If you've had your head buried in the sand for the last year, you can be excused for not knowing that Daily Science Fiction is one of the most exciting new SF/F magazines to emerge in 2010. Established by editors Jonathan Laden (a Clarion alumni and Writers of the Future author) and Michele Barasso, DSF has a simple publishing model–stories are emailed for free to subscribers five days a week. The stories are also archived on the DSF website.
Because DSF pays professional rates, they have been able to publish stories from top writers like Lavie Tidhar, Cat Rambo, Tim Pratt, Colin Harvey, Mary Robinette Kowal, and many more.
But despite this success, some people seem to wish DSF would go away. And yes, Locus Magazine, this head-in-sand attitude is coming from you.
I'd noticed that Locus hadn't been reviewing Daily Science Fiction. However, what this meant didn't click until I read this review on Diabolical Plots. After praising the September fiction offerings from DSF, Frank Dutkiewicz mentioned how he'd asked "the editor of a leading review outlet on why DSF is ignored. The answer I got back was there was too much to review and the editors must be nuts if they think they can keep up throwing so many stories, at the rate they pay, for essentially free."
Can anyone guess who this "leading review outlet" might be?
Here's a hint: After reading that quote, I went through my back issues of Locus. No reviews of any DSF stories until the current Feb. 2011 issue. I also checked Lois Tilton's online reviews of short fiction. Again, no reviews of DSF.
This is not acceptable.
To the credit of Locus, they did include Lavie Tidhar's DSF story "Butterfly and the Blight at the Heart of the World" on their 2010 recommended reading list. The story was reviewed by Gardner Dozois in that same Feb. 2011 "Year in Review" issue. As he says, DSF "has the ambitious – perhaps too ambitious – goal of publishing a new SF or fantasy story every single day of the year. Probably unsurprisingly, most of them are not terribly good, although some interesting stuff pops up occasionally."
I appreciate that Gardner took the time to review the story and DSF. His review is exactly why I subscribe to Locus. I'm not asking them to heap praise on DSF; I'm asking the magazine to treat DSF like any other outlet and simply review their stories.
I'll admit when DSF first came out I was also suspicious of their publishing model. But they've established themselves by now and deserve to be treated like any other professional-paying magazine. In fact, I recently submitted my first story to DSF and had it accepted. I wouldn't have done this if I didn't think DSF was a quality publisher.
I must also admit I was hesitant to criticize Locus for not reviewing DSF. Not only do they frequently review my fiction, I'm a long-time subscriber to the magazine. So while I hope other people will join me in calling for Locus to start reviewing DSF on a regular basis, don't take this as a reason to cancel your subscription or call the editors nasty names.
Locus holds an integral place in our genre community. I simply want them to remain integral by regularly reviewing professional-paying magazines like DSF!
There are a lot of magazines. Some don't get mentioned at all. Some get mentioned sometimes, but not others. Lois covers a lot, in good detail, and is one human with finite time and energy. Locus, and in particular Locus Online, covers a great, great lot. In the magazine itself is a treasure of bibliography, along with articles and reviews of course, covering some small percent in greater or lesser detail and enthusiasm. This is natural. This is one voice, making some sense of the deluge of stories and words of the world.
One thing I would say is that Locus does not typically cover "short short short stories". There is simlpy not much that can be said about a 500 word story most of the time. DSF has put out some very nice fiction, Lavie's story in particular, and covering the longer, better stories would be very worthwhile in my opinion. I'm not sure about the value of a paragraph on each of the "short short short stories" either published in DSF or elsewhere.
I do think Locus does a (largely) thankless job as the deep memory of the genre, the bibliographer and biographer or the worlds which you and Lavie and Tim and Cat create. I think you are right to suggest that Locus find some way to cover DSF, and I think here you've done it the right way, not bashing them, not castigating them, simply a voice, publicly.
And even though it would mean, likely, that there would be time and space to mention my own publication's stories, it is the right thing to do; some great stories are being put out by DSF and, in a world of two-dozen magazines worth reading, the critical eyes of Gardner, Rich, and Lois are wonderful to have to point out and recommend that which is *essential* reading in the genre.
