The March issue of Amazing Stories is now available exclusively as an online download here.

It's $3 for non-subscribers, and free to current subscribers (though it doesn't count against your subscriptions).

It's a full-length magazine, packed with the same content that it would have had, had it been printed as a regular issue. It includes brand-new short fiction from Ben Bova, Robert Sheckley, George Zebrowski, and Sarah A. Hoyt, as well as articles on Constantine, Clive Barker, Jeff Smith (Bone), A Sound of Thunder, and Son of the Mask. As usual, the issue is rounded out with news, reviews, a crossword, a Q&A with Lucius Shepard, and more.

Click here for details, and to purchase the issue.

We're still working on the future of Amazing Stories, though we don't have anything specific to announce at the moment. Rest assured, when there's news, it'll be posted here first.

-Vic.
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Paizo Publishing, LLC, publisher of special-interest gaming and entertainment magazines DRAGON®, DUNGEON®, Undefeated® and Amazing Stories™, announced today that it will temporarily suspend publication of two of its titles—Amazing Stories and Undefeated. Despite respectable sales and increasing circulation, both periodicals face substantial market pressures and competition. Paizo intends to use the break to explore unique opportunities to revamp and reposition each magazine.

“We remain quite proud of these titles, and are presently considering a number of options that should provide a long and exciting future for both magazines,” says Lisa Stevens, co-owner and CEO of Paizo Publishing. “Both Amazing Stories and Undefeated are doing well in their respective niches; nevertheless, we believe that they could be even more successful. We certainly value the support our subscribers and regular readers have shown to Amazing Stories and Undefeated, and we hope that this hiatus will be brief.”

Amazing Stories #608 went on sale January 4, with Undefeated scheduled to reach newsstands on January 18. These will be the last regular issues printed prior to the hiatus. As Paizo is still developing plans for the continued publication of both magazines, at this time subscriptions are not automatically being cancelled or transferred to other titles. Subscribers wishing to cancel their subscriptions can contact Paizo Publishing at customer.service@paizo.com. Plans are also underway for subscribers and visitors to the Paizo e-commerce store--http://paizo.com/--to obtain an exclusive e-copy of Amazing Stories #609 in early February. Back issues of both magazines are also available at the http://paizo.com/ Web site.

Amazing Stories 608 is scheduled to ship from the printer this week, so we'll be posting the cover image and contents tomorrow.

When we first began planning the new incarnation of Amazing Stories, one of the definition statements I came up with was that I want Amazing to be the kind of magazine that can have Jennifer Garner on the cover, and an interview with J.J. Abrams (creator of Alias) inside.

Well, I got my wish with Amazing 608. Admittedly, Jennifer Garner is on the cover not for Alias, but for Elektra; nevertheless, as I told writer Kevin Dilmore as he was working on the assignment, the J.J. Abrams feature is the story that the new incarnation of Amazing Stories was literally born to run.

-Vic.
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After more than two weeks of intense activity, we've finally got issue 608 pretty much finished and almost off to the printer. Though we can't reveal the contents just yet, rest assured, it has some truly exciting content (and that's not just marketing hype).

Yet, as refreshing as it is to have that hurdle nearly behind us, perhaps the best feeling we got this week came from reading a wonderful review of issue 605 posted on YBFREE.com, a fun pop-culture Webzine. We were also recently critiqued at Tangent Online, a leading science-fiction review site, and we know a number of other print and electronic publications have got reviews on the way. Of those pieces that we have read thus far, nearly every review has been quite positive, which helps to confirm that we're on the right track with what we're doing.

However, as always, we know we can't do it without you, and we're eager to hear your input. Things get busy sometimes, and we may not post on the blog as often as we'd like (a situation that should change after the holiday crunch), but we're always reading and checking in on what's being said.

We care about science fiction, fantasy and supernatural storytelling, and know you do, too. Slowly but surely, we're making a difference.

Jeff

Sorry it's been so long since we updated the blog - things are a bit hectic here at Amazing Stories. Jeff, the new EIC, is still in the process of moving to Seattle, so we've had to telecommute with him for the past few weeks. He's in the offices for a week before heading back one last time before his early December move.

In the meantime, Theresa, the art director, is prepping for a short leave of absence, so we're trying to get as far ahead as we can while she's still here.

