Helix Doesn't Live Here Any More
To everything, saith the Preacher, there is a season: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to reap and a time to sow; yea, and likewise a time to piss on the fire and call in the dogs.
As of the first of this year, Helix no longer exists, save as a fond memory. This should hardly be news, seeing that we made the announcement in the last issue.
And indeed it seems best simply to quote the text of that announcement, as it appeared in the final lead editorial, for the benefit of those who still have questions on the wherefores and the whys:
Well, it's that time at last. This will be the final issue of Helix.
Yes. End of the line. Finito. No mas. Tamam. Das ist alles.
At this point certain coprocephalic persons will leap up with shouts of childish glee and, no doubt, attempt to do the Happy Dance, convinced that they have through their little efforts brought down the great monster. And one almost hates to spoil their fun; they surely can't have much of it, in their cramped, wretched lives....
But before they give themselves bursitis patting themselves on the back, I'd better tell them the truth: sorry, children, but this was something we had decided on well before your recent little shitfest. It's why I've been taking so few submissions this year, and had to turn down several stories I'd have liked to publish.
Actually we had decided from the start on a target of two years. (And some of us were skeptical as hell that we'd last that long.) We had meant to shut down as of this spring. But then we got that Hugo nomination, and it didn't seem right to show up on the ballot with an extinct magazine, and so we decided to keep going and finish out the rest of this year.
The reasons for pulling the plug are various. Perhaps the biggest one is the ongoing failure to develop a broad support base. Not that we've ever hurt for money — we've always been able to pay the writers, if not pro rates, at least considerably better than the average free webzine - but as things have turned out, the support has come mainly from a small number of amazingly generous donors, rather than over a wide range of the readership.
And we've grown increasingly unhappy about that. Pleasant as it is to get a thousand-dollar donation now and then, we'd rather have gotten a hundred ten-buck contributions instead; it would have represented more readers willing to put their money where their eyeballs were.
To put it bluntly, we've gotten tired of a few people picking up the tab, issue after issue, so a lot of others could enjoy free reading. Not that the generous donors have complained; it's just something we've gotten tired of seeing.
So for those stunted souls rejoicing at the end of Helix: instead of congratulating yourselves, give thanks and credit to the freeloaders. They did far more to kill the magazine, just by sitting on their selfish butts and never even trying to pick up their share, than you lot ever did with your damn silly babbling campaigns.
(Actually if there's any causal relationship it's the other way around: it was because we were going to shut down anyway that I felt free to express myself as I liked. If we had had any plans to stay in publication, I might have been more circumspect. Might, I say, though probably not.)
As to the details of the recent shitstorm out there in the wilds of Blogistan, and the various associated events and developments, I don't see any point in going into any of that nonsense here and now. Enough to say that anyone who attacks an entire publication, merely because of something one of the editorial staff happened to say in a private communication addressed to someone else, is such a monumental fathead as to constitute a waste of carbon-based chemistry; and that the only ones more pathetic than fatheads of that sort are those who engage in grandstand plays in order to impress them.
(If anyone is interested, my final word on the whole tiresome business may be read at http://www.sff.net/people/sanders/mob.html. Note