And Mark Kelly and his staff at Locus Online do great things, not the least of which has been treating my publication like a first class citizen in terms of noting its receipt and cataloging its contents. I do try to understand when more can't be made of it than that -- for a large, large number of reasons, F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Interzone, Clarkesworld, on and on, are much more noteworthy and important to be discussed at more detail. I don't want to sacrifice coverage of those magazines to cover either my publication or, though again I like being a DSF "subscriber" as well, DSF in great detail. There has to be a balance, otherwise nothing can be covered well enough, and, again, in the case of "short short short stories" the paragraphical description challenges the length of the story.
Perhaps all stories of 1000 words or more? I don't know. But thanks for this public voice, coming from you it certainly has credibility and visibility. I look forward to the DSF "issue" which has your story!
Posted by: twitter.com/montsamu | February 11, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Fact is, nobody reviews everything. Nobody CAN review everything. Not even me. Some things are going to be left out. There is no right to be reviewed.
When I first heard of DSF, I looked into the site. It seemed to me from what I saw that most of the fiction posted there would be very short. I don't like to review short-short stories. If you say anything at all about them, people carp about "spoilers."
My usual practice, when I review a publication, is to cover all the stories in an issue [or month or whatever]. I think in the case of DSF it would end up being a very long list saying very little. Some reviewers may like to single out the best story or two for comment, but that isn't how I do it.
This is entirely my own decision and not a policy of the site.
Posted by: Lois Tilton | February 11, 2011 at 11:08 AM
Lois: I totally understand that nobody reviews everything. I'm not asking that. All I'm asking is that Locus on a somewhat regular basis review some of the fiction from Daily Science Fiction. In the first 5 months of the magazine's existence DSF published around 100 stories, many from the biggest short fiction names in our genre. The fact that Locus almost totally ignored these stories troubles me.
I'm not saying that all 100 of those stories should have been reviewed. But a handful of stories reviewed here and there would be great.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | February 11, 2011 at 06:05 PM
Take it easy, Jason.
Lois said: It seemed to me from what I saw that most of the fiction posted there would be very short. I don't like to review short-short stories.
Now that Lois realizes DSF publishes more _long_ fiction (4 5,000-plus-word stories a month), at a greater pay rate (8-cents-a-word) than nearly every other SF publication out there (Clarkesworld being the only exception I can think of), I’m sure she’ll recognize it as the author-friendly publication it is, and pay it its due respect.
Posted by: Anon | February 11, 2011 at 06:39 PM
I probably should have been clearer in what I said. I wasn't attacking Lois and apologize if I gave that impression. Lois is a great reviewer and her reason for not reviewing DSF makes sense. Since she reviews all stories in a magazine, it would indeed be difficult to review DSF in the same manner.
Anyway, my comments above were directed toward Locus as a whole, not to Lois or any one reviewer. Since Locus is the magazine of record in our genre I think it is important that the publishers find a way to review DSF on a regular basis. That's the point I'm trying to make in all this.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | February 11, 2011 at 08:58 PM
Jason: your argument would be sound if Locus had stated its mission to review everything published in the field, but I don't think it ever has, nor could it now. The constraints of space make it impossible to be so comprehensive.
As you noted in your post, Gardner, whose reviewing tends to be selective, did review the Tidhar story, and I suppose he's likely to mention some of the others he particularly likes.
Posted by: Lois Tilton | February 12, 2011 at 09:35 AM
As part of the Last Short story on Earth project I signed up to it. And while I get astory everyday I've only read a couple. I don't see much point in reviewing stories that are about 500 words (which is the policy of LSS anyway). I know there are longer pieces, but unless I'm missing something the longer pieces aren't highlighted in the email I get. Yes, I'm lazy. But if I knew which ones were longer I'd read them and review them.
As for Locus, people like Rich Horton and Lois Tilton read a crap load of stuff. More then is sane for a person. I think ignoring one market made up mostly of flash fiction is perfectly ok.
Of course, if you start recommending stories that we should look out for, I'd defiitely check them out.
Posted by: Ian Mond | February 13, 2011 at 07:16 AM
Ian: From what I’ve seen, Friday stories are non-flash, “featured” stories (most around 5,000 words). Many of them are quite good, worthy of greater attention than they’ve been getting.
