A Decadal Review of 1989 Science Fiction Magazines: Wrap-up
I reviewed five science fiction magazines from mid-2021 to early 2024. Here are my overall notes and rankings.
Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 30, 2022
Edited by Gardner Dozois
Cover by Wayne Barlowe
Ranking 1st out of 5
Megan Lindholm’s (AKA Robin Hobbs) “A Touch of Lavender” and Walter Jon William’s “No Spot of Ground” really elevate this issue.
Allen Steele’s “Ride to Live, Live to Ride” was solid, and two trying-to-get-in-on-the-‘cyberpunk’-wave stories, Robert Silverberg’s “Chiprunner” and Orson Scott Card’s “Dogwalker” had a certain off-base-but-appealing vibe.
Ronald Anthony Cross’ “The Front Page” was the only story I didn’t really like, and it was short enough that it didn’t bother me.
Edited by John Gregory Betancourt, Darrell Schweitzer, and George H. Scithers
Cover by J.K. Potter
Ranking 2nd out of 5
I really liked this issue of Weird Tales. It had a powerful set of stories in “Three Heads for the High King” by R. Garcia y Robertson, and “The Pit Yakker” by Brian Lumley, but was brought down by Karl Edward Wagner’s “At First Just Ghostly”; that said, it was quite a toss-up between Weird Tales and Asimov’s for first place.
In the end it really came down to personal preference, and to Weird Tales’ disadvantage it is a fantasy magazine and I am elbow-deep in fantasy due to Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and the majority of my own writing, so science-fiction stories are particularly appealing to me, and that pushed Asimov’s into the top slot.
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March 12, 2023
Edited by Edward L. Ferman
Cover by Bryn Barnard
Ranking 3rd out of 5
Michael Bishop’s “Icicle Music” and the ‘I can’t believe we’re still having to do this in 1989, much less 2023’ tale of evolution vs. creationism in Jennifer Swift’s “Divergence.”
Edited by Patrick Lucien Price
Cover by Janet Aulisio
Ranking 4th out of 5
Amazing Stories let me flex my environmental science muscles regarding the Fresh Kills Landfill, so that was fun.
Sheila Finch’s “The Old Man and C” really carries this issue, Jack Clemons’s “Tool Dressers’ Law” gives it an assist, but it just isn’t enough to pull up the average from Forest Arthur Ormes’ bitter-teacher story “The Importance of the Buffalo,” the chaos of Tais Teng’s “Green Ache” and the not-much-happens of E. W. Smith’s “Under the Dog Star.”
Edited by Stanley Schmidt
Cover by Janet Aulisio
Ranking 5th out of 5
Analog let me flex my environmental science muscles regarding EPA Regional Screening Levels and Risk Assessment.
The issue had strong stories in J. Brian Clarke’s “Flaw on Serendip” the alarmingly prescient Kip D. Cassino’s “Tipover, but the issue also had one of the stories (Timothy Zahn’s “The Hand that Rocks the Casket”) that I didn’t finish, and a couple of solid stories, although part two of Thomas A. Easton’s serialized novel Sparrowhawk didn’t impress me much.
Between 1969, 1979, and 1989, that the 1969 cadre still leads the pack, with 1989 coming in second, and 1979 third. My reasoning is much the same — the 1969 batch, while still having big ideas, are much easier to read. They have that ‘spark’, that ‘edge’, that makes them really stand out. The science is often off-base (sometimes way off-base), but that’s fine, it is the extrapolation upon it that seems to be key.
The 1989 batch comes in second, with a lot of strong stories. The ’89 cadre seems to have the right mix of Golden-Age writers still at it, and seasoned newer talent, and cutting edge new writers. The 1979 batch comes in third. I hate to say it, but the Golden-Age writers in the ’79 cadre seemed just a bit weak, a bit like they were relying too much on their name and reputation instead of the quality of the stories themselves. Perhaps by ’89 they had to step their game up.
I noted in my wrap-up of the 1979 batch that in ’79 the future really had yet to arrive. By ’89 it was here (although, as William Gibson famously said, it was not evenly distributed). Computers, rapidly developing medical technology (much of that due to computers), the Space Shuttle Program. All those big environmental laws from the 60s and 70s were having strong effects by ’89. The sci-fi movies of the 80s were something to behold! In fact, they were getting so good that the sf/f magazines were starting to get hard-pressed. 
Seeing the first Shuttle landing was quite a way to start the decade
Book publishing for sf/f was also going great guns, with things like The Belgariad, The Sword of Shannara sequels, and Glen Cook’s The Black Company, the works of William Gibson, and Asimov was still putting out Robot books and Foundation books.
I’m not certain if the 70s or the 80s were the greatest age of sf/f publishing. I think that the 80s may have been the best decade if you were a new author trying to get in. It seems like it was (or contained) a period of time where publishers were eager for novels, eager for anything competently written and vaguely interesting. 
There are iconic images, and then there are iconic images
All that said, the 90s were coming up fast, and with it changes that would shake sf/f publishing (both magazines and books) to its core.
Previous entries the Quatro-Decadal Reviews include:
November 1969
Amazing Stories Galaxy Science Fiction,
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Worlds of If
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact
Venture Science Fiction
A Decadal Review of Science Fiction from November 1969: Wrap-up
November 1979
Quatro-Decadal Review, November 1979: A Brief Look Back
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Galileo Magazine of Science & Fiction
Analog Science Fiction Science Fact
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction
Amazing Stories
Omni
A Decadal Review of Science Fiction from 1979: Wrap-up
November 1989
Jump Back! Quatro-Decadal Review, Looking Ahead to November, 1989
Amazing Stories
Analog
Asimov’s
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Weird Tales
Adrian Simmons is an editor for Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, check out their Best-of Volume 4 Anthology, or support them on Patreon!
