A month ago, Gordon Van Gelder offered 20 free copies of the Oct/Nov 2008 Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine to enterprising bloggers who wished to review it—a chance to see what people liked and disliked, and what might convince people to subscribe (or keep buying issues off the news stand, or whatever, but subscription is obviously ideal).

This is very kind, especially since the bloggers for this particular promotion (including yours truly) get to review the special anniversary all-star issue. So I decided, what the heck: let’s really go in depth. Let’s write up an entire series reviewing this special issue. There’s so much stuff here, ladies and gentlemen, that I don’t feel comfortable simply giving this a one-off post. And besides, there probably aren’t that many readers of F&SF, now or potential future ones, who actually read a new issue all in one night. It’s like a box of chocolates to be spread out over a week or so—especially if we’re talking the special annual.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

So let’s start with what may seem to be a trivial aspect of any magazine, but is a strong part of what makes someone decide to pick any particular issue off the news stands (and thus possibly subscribe) ((You know. Apart from being a writer who wants to get something published in one of the big three. That’s not a sustainable audience.)) : first impressions.

For a good first impression is why, a year ago—in fact, exactly a year ago—I bought an issue of F&SF from a Borders magazine stand and discovered the wonder that is Ted Chiang. That first impression is what encouraged me to buy the next issue after that, the 2007 Oct/Nov All-Star anniversary issue. Of course, first impressions don’t last, which is why I didn’t bother buying F&SF again after the… general, but not total, fail… of last year’s anniversary issue. Which just goes to show that even if you get an all-star anniversary issue of anything, it might all be nougat centers in your chocolate box. And I hate nougat.

So let’s do some comparisons here. And this is going to be a bit picture-spammy, so I’m putting the rest of this article below the cut.

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