Posted by: Anon | February 13, 2011 at 02:54 PM
Thanks for that. I'll go back and have a look at them
Posted by: Ian Mond | February 13, 2011 at 03:57 PM
Rich, Gardner, and Lois do an amazing job reviewing short fiction for Locus and deserve praise for the work they do. And I repeat that I don't think Locus should review everything that is published--either in total or from any one magazine. All I'm hoping for are more reviews of DSF stories in Locus.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | February 13, 2011 at 04:55 PM
I don't have time or energy to read a story a day but if there's any horror or very dark fantasy published I'd appreciate being alerted for my Best Horror #4 reading.
Posted by: Ellen-datlow | February 13, 2011 at 05:58 PM
Jason, I still think you're missing one important point. One reason why reviewers might have looked past DSF is because it's seen as a place that publishes flash fiction. As Lois states, Flash Fiction doesn't really lend itself to a critical review.
Now, I personally wasn't aware, until recently, that DSF published longer fiction. And now that I do, I'll look at the longer output. But I don't blame anyone ignoring DSF - especially Locus - when the site itself fails to clearly state whether the story is Flash or longer.
In spite of your quote above from an "editor" I really don't think there's a conspiracy here.
Posted by: Ian Mond | February 13, 2011 at 09:07 PM
At its heart, a reviewer's job isn't to heap up text as a measure of favor for one story over another, but to point out where the good stories are, short or long.
Reviews need not be long or even thorough to grant recognition where recognition is do.
Posted by: Anon | February 14, 2011 at 01:53 AM
Lois Tilton is finally reviewing Daily Science Fiction for Locus Online, albeit not with great enthusiasm. She also encourages commentary from non-contributors to DSF; I assume that the people who have posted comments here will give her an earful.
Posted by: Robert Laughlin | February 14, 2011 at 02:28 AM
I subscribed a month or so ago and began submitting around the same time. (Volume of emails over there must be overwhelming!).
I've found much of what they've sent me daily to be ignorable - but I do also think that the "establishment" decided early on that they didn't like the project and are therefore trying to ignore it as well.
DSF (and I may be anticipating here) could do themselves a couple of favors by offering up a 'best of the month' and perhaps more prominent ratings: send out an email weekly with the 5-7 titles published, maybe with some tags (reviewers could then do weekly or monthly coverage, hitting the highlights).
Posted by: steve davidson | February 14, 2011 at 04:39 AM
This has been a great discussion and thanks to everyone who has taken part so far. One thing that's become clear is the need to raise awareness that DSF doesn't only publish flash fiction.
And major praise to Lois Tilton for checking out DSF in her new Locus review at http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2011/02/lois-tilton-reviews-short-fiction-mid-february/#daily201102
Posted by: Jason Sanford | February 14, 2011 at 07:05 AM
I've always said I was willing to take at least one look at most publications in the field. I'm not yet sure about making it a regular thing to review all the stories at DSF.
Posted by: Lois Tilton | February 14, 2011 at 10:34 AM
Good point, Jason. It hadn't occurred to me that so many people were unaware of DSF's featuring longer stories on Friday.
I think a year of those alone would be significant enough wordcount to merit review and serious attention of the genre community at large. 52 Friday stories would be what? 2-3 regular anthologies or one mega-sized?
[Full disclosure: I had a Friday story there--linked with my name--so I could be biased.] :)
I have to say, though--I do see Lois' reasoning on not reviewing the very short stuff.
Posted by: Lon Prater | February 14, 2011 at 10:50 AM
Thank you Jason and DSF for calling attention to our little ezine. It wasn't my intention to bully Lois, Locus, or anyone for that matter into reviewing anything they didn't want to. However, as far as the quality (my opinion) compared to other magazine that pay pro rates (I have read more than a few), DSF measures up to them all.
Locus is not the only one that has avoided DSF. There are plenty of respected and well read reviewers that have made the decision to not cover Daily Science Fiction. Whether any of them elect to cover the innovated, and ambitious publication, Diabolical Plots will continue to read and review DSF, regardless of the size of the stories.
Good writing done by good writers deserves recognition.
Posted by: Frank Dutkiewicz | February 14, 2011 at 02:38 PM
For the short time I served as Assistant Editor for Ezines at Tangent Online, I asked the editor why we weren't covering DSF and was told the market couldn't hope to last paying so much on a regular basis and that they also would not be able to keep up the quality. We had little resources to cover things already so it was a waste of time. The attitude is out there but the sheer volume is indeed a problem.
Posted by: BryanThomasS | February 22, 2011 at 12:04 AM