especially considering that it would cost less to buy a copy of Blindsight (9.57 EUR at Amazon Germany) than to read your review of it.