"Yeah, maybe," I answered, "but I'm going to do it, anyway."

She just shook her head. "Why?"

And therein lies a tale—or, at least, an editorial.

The current genre fiction market, particularly speculative fiction, owes much of its existence to the development of modern papermaking techniques in the late 1800's. This new process, which used wood pulp instead of "rag" (cotton and linen fibers), made it possible to produce paper in mass volume and at very cheap rates, although at the cost of quality and durability.

The introduction of this cheap paper revolutionized the publishing industry. Previously, magazines were expensive and available only to the relatively wealthy, while actual novels (hardcover only; the paperback was not introduced until the late 1930's) were dearer still. Because production costs were so high, editors were unwilling to publish any but the most celebrated authors whose bylines they could be sure would attract readers. The economic realities of publishing were keeping new authors—and new ideas—out.

The only alternatives were the penny dreadfuls and their successors, the dime novels. Written primarily for a juvenile audience, these short, stapled "books" featuring poor quality stories about such characters as Horatio Alger, Buffalo Bill, and Jesse James held little appeal for adult readers.

Then, in 1896, Frank Munsey took The Golden Argosy, his failing series of dime novels, and transformed it. Renamed simply Argosy, Munsey put it in a magazine format and filled it with better quality fiction that was aimed at adults instead of children. To keep the revamped magazine affordable, he cut production costs by switching to the new, lower-cost wood pulp paper—and a phenomenon was created.

Named after the very stuff they were printed on, "the pulps" were incredibly successful, completely replacing the dime novels that had spawned them by the turn of the century. Their lurid covers—the garish colors resulted from using inks designed for high rag content paper on the more porous pulp product—affordable prices, and adventurous content drew flocks of readers. Soon, Argosy was joined by Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, and scores of others, and science fiction as we currently know it was born. Fantasy and horror found space in the pages of the pulps, too, as did detective stories, romance stories, Westerns—you name it, and there was a pulp devoted to it.

But it was the quality of the writing that really kept readers coming back for more. Writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammet, and Robert E. Howard, and such familiar characters as Doc Savage and The Shadow, first appeared in the pulps. When asked about a piece in Argosy, Frank Munsey once said: "The story is worth more than the paper it is printed on." And oh! How true it was! Writers we now acknowledge as masters, stories we call "classics," and characters we'll never forget all came out of cheap publications that the mainstream publishers loathed and derided as "trashy."

The pulps flourished throughout the 20's and 30's. Then World War II came, and everything changed. Paper, even of the wood pulp variety, was once again incredibly expensive, and in very short supply. "Nonessential" publications often found their supplies cut off entirely, even if they could afford the exorbitant prices, and the pulps slowly died out. A few managed to survive (Astounding Science Fiction, for example, lives on even today, as Analog) but for the most part, the party was over. The best of the pulp writers made the transition to the new paperback novel format, which gained in popularity after the War; while another new format, the comic book, took over at the lower end of the spectrum.

The era of the pulps was finished.

Today, we have come almost full circle. Paper, printing, and binding costs—the biggest expenses in publishing—are quite high. Distribution has become complex, and is greatly influenced by large retail chains that demand preferential pricing. Books and magazines compete with an astounding array of other amusement options, making consumers more price-sensitive when deciding how to spend their entertainment dollars. Combine these factors, and you've produced an environment where profit margins in mainstream publishing have narrowed uncomfortably.

Just as before, the economic realities of publishing are discouraging risk-taking. New authors and new ideas are less likely to be considered, in favor of tried-and-true names and formulas that can be expected to produce. It's not impossible to break into writing as a complete unknown and land a nice, three-novel contract at a mainstream publisher, but it is far, far more difficult than it once was.

But also as before, a technological breakthrough has opened a new door.

The rise of the Internet has influenced publishing even more dramatically than the invention of wood pulp paper. Anyone with a computer, a modem, and something to say can publish to a huge audience in moments. Other than fees for Internet access, which many people already pay anyway, it doesn't have to cost a thing. Provide your own content; get a free homepage at any of the various services that provide them, and presto! You're a publisher!

And people are doing it. The popularity of the 'blog—short for "web log," a web-based diary of sorts—is testament to that, as everyday folks use the Web to share their thoughts, political positions, musings, rantings, and observations with anyone who cares to log on. But there's more to the trend than just 'blogs.

Run a search at Google for "science fiction stories." I got 721,000 pages. Of course, mingled in there are book review pages, role playing sites, and other assorted pages, but many of them contain just what the search requested: stories. A similar search on "fantasy stories" yielded over 1.4 million pages. The numbers are a bit staggering, but they show just how popular genre fiction has become. The audience for speculative fiction is vast, indeed.

But putting up a free homepage for your own fan fiction, or maybe some stories written by your friends and family members, is very different from publishing a magazine, whether in print or online. Even an amateur e-zine requires a significant investment of time and money, both of which can be hard to come by. The money, especially, can be a major hurdle. A few banner ads do not a cash flow make, and free web space is simply not suitable for anything beyond a fan page or personal site. Running an e-zine isn't easy, which is probably why there are so (relatively) few.

Back to Google, this time for a category search. Arts > Literature > Genres > Science Fiction > Magazines and E-zines yields 46 entries; the Fantasy genre yields 34, for a total of 80 listings. But many of those entries are duplicates, since a publication like Demensions shows up in both categories. Still others are the websites of print magazines like Fantasy & Science Fiction, which, with their very limited content, are not true e-zines. They're just teasers, online advertisements for the print version.

