Tag Archives: books

The Days When You Could Read Everything

Image captured from Amazon

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Periodically, I get emails from Reactor Magazine. I must have signed up for them once upon a time. I usually scan the article titles and then delete the email unless something especially captures my attention. After all, so much of science fiction and fantasy targets an audience other than me.

But today, I saw the article When Did SFF Get Too Big?. The subtitle is, “Is it possible to pinpoint the moment when readers stopped being able to keep up with their favorite genres?”

I didn’t know this had ever been an expectation. That is, I hadn’t realized that lovers of science fiction and fantasy were supposed to read each and every title produced in the genre in a given year. Especially if you’re talking about reading all these books just as they’re published (brand new), that’s a lot of money to shell out (maybe some will end up in the “New Titles” section of the public library, but still…). How do you know you’re going to like each and every book? What if you know that some authors generally produce dreck but keep getting published anyway?

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What the Heck is a “Neffy Award?”

neffy

Screen capture of a portion of Mike Glyer’s online fanzine “File 770”

Having (finally) successfully subscribed to Mike Glyer’s File 770 online SciFi fan newzine, I find that most of what this rather prolific blog puts out doesn’t catch much of my interest. Of course, with WorldCon Dublin coming up next month, a lot of the content is focused there. They also put out a tremendous number of articles about various awards, again, most of which I don’t have an interest in.

However, I did pause to read Neffy Award Ballot Is Out. I’d never heard of the Neffy Awards, so I looked them up.

But before that, I took a look at the ballot, which lists science fiction and fantasy works nominated in a number of categories. They include Best Novel, Best Shorter Work, Best Book Editor, Fanzine, TV Show, Movie, Anime, and so forth. Needless to say, I didn’t recognize any of the names and most of the category entries. Oh, I have heard of “Game of Thrones” and I used to watch “Supergirl,” but that was about it. This reminded me that as a “fan,” I’m probably really lacking in keeping up with what’s current (to find out what I’ve been reading and watching lately, go to my Reviews page).

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