We're continuing to project ever further into the future, and now have a pretty solid feature list though issue 613, though fiction isn't slotted much further into the future than 610.

We're wrapping up 608 in the next few days, and it's looking very good.

607 should be in the postal system right now - we've posted the cover image and contents here. When you get your copy, let us know what you think on the messageboards!

-Vic.
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The Amazing Stories slush pile is a topic that interests a lot of people, so I thought I'd provide some statistics about what we see in it.

Since we started accepting submissions, we've reviewed over four hundred fiction manuscripts. We've got almost two hundred more queued up, and our current average turnaround time is 115 days. (Some of the more promising candidates take a week or two longer to turn around, since they circulate among the editors, and may be debated before their fate is determined.) We'd like to get that down to under sixty days within the next couple of months.

Nearly seventy-five percent of the submissions have netted our standard rejection letter. Around twenty percent of the submissions have received a different form letter that encourages the writer to submit another story. About five percent have merited personal notes in addition to the standard encouraging letter. And about one percent of the unsolicited manuscripts have been accepted for publication.

Are you thinking of submitting something to Amazing Stories? Check out our submission guidelines. Don't forget the cover letter and SASE!

-Vic.
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We had a useful meeting today, and managed to look further ahead in the life of Amazing Stories than we ever have before. 607 is nearly done; 608 is pretty solid, and text should be coming in in the next couple of weeks; the features for 609 are almost finalized; 610 is halfway there; and we even have a good idea about what our cover feature for 611 will be.

In the meantime, 606 is shipping... the details on it can be found here.

Have you got your copy yet? Let us know what you think on the message boards.

-Vic.
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It's been a hectic few days here at ye olde Amazing Stories editorial offices, with meetings and planning sessions and, of course, editing! It's not even Halloween yet and we're already planning those issues that will appear early next year. We've got a lot of ideas, but of course want to hear your thoughts, too. Any movies you're hot to find out more about? Books you're just dying to read? Upcoming comic book series that you and your friends are already talking about? Let us know, and we'll do our best to find out more and report back to you!

As for the future, well, I can't let too much out of the bag, but rest assured we've got some great fiction coming up, some insightful feature stories about new films, books, and DVDs, and tons of really well-informed reviews. Rest assured, if you thought Amazing Stories was already great, you're going to be in for a treat.

Still, I think things could be improved. In fact, in second grade, whenever I got a good grade, my teacher would tell me "There's always room for improvement." Which, I guess, is sort of like Han telling Luke, "Don't get cocky, kid!" We're awfully proud of what we've done thus far, but we know there are a lot of ways to make Amazing Stories better.

Let me know what you think by e-mailing me at amazing@paizo.com — I'll be listening ...

Jeff B.
Editor-in-Chief

I've been working night and day (literally) here at Paizo and Amazing Stories for a few days now, and am just now finding a few minutes to take a breather and post a blog entry ... something I had hoped to do almost immediately after the press release announcing my hiring went out earlier this week. So I regret that it has taken me a couple of days to get the chance to properly introduce myself. For those who've never worked behind-the-scenes at a magazine, there are an amazing (no pun intended) number of details that need to be addressed.

First off, I have to give huge kudos to Jenny Scott, Vic Wertz and Theresa Cummins, the editorial team here at Amazing Stories, for both doing such a great job keeping things running comparatively smoothly following the departure of the previous EIC and for being so welcoming to me as the "new kid on the block." And I also want to thank all of you for posting such great thoughts and ideas on the messageboards. Believe me, we all read what's written, and we've already had a couple of great discussions about issues and concerns brought up on the site.

I also want to strongly encourage each of you, if you haven't done so already, to take the online Amazing Stories survey. The magazine is very much a "work in progress," and we want to make it something that really is meaningful and worthwhile to as many potential readers as possible. Your input will genuinely impact the future direction of the publication. In fact, you'll already see some minor changes starting early next year that we believe will make Amazing Stories that much more vital and vibrant.

Anyhow, I think I've rambled enough on my blog debut. I'll be checking in again soon — in the meantime, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts, concerns, and ideas concerning Amazing Stories!

Jeff Berkwits

Busy week here at Amazing!

