M. B. Barlow.com

Short stories in magazines are often a mismatch, different authors mean different styles and to a lot of people they simply cannot read in a style that they are not used to so constantly flipping between them is off-putting. I used to be like that but now, not so much.

Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show is an online magazine, or an “e-zine” if you prefer…these things never seem to get official titles. Published magazines and newspapers have been around for generations and are dying out in favour of websites and I don’t say any kind of revival happening soon. Papers can’t compete with the ability to read new as it happens and magazines certainly can’t compete with the ability to read your favourite magazine on your laptop or even your phone. They will die out and there is nothing that can stop this from happening. It’s a little sad when browsing through Borders at all the mags goes, replaced by googling them, but it is the future and we should all get ready for it.

Whether books will go the same way as print mags and papers are we are still to see.

I haven’t subscribed to the magazine yet but after reading this collection, a sort of best of, I certainly will. Some stories are excellent while others are just okay, that’s to be expected from any collection, while I just skipped one. One story in particular, To Know All Things That Are in the Earth by James Maxey, was absolutely phenomenal. It was about angels that come to Earth and take people, ultimately hundreds of thousands, apparently at random. This changed whole world politics and the idea of religion to its core. It was so well written and such a great story that I’m searching out for the novels that he has written and he’s also got a blog which I think you should check out.

There’s also some very good stories from Card himself, all set within the Ender’s universe–one of my favourite series of novels, something else you should check out.

The book has some great stories  in it and I recommend it.