Along with publishing the August 2009 issue of Jim Baen’s Universe (Volume 4, Number 2; Whole Number 20), Editor Eric Flint announces that the online magazine will be closing following the April 2010 issue (at the end of four complete years of publication). In his editorial, Flint says current subscribers will be provided for, future subscribers will also receive access to past issues, and the few subscribers who have more issues coming than will be available will be handled separately.
Additionally, authors who’ve already sold stories to the magazine will see them in print, and Flint says he’ll be buying the last few stories needed to fill out the magazine’s run soon. For “self-evident reasons,” JBU is now closed to submissions.
Flint provides the following “short summary” for the magazine’s impending closure. “[W]e were simply never able to get and retain enough subscribers to put us on a sales plateau that would allow us to continue publishing. From the beginning, we were too dependent on the income from the Universe club. The Club’s purpose was to provide the magazine with a much-needed initial surge of income—which it did indeed provide—and then, after the first year, to continue as an important but subsidiary source of income. Instead, the Club wound up being the source of about half of our annual income, from beginning to end.” Which was not a tenable situation.
“It was our hope… that, as time went by, we’d expand our regular subscription base to the point where that base alone provided all the income we needed to keep publishing.… But we never got there. As I said, we came close. But it was never enough.… By the end of our third year of publication, … we saw no reason to think that the situation would change—not, at least, in the near enough future—and so we made the final decision to close the magazine. We wanted to make that decision early enough that we could avoid the sort of mess that so often accompanies the folding of magazines. (Short-changed subscribers, orphaned stories, unpaid authors…”.
Contents of the August issue, which is, emphatically, not the last, include:
Science Fiction Stories:
“Mouse Suits” by Stephen Eley
“No GUTS, No Glory” by Edward M. Lerner
“Ganny Knits a Spaceship” by David Gerrold
Fantasy Stories:
“The Blitz Experience” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Why I Live in the Silver Mine” by Marissa Lingen
Classic Story:
“The Ordeal of Doctor Trifulgas” by Jules Verne
NSF Contest Winner:
“Cathedral” by Mike Barretta
Serials:
Blade Light, Episode Four, by Michaele Jordan
SETI Library: Lathe of Evolution, Part 1, by Gregory Benford
Introducing (stories by new authors):
“Dreams for Sale—Two Bits” by Thomas Allen Mays
Nonfiction:
“Thinking About SF” by David Brin
“Two Steps Toward General AI” by Stephen Euin Cobb
Columns:
“Universe Closing” by Eric Flint (see above)
The Editor’s Page: “What’s In a Name” by Mike Resnick
Notes from the Buffer Zone: “Acceptable Nerds” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Quarks to Quasars: The Science of Science Fiction: “New Earths” by Ben Bova
Past Masters: “Let Me Be Frank (or Welcome to the Allamagoosa Russell-Palooza!)” by Bud Webster
What’s New in the Future and You: “August 2009” by Stephen Euin Cobb
From The Heart’s Basement: “Terminal Error” by Barry N. Malzberg
The cover art is by Garrett W. Vance.
As always, some of the pieces are available for free on the web site, while others require a subscription to read the whole thing.