Customer Reviews

Fantasy & Science Fiction, Free Exclusive Digest

For a free magazine its pretty good. basically lots of reviews on scifi and fantasy books. this is great for me as they are my fave sorts of books. as far as i know there is no charge and once a fortnight it just appears on your kindle so youre always uptodate with what books are hot and wha books are not. defo get if these are the types of books you read. you cant go wrong. its free.

Contrary to what some other reviewers seem to think, this magazine is free forever and is not a trial. It is a digest version of the full magazine.

Therefore, by definition, you should not expect the full magazine. It does say about a 14 day trial above, but that is just the general copy from all Kindle magazine pages and not actually pursuant to this FREE DIGEST version, which is rather obvious if you read it carefully.

The content itself is also very good. It has good articles and reviews and other sections from the magazine. And, even if it were just one article, how can you complain, given that it's free?

Bravo Amazon. I hope to see more Digest versions of popular publications in the future.

People seem to be getting wound up thinking if they subscribe to this they will be charged for the full version.

It does say 'Free Digest' as in shorter version the full magazine. Nowhere does it state you are getting the full thing.

You basically get one short story and the articles for free.

Once you have subscribed you continue to get the free digest. The bit about the 14-day free trial is on every magazine subscription listing.

If you want the full version there is a link with pricing info (99p every 2 months) after the description.

Go here instead> Fantasy & Science Fiction , Extended Edition you get the the 14 day trial anyway (basically first issue free).

Also the complaining about the prices being in dollars, it is an American magazine published in America. Used to get this magazine a few years ago and it had to be imported. I would think that anyone reading Interzone in a country not the UK would be frustrated that the prices for books were not in their local currency (or probably not).

Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine; never read the print publication and I've subscribed to it for as long as the free digest has existed. I'm going to be honest with you here. I subscribed primarily because it is free. I most likely left the subscription ride for a couple of issues skimming the magazine and never really reading the content.

A month ago, that changed. Having finished reading the paper on my Kindle on my long commute to meet my friend via train I found the November/December magazine on my list still unread. I opened the magazine and flicked through it and landed on a novelette called "Under Glass" by Tim Sullivan. Roughly just over 8000 words long, the word count is not important I'm just showing the value here.

I started to read this story and my jaw physically dropped, it was so engrossing I couldn't put it down and I hate to use that phrase as it sounds so hopelessly redundant and cliché but it was how I felt exactly at the time. I'm unsure if you would be able to find the story if your reading this as you can't get back issues by Kindle so I'll give a basic summary and I hope I can do this story justice.

The basic premise is that this fellow, named Bob who is a recluse (and has been all his life.) he has retreated into his own little word with his only friends being his birds and is devoted to their existence. He collects weird and collectible items, unseen cult movies on VHS, posters and possibly the oddest things he has amassed are several jars which he claimed had souls of dead people. The story however, is not about Bob. The story is about his friend in which the story is written in first person so you never get his name. When Bob dies due to illness is required in Bobs will to distribute his items and possessions. The person who this story revolves around is really at a low point at his life, divorced, his work as a writer has dried up he then contacts an old friend named Rosa both of him and Bob. After his initial scepticism and laughable reaction to the content of these jars he starts to agonise and think that if they do in fact have souls inside them, should he open them? set them free? Is it his right to do so? The story revolves around the two, the narrator and Rosa connecting and bonding over this conundrum.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the story, if you can find it and wish to read it I strongly suggest you do so.

I was deeply invested in this short story, the ending revolved around what they did with the jars and it felt like the end, that these characters were in a world that could continue past this story which is really a rarity even in fully fledged books today. After reading this terrific story I immediately upgraded to the paid subscription to get more stories. In that issue there was just one in the full issue to my amazement there was about ten and one "The Ice Owl" by Carolyn Ives Gilman had an astonishing 17,000 words and while I know word count does not make a book good (otherwise the phonebook would be a great read.) the quality remained consistent and I have not regretted it at all.

The package overall in the free digest is of a high quality and recommended to anyone and all. In addition to the story/ies there are book reviews which have mentioned some great reads and out of kindle graphic novels. Editorials and small satirical cartoons.

Overall I can't recommend this enough. It is great quality content and the digest is no exception. It is free and of high quality, There is no reason whatsoever why you should not try this magazine. It. Is. Fantastic.

I buy the Kindle versions of Asimov etc though not each and every issue. It is good that the F&SF; free edition is available as well - always enjoy the articles and the book reviews. Probably will convince me to buy the odd issue depending on the stories / writers present in the full version. Found the layout fine and the sections easy to navigate.

I enjoy a good science fiction read and this app seemed to be just the thing to keep up to date. I have only seen the one edition so far but, so far so good. Looking forward to being kept up to date

The story was engaging. The rest of the magazine topical. Am waiting the next edition!
Thanks to all employed in producing and distributing this.

If you like this sort of stuff you will like this. Well written and put together. Down load was quick

Not my thing really short story was ok but I couldn@t get into the whole thing its probably me not the the whole thing

Not sure what I was expecting but this is down right odd, not sure if it isreally applicable to the UK