Something seemed strange.
Last Saturday I checked the mail and found the latest issue of Shawna McCarthy's Realms of Fantasy. Hmmm . . . That's weird.
No.1 - - I wasn't a subscriber.
No.2 - - I thought it got cancelled.
I explained those away. I figured I'd heard wrong about the cancellation, and maybe it was a promotional copy. You know, a sample to get me hooked. I didn't know I was in for an even bigger surprise.
I was just finishing The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 which reprinted stories from 1999. I decided, "Hey! Now I'll review something current!" So, I opened Realms and saw something that nearly floored me.
The publisher's name.
Warren Lapine.
According to his account in Chronicle #233 (February/March 2003), Lapine started publishing in 1993 with a small press science fiction magazine called Harsh Mistress. Lapine walked into a bookstore and saw it shelved next to Hustler. He decided he needed a new name, and he settled on Absolute Magnitude. Among the stories published there was the Hal Clement story "Exchange Rate" which I discussed in my Year's Best Science Fiction review.
He met and married Angela Kessler. Together they started Dreams of Decadence, a magazine of vampire fiction and poetry. Lapine had teamed with Edward McFadden, editor/publisher of Pirate Writings, and decided to buy out McFadden. Then Lapine went a step further and changed Pirate Writings' name to Fantastic Stories after the famous SF/fantasy digest.
Buying established magazines and using established names became a pattern with Lapine's DNA. (BTW, he gave credit to various partners through out his tenth anniversary account of DNA's history.) For instance, Owlswick, had been publishing a revival of the renowned pulp Weird Tales. The revival was on the brink of collapse and had even lost the rights to the title Weird Tales. Lapine bought the magazine and got the rights to the title back. He seemed like a monopoly player using all his cash early on to buy every property he landed on.
I bought copies of the DNA Weird Tales and the occasional Fantastic Stories at the Holyoke, Massachusetts Barnes and Noble.
I'd subscribed to Andrew Porter's genre news magazine, Science Fiction Chronicle since 1992. DNA bought it from Porter and took over with #207 (August/September 2000). Lapine announced big plans, and in the early days he carried them out. Here are only a few examples most noticeable to me as a reader. Starting in 2001, Lapine switched the magazine back to a monthly schedule and got it out on time. The switch to glossy paper wasn't a big deal for me, but yes, he switched it to glossy paper. He also shortened the name to Chronicle. I wasn't too keen on that last one.
Porter was supposed to stay on as editor for a short time, but then he appeared to abruptly depart earlier than expected.
However, the issues came out monthly and on time. Plus, I enjoyed reading them.
Then signs of trouble appeared. I still bought Weird Tales at Barnes & Noble. One issue, I saw an announcement that Weird Tales was going monthly. The issue carrying the announcement was the last I ever saw at Barnes & Noble. It could have been just a single store changing its buying policy, right?
In 2004, DNA launched a magazine devoted to the rock band Kiss. Was DNA overreaching? Was it losing focus? Lapine already had another non-genre magazine. He'd bought and remade the floundering Whole Cat Journal.
I often wondered how Weird Tales was doing after it disappeared from the local Barnes & Noble. I kept thinking I should subscribe. Errr . . . well . . . Then I got Chronicle #261 (July 2005). Lapine announced that he'd sold Weird Tales to Wildside Press.
What was going on? Wasn't Weird Tales a core title, a prestigious name for someone building a small press genre empire?
I kept receiving Chronicle for a few more months, but they started arriving late. The last couple seemed downright irregular. Then they stopped arriving at all.
I wondered, had there been some kind of snafu with my subscription? I tried contacting DNA. No luck there.
Well, I figured that's one of the hazards of subscribing to small press magazines. Publishers burn out and disappear from the scene, or they run out of money. After all, a lot of these things do well if they just break even. For most fan publishers, it's a hobby. If they can minimize the losses enough to keep putting stuff out with money earned at a "real job," they keep going until enthusiasm runs out.
I was surprised it happened to Science Fiction Chronicle, (sorry, but that's the title by which I'll always remember it) but I harbored no ill will toward Lapine. I know many people didn't share my opinion, and that writers, artists, editors, and business associates had bigger stakes than I did. I resigned myself to thinking I'd lost my subscription money.
So there I was looking at Warren Lapine listed as Realms' new publisher. He called his new company Tir Na Nog. I think that's Gaelic for "Land of Eternal Youth."
I flipped to the publisher's note to see what was going on. Lapine glossed over DNA's collapse. Turns out that there had been a Facebook campaign to save Realms just when Lapine was returning to magazine publishing. Rather than revive Fantastic Stories first as planned, he bought Realms.
Then I found out why I got an issue of Realms. Lapine said, "Some of you've received Realms unexpectedly. You received it because you had unfilled subscriptions to the magazines that I used to publish- Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Fantastic Stories, and SFC. You'll get one copy of Realms for each issue you were owed. We're also seriously considering reviving several of those titles. If we do you'll still get the full amount of those magazines that you were owed, so ultimately you may get two issues for each one you paid for."
Maybe some of us who subscribed to those other magazines won't like the substitution.
Me?
I wish Science Fiction Chronicle was still going, but Realms intrigues me. I like fantasy. Plus, I'm at least getting something for the money I paid.
I'm glad Warren Lapine returned to genre publishing. Maybe he's learned some painful lessons and gained some knowledge which will help him to do better this time.
Welcome back, Warren.
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