The Rise Of The Cyberzines by Mike Ashley

(Liverpool University Press, 2022)

Reviewed by Martin Petto

The Rise Of The Cyberzines marks the culmination of a monumental project. When Mike Ashley started this project, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 (2001) was intended to be the first of three volumes. Transformations: 1950 to 1970 (2005) and Gateways to Forever: 1970 to 1980 (2007) duly followed. But so too—after a gap—did Science Fiction Rebels: 1981 to 1990 (2016). And now a final mammoth book covering 1991 to 2020: “This is my final volume covering English-language magazines, in a series over twenty years in the making. A companion volume, No Limits, will explore the development of non-English sf magazines. Beyond that, I pass the baton on to anyone who wishes to continue the story through future decades.”

The result is a book—simultaneously a history of the state of the industry and a review of the state of the field—that is essential yet frustrating. Covering a larger span than any of the previous volumes as well as more fundamental industry upheavals is just too large a task for a single book, particularly one with its genesis in a different task.

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Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.