There are 'zines that don't come up in the categories, I'm sure, and there are a handful of other categories that yield mostly the same titles, with a few additions thrown in. But even optimistically, I'd say the number of true speculative fiction e-zines (which I classify as sites that solicit and regularly publish original genre fiction by authors not personally known to the site's owner, either for payment or publicity) is well below 200, possibly even fewer than 100.

Not quite as staggering a number, is it? And it's shrinking, site by site by site. I found a half dozen dead links in just a few random clicks through those Google categories, and one site that has changed its mission and is no longer accepting fiction.

Some of these e-zines, I'm sure, folded when their owners realized there's no profit to be made in this game. E-zine publishers don't get rich; they don't even get to give up their day jobs. Others, no doubt, fell by the wayside as the interests of their creators changed—running an e-zine is a labor of love, and once the love is gone, so is the 'zine. But I suspect that in most cases, the folks running those now defunct e-zines simply had to make some very tough choices when they ran short of money, or time, or both.

"Where will you ever find the time?" my coworker wondered.

In the same place that I find time for anything else, of course: in the metaphorical shoebox marked "Spare Time" under my bed. Whenever I first look in that box, it's discouragingly empty. Even the dust motes are few and far between; it's that empty. So, I put the top back on and kick it under the bed again. If there's no time, there's no time, and that's that.

But now and then, whatever impulse drove me to look in that always-empty box to start with just won't go away. It nags at me, urging me to take just one more look into the box, quietly insisting that, surely, there must be a little time in there. These are the things that are important to me, the things I feel strongly enough about to rearrange my life for. For these things, when I go back to the box and dig deep into the corners, a few precious scraps usually emerge.

So it was with Demensions. When Martin announced that his box was all used up, that the demands of his blessedly growing family, his career, and his life in general had slowly crept upward, taking more time and energy until something—Demensions—had to give, I was prompted to peek under the bed.

As always, the box was empty.

And yet... The idea would not leave me be. I thought of all the reasons I had turned to e-zines to start with, of the opportunities they present for both authors and readers alike. I thought of all the places that used to exist for fledgling writers to hone their skills and fans of speculative fiction to hear fresh voices, but that now were gone, and of all the ones that would be gone tomorrow, or next month, or next year. Doors were closing on both authors and readers, but here was one I could keep open. If only I could find the time...

I am fortunate, really. I share my life with an incredibly talented and supportive man, who has the technical skills needed to run a site like this. "If it's important to you," he said when I brought it up, "then we'll do it." Just like that. He's still willing to marry me this December, too. Amazing.

I have a good job, one that pays me well enough to afford the cash outlays for domain registration and server fees. My deadlines can be horrendous at times, but it tends to be cyclical. There's a dreadful, crushing load of work just before an application is scheduled to go live, but then there are the lulls between rollouts, when things are quieter and I can relax a bit.

My daughter is at an age where she is becoming more self-reliant by the day. Just ask her. With the warm days and long evenings of summer upon us, I'm lucky if I can get her to acknowledge my existence at all, or even sit down for five minutes to eat dinner. Her friends are waiting, you see, and there's a water balloon fight just about to begin, and can't she please just go now? Then she's off again.

Back to the box I went, and sure enough, there it was. Between the piles of laundry and bags of groceries, behind the drive to summer camp and the commute to work, underneath the partially finished manuscripts and unread novels, was just what I needed: a little bit of time—and a lot of determination.

I took on this challenge because I believe in the idea of e-zines. Where would speculative fiction be today, if Frank Munsey hadn't taken a chance on a new technology and a new idea? Would there even be speculative fiction? Or would Edgar Rice Burroughs have continued in his string of unsuccessful jobs and died in obscurity, taking John Carter, Tarzan, and the rest with him? How much poorer our world would have been, then!

And where will speculative fiction be tomorrow, if it is driven solely by economics and profit margins, by publishers concerned with the bottom line and editors afraid to stick their necks out? Already, there are the glimmerings of homogenization in the mainstream sci-fi and fantasy lining the shelves at the local Borders or Waldenbooks. If there are no alternatives, will the field simply stagnate, or will it eventually dry up completely? How much poorer will our world be, then?

E-zines are the alternative, the pulp magazines of our times. They cost money to produce, sure, but they cost a lot less than a print magazine or a novel. And because they're comparatively inexpensive to produce, editors can take risks (hey, it's my money; I can do as I please!) and writers can stretch their wings. The writing you'll see in an e-zine may range from the almost painfully rough to the most exquisitely elegant, but it all has one thing in common: it's writing you won't see in a mainstream publication. It's not less interesting, or less deserving, or in many cases, even less well crafted. It's just less of a sure thing, and that's why it's in an e-zine and not in the bookstore or on the newsstand. But every time an e-zine folds, a few more of your options, both as readers and writers, fold with it.

Read the stories in this issue. Did they entertain you? Make you think? Give you an idea for a story of you own? Distract you, even if only for a few minutes, from the problems and difficulties you may face in your life? Then they have served their purpose, as has Demensions. I believe in e-zines, in the opportunities they create and in the need they fill. I believe, and that's why I'm here.

There is, indeed, a fine line between idealism and insanity. I don't think I've crossed it, just yet.

Stay tuned, though. This was only my first issue, after all.