Hello from a new editor

Greetings and hallucinations! Paul's asked me to come on board as a new editor and so... here I am.

For those who don't know me, I'm the managing editor of Abandoned Towers Magazine which you can find at http://cyberwizardproductions.com/AbandonedTowers.

There's a wealth of science fiction floating around these days, so it surprises me to hear people occasionally claim that sci-fi is dead. Or dying. The problem seems to be that technology is almost moving faster than authors can keep up with. Back in the 1930's, an author could dream up fantastic inventions, and have plenty of time to write a few stories about them and get those stories published without having to worry about whether his inventions would be on the front page news in a week or two.

Now, however, the situation's changed and what is the stuff of imaginative dreams one day is for sale as Wallmart three weeks later or so it seems to me. This doesn't mean that sci-fi is dead, but it does make it challenging to write. After all, when your target audience can walk into their living room and pick up the fantastic gadget you thought you had dreamed up, they're going to know if it's functioning correctly in your story or not. And if it's not, they're going to consider you a hack writer... someone who doesn't research, sloppy and unprofessional.

But fortunately not every sci-fi author has thrown his hands up in despair and starting writing reality tv shows or travel blogs. There are still stalwart souls daring to dream about future-tech and spin fanciful tales about it, though in a number of cases they're drifting into the sci-fi subgenres and avoiding pure, had science. One of the more interesting sci-fi sub-genres is steampunk. If you aren't familiar with what that is, think Wild Wild West. Here are a couple of links that you might find interesting:

http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/28/creative-steampunk-art-and-fashion/
http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm

For a nice selection of science fiction, wander over to Abandoned Towers, enter the website, and click on the button labeled Science Fiction.