The Worth of Publishing Editorial by John Thiel Is it worthwhile publishing a computer magazine? Gardner Dozois brought up the subject of whether a sci-fi life is worth one's time or is of any worth to others in an article he posted at the IASFM site, and it seems the subject may be one of existential concern for many computer users. I'd say, myself, that it is a worthwhile enterprise; I think possibly I would cease doing it if I didn't see some value in it. There's no monetary profit here, but that's compensated for by the wherewithal being provided by the Internet, which puts one in the same position a substantial profit would do. I've found a lot to be said for working on the Internet. For one thing, I have a new accumulation of acquaintances, many of them in the science fiction mode, and if real life has been providing me with new acquaintances (which it should do), it has not provided any sf acquaintances, which would be a difficult thing for it to do, except maybe story-wise. But look at who I have around me now, if you can! There's Deep Bora, Jerry Infinity, Alien Hunter, Huey Boon and even a Russian lady who is the head of a science fiction club in Russia. I can get a discussion with professional writers and editors at the forums, and I don't even know who I would choose first as an acquaintance at such sites as futurenoir. Oh yes, and Sentroid at scifi.com will give me a sign of recognition if I give him one. It may just be my fancy, but I imagine I have even done the impossible and struck up a conversation with scribe and Snoopy at Dominion. They said it couldn't be done! Considering that right here at home I have also Cassandra, whom visitors to the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in 1991 could have witnessed in my company, I think I must be living in an sf world at that, and rather successfully as well when all things are gotten together. The fourth issue of a magazine is less a new thing, and I'm almost done talking about how it came into existence, but I just want to say for the record that SURPRISING seems to be making out fairly well. We've got a counter at our website, and, although it doesn't always register visitors, by scientific test, it does have us up into the brackets that it is well for a magazine to be in. SURPRISING has gotten a certain amount of success that wasn't fully anticipated. We did not know that we would manage to get contributions of art and writing from other web locations, but we started getting them almost at once. Young, Lerk, Deep Bora are all people we have met on the Internet. And we like the new acquaintances! On the average per issue, among fiction writers, a third of the names are people we have met here. So don't let them tell you it isn't a worthwhile pastime. If you let them get by with it, they'll tell you something else that isn't true.
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