Our new EIC will be starting in the office next week. I can't name names until we do a press release, but his name will be familiar to those who read Amazing Stories closely.

We were able to start working up issue 608 (January) during a series of conference calls. I personally had three features to assign to writers yesterday, and all three writers were onboard within minutes, and were already chasing down the contacts on our editorial wishlist for each article. In short, it went as smoothly as we could have ever hoped.

We're even managing to make some headway into the slush pile. Currently, we're reading stuff that came in about three months ago - we'd like to get that turnaround time quartered.

One of the challenges of our slush pile is that, on the whole, the quality is pretty good. We don't run into many submissions that get rejected after reading one or two pages - we end up reading the whole story almost all of the time. That's good if you're a writer, but bad if you're a reader trying to get through a stack in a reasonable amount of time.

-Vic.
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Things have been pretty hectic for Paizo, and for the Amazing Stories staff lately.

The company moved to new offices this past weekend. Our last day in the old building was last Thursday, and the first day in the new building was Monday. Unfortunately, our handoff for issue 606 was Friday, so that meant we had to accelerate our efforts to get things done in time. Dave Gross also decided to make our last day in the old office his last day on the job, so he didn't have to unpack - lucky him.

We had our second round of interviews for the new editor in chief scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, so we barely had time to unpack until yesterday.

The new space is a great environment for us, but there are the occasional problems with things not quite being right yet. For example, we don't have blinds on all of the windows yet, and it has been somewhat sunny, so it's hard to see our computer screens for a couple of hours each day.

Having wrapped up 606, Jenny, Theresa, and I had to switch into gear for issue 607, which is coming together very well at the moment.

We also got the reader survey assembled - it's now online here, and we'd love for you all to take it - especially once you've received and digested issue 605.

We'll talk more later.

-Vic.
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Amazing Stories 605 is due to start shipping to subscribers this week, so I think it's time to let you in on the contents.

Our cover story is the Star Wars Trilogy DVD release, and other features include Hallmark Channel's upcoming Frankenstein movie, an interview with comics writer Geoff Johns on Green Lantern's rebirth, a look at movie remakes, an interview with Frederik Pohl, and a Q&A with Greg Keyes.

This issue's fiction includes James Van Pelt, Roger Rabbit creator Gary K. Wolf, Greg Stolze, and Leslie What, and Jack Williamson is the author of this issue's "1000 Words" feature.

Of course, you get the usual reviews, letters, editorial, and a particularly dastardly crossword puzzle.

Subscribers should be getting the issue in the next week or two; Amazing Stories 605 reaches newsstands in the beginning of October.

We're still looking for good suggestions for the Amazing Stories gift guide coming up in the December issue, so if you know of any great new products that other Amazing readers would love to learn about, drop a note to amazinggiftguide@paizo.com.

We're looking for new products that generally wouldn't find their way into the "Reviews" section, so, for example, the new complete Bone collection will be in there, but the Return of the King extended DVD won't.

Randomly selected useful suggestions will be rewarded with stuff from the Amazing swag pile.

Thursday is the last day to make suggestions!

-Vic.
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When I was a wee lad, I wanted to be a cowboy ... at least before realizing an astronaut is far cooler. When I started becoming a bookworm, I figured writing would be the perfect job. In my teens, I put together little fanzines and fancied myself an editor, and in college I began to think a professorial career would be the ultimate, so I began teaching.

Playing a part in bringing Amazing Stories back to life has been one of the most satisfying challenges of my career, but as the Lone Ranger says, "My work here is done." Out of the blue, one of my favorite video game companies inquired whether I'd be interested in turning to writing full-time. While the past ten years of wrangling the words of others has been great fun, the prospect of working on a team herding those words toward a big, spectacular project is too good to pass up. Thus, I'll wrap up Amazing 605 and get issue 606 out of the gate before moseying along.

It's hard to leave Amazing, Paizo, and Seattle, but I'm thinking of the change as the next stage of a career that seems to take a significant turn every ten years. The way my childhood dream jobs keep coming true in reverse order, I should be colonizing mars by age fifty, then roaming the range until riding into the sunset.

Cheers,

Dave Gross
Editor-in-Chief
Amazing Stories

I've just returned from Gen Con, where we distributed copies of Amazing Stories to tens of thousands of attendees, met a handful of people interested in writing for us, and even sold a few subscriptions!

Right now we're working at wrapping up issue 605, and starting up issue 606.

Details on 605 will be forthcoming over the next couple of weeks.

-Vic.
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The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame has posted an interview with Dave regarding Amazing Stories.

Read it here.

-Vic.
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So, the Amazing Stories blog hasn't been updated as much as we'd like, and much of that is due to the rather arcane assortment of scripts and tools that had to be used to add entries to our old website.

With our slick new site, making a blog entry is now [almost] as easy as creating a messageboard posting, so hopefully you'll see more frequent updates to the blog.

-Vic.

Amazing Stories 604 is heading to subscribers now.

You can get a look at the cover and contents here.

-Vic.
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Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the lads behind Shaun of the Dead, showed off an extended trailer at Comic Con International: San Diego. That was enough to make me insist on accompanying one of our local reviewers for the screening yesterday, and without spoiling his review I must declare it joins my other two favorite horror comedies (Evil Dead 2 and Mr. Vampire) in an unholy trinity of hilarity.

Conventional wisdom is that horror films are one of the types best suited to low-budget productions, but if the story is good, and it's supported by a good director and cast, I think a low-budget science-fiction or fantasy film can be a breath of fresh air in a field dominated by mega-million blockbusters buoyed by CGI and a star's name on the marquee. My favorite SF movie this year was the (relatively) lower-budget Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Can you recommend a good, low-budget fantasy or SF movie? Tell us about it.

Dave

Of course, Amazing Stories wouldn't be worthy of the name without fiction from the finest authors, so we've got plenty of that. Amazing 603 includes "Proof," by Timothy Zahn; "The Spider's Amazement," by Bruce Sterling; "Human Subjects," by Ray Vukcevich; and "Monster," by Gene Wolfe.

A regular component of our fiction will be "1,000 Words," in which we provide an author with a picture, and the author tells us which thousand words it's worth. The first installment is a little unusual, as Neil Gaiman provided an 800-word introduction to a 200-word story by Harlan Ellison®, "Loose Cannon, or Rubber Duckies from Space."

We've begun to hear that Amazing Stories 603 is now appearing on newsstands nationwide.

Have you seen it yet? Tell us what you think.

In addition to news, letters, devilish puzzles by Mike Selinker, and a couple of other columns, we're planning to wrap up each issue with a one-page Q&A. The subject for Amazing 603 is Larry Niven, who spoke with Darrell Schweitzer about fantasy, reality, and the future.

Apart from the crossword, what sorts of puzzles (trivia, matching, and so forth) would you enjoy in Amazing Stories?

We have one feature that doesn't fit the issue's found theme. It's "The Phases of Robert Silverberg," by Dorman T. Shindler. Silverberg's personality comes through strongly as the award-winning author talks about a life dedicated to the printed page.

Which of your favorite authors would you like Amazing Stories to interview?

Remember that Amazing Stories 603 hits stands on August 3, and you can subscribe right here.

The last feature for Amazing 603 that ties in to our accidental theme is "A Dimension of Sound," by Jeff Berkwits. It's about new radio adaptations of the original Twilight Zone teleplays. Amazing talks to the series writer, as well as one of the producers, a few of the stars, and even one of the original screenwriters whose work is being translated to the auditory realm.

What is your favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, and why?

Not all of our features are about making movies based on comics. One of them is about making comics based on prose! "Four-Color Fantasy," by Dave Gross, is about Dabel Brothers Productions, a new comics company that's adapting fantasy stories into the realm of sequential art. Author George R.R. Martin talks about the reasons he let them bring "The Hedge Knight" to life, and the Dabels provide a brief peek at other works based on stories by other huge names in fantasy.

Tell us if you're more or less likely to pick up a fantasy comic than a superhero comic.

Another inadvertently themed feature in Amazing 603, the first new issue since 2000, is "Redoing the Dark Knight," by Joel Meadows, in which screenwriter David Goyer explains how he'll bring Batman back to basics in the upcoming Batman Begins. He talks about inspirations expected (Frank Miller) and not (think "Wayne... Bruce Wayne"), and he discusses how Bats relates to the title character of his other upcoming comics flick, Blade: Trinity.

What are your hopes about the new Batman movies?