Shifting emphasis

An interesting shift over the last little while at Locus Online.

Its subtitle has always been "The Website of The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field," but that used to be best read as "The Website of The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field" -- that is, the site was updated frequently (often several times a day), and the emphasis was on industry news (and not necessarily the same news, or the same reportage of it, that would eventually appear in the magazine).

Now, it seems to be significantly more "The Website of the Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field" -- a site about the magazine (although there's still news posted several times a week).

Of late, the top banner ad has frequently been for Locus magazine (rather than a book), the lead interview right now is with Jonathan Strahan (Locus's book-review editor), they've added a Locus "roundtable," where the staff and regular contributors discuss the content of the magazine (which, over the last several days, at least, has been the main source of fresh content), one of the center-of-page news stories last week was Locus magazine staff profiles, the "Locus poll & survey" (which becomes grist for a future issue of the magazine) is promiently featured, and the main news feed -- labeled "Locus sf&f news" -- is coming directly from Locus's editorial offices in Oakland (and rather irritatingly breaks off each story in the middle of a sentence or even a word: "and the late Algis Budrys are the recipients of the inaugu...").

Still, there's oodles of great content there, and plenty of comprehensive databases you won't find anywhere else.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site