Read All About It...

I consider myself a reasonable voracious reader of both books and magazines. I get a regular group of magazines on a monthly basis which are supplemented by a number of music fanzines. I do like to read these cover to cover (although tending to skim the reviews sections with the exception of Empire where the reviews are a fundamental part of the reason I buy the magazine.

One problem this presents me with is that with other activities I get involved in that finding time to extend my reading beyond my monthly mags to "proper" books can be a bit of a challenge. Mind you, nothing that a modest lottery win and early retirement couldn't resolve!

That being the case, why am I investigating some other magazines with the thought of adding them to the list. (Like most things of this natures, items are easily added but less easily removed!)

An awful lot of the films that I like fall into the SciFi/Fantasy/Comic Book category and there are a number of magazines that cover these areas in more detail, including the source material in books and also some of the areas that follow on - for examples, games and toys (neither of which I'm particularly interested in though). So I thought I'd check out some of the titles to see if they would make worthy additions to my regular purchases.

First up was SFX. It was the content of this magazine that first attracted me and there were a couple of articles of particular interest that parted me from my cash. Overall, the magazine was of a good quality treating the subject matter in an adult manner (which meant that things like games and toys, whilst not entirely ignored, were downplayed).

They do have their own little game on a monthly basis which involves ensuring that the cover stars partially obscure the title making you think it might just say something else. You'll see what I mean by the cover shown.

Overall, I liked this magazine a lot and felt this covered its' subject matter in a matter akin to Empire which I like very much. A good bet then to be that extra magazine but I though it would be worth checking out something else to provide, at the very least, an element of corroboration to that view.

Next up then was SciFi Now which I think plays the role of Total Film to SFX's Empire. The articles are less substantial and there's more focus on the reviews although these are equally less impressive taken as a whole. However, what this magazine does have in its' favour is an excellent archive section where the writing and analysis raise the bar considerably compared to the other parts of the magazine. That on its' own makes it a serious contender. In addition there two particular points that attracted me to the magazine - see if you can spot them from the cover shot shown here!!

Being a glutton for punishment I did notice another magazine going under the title of DeathRay. Duly purchased for a read, I realised that this was a substantial read (dwarfing the other two in terms of content) but that it was a bi-monthly publication. The quality of writing was on a par and perhaps better than SFX, with a good focus on the past to perhaps rival SciFi Now and the added bonus of a couple of short stories by writers of some considerable reputation. It took a fair old while to read it from cover to cover and the two stories were most enjoyable encouraging me to dip into some other material by these authors. Yes - that would be books to add to the existing pile still waiting to be read (to which I added four books today!).

DeathRay is also put to market by the same publishers as the recently launched Filmstar. The look and feel of the magazines are similar so I may investigate this too - although if I do take this it would have to be at the expense of Empire which would make it an extremely tough call.

Rather than make a tough decision, I think I'm likely to add SFX to my monthly purchases at least for a month or two. I will definitely be adding DeathRay to my regular purchases - and hope that it doesn't turn monthly any time soon!