"When something hasn't been around much for a while, and one example of it turns up and catches people's eyes, they go looking for more like it - until they get tired of it again." -- Stanley Schmidt
Stanley Albert Schmidt (born March 7, 1944) is an American science fiction author. Since 1978 he has been the editor of the SF magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
"And, of course, some SF is set close enough to here and now that Anglo and European do apply. Since many of the writers come from those backgrounds, so does much of the fiction.""As for sticking strictly to presently known science, I will simply point out that we have already experienced at least two major revolutions in science in this century alone.""I think the international appeal of SF is quite understandable since the kinds of people who like to read it, are, by the nature of the beast, interested in other cultures, of which other nations on Earth are the closest available example.""I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.""Ideally, I'd like every issue to include a diverse group of stories that meet the qualifications sketched above, but covering a wide range of specific matter and flavour.""It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.""It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.""Its limitations are those of the physical universe: it won't let you play with some really wild ideas that aren't possible, but are fun to speculate about.""Of course, the way writers think about those things is almost certain to be affected by their own cultural background, and it would be hard to deny that, for whatever reasons, a lot of SF writers come from Anglo or European backgrounds.""Some of the biggest changes that have happened are behind the scenes, in the way we produce the magazine. E.g., much of our production has been brought in-house via desktop publishing.""There are a significant number of people who appreciate what we do, and most of them gravitate to Analog because this is where they can find it. The other magazines tend to share their audiences, which may result in each of them having a smaller market share.""There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.""This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.""Usually if nobody hates a piece, nobody loves it, either; and a magazine which sets itself the goal of provoking thought is not doing its job if everybody agrees with what it does.""What SF can do better than anything else is show us the range of our possible futures, and what we can do to realize the good ones and avoid the nasty ones."
Schmidt was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1966. He then attended Case Western Reserve University, where he completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1969. After receiving his degree, he became a professor at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, teaching physics, astronomy, and science fiction. Schmidt has been editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine since 1978. Additionally, he has served as a member of the Board of Advisers for the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame and was Guest of Honor at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
His first publication was "A Flash of Darkness" (Analog, September 1968); his first novel was The Sins of the Fathers (serialized in Analog from November 1973 to January 1974); and his first book was Newton and the Quasi-Apple in 1975.
One of his most recent novels, Argonaut (2002), shows an alien invasion from a new angle.
He was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor every year from 1980 through 2006 (its final year), and for the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form every year from 2007 (its first year) through 2010 (the present). He has never won.
The Analog Anthology #1 (1980) also appeared as: Analog's Golden Anniversary Anthology (1981) and Fifty Years of the Best Science Fiction From Analog (1981)
The Analog Anthology #2 (1982) also appeared as: Analog: Readers' Choice (1982)
Children of the Future (1982)
Analog Anthology #4: Analog's Lighter Side (1982)
Analog Anthology #5: Writers' Choice (1983)
War and Peace: Possible Futures from Analog (1983)
Aliens from Analog (1983)
Writers' Choice, Volume II (1984)
'From Mind to Mind: Tales of Communication from Analog (1984)
SF anthologies
Unknown (1988)
Unknown Worlds: Tales from Beyond (1988) with Martin H. Greenberg
Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space (1996) with Robert M. Zubrin
Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History (1998) with Gardner Dozois
Short fiction series
Lifeboat Earth
A Thrust of Greatness (1976)
Caesar Clark (1977)
Pinocchio (1977)
Dark Age (1977)
The Promised Land (1978)
Second Interlude (1978)
First Interlude (1978)
Third Interlude (1978)
Fourth Interlude (1978)
Prologue (1978)
Short fiction
A Flash of Darkness (1968)
The Reluctant Ambassadors (1968)
. . . And Comfort to the Enemy (1969)
Lost Newton (1970)
May the Best Man Win (1971)
The Unreachable Stars (1971)
The Prophet (1972)
His Loyal Opposition (1976)
Panic (1978)
A Midsummer Newt's Dream (1979)
Camouflage (1981)
Tweedlioop (1981)
Mascots (1982)
War of Independence (1982)
The Folks Who Live on the Hill (1984)
Floodgate (1988)
The Man on the Cover (1990)
Worthsayer (1992)
Not Even a Chimney (1993)
Johnny Birdseed (1993)
The Parallels of Penzance (1998) with Michael A. Burstein
Good Intentions (1998) with Jack McDevitt
Generation Gap (2000)
The Emperor's Revenge (2002)
Nonfiction
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (1991) with Ian Randal Strock and Gardner Dozois and Tina Lee and Sheila Williams
Aliens and Alien Societies: A Writer's Guide to Creating Extraterrestrial Life-Forms (1996)
Which Way to the Future?: Selected Essays From Analog (2001)
The Coming Convergence: Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future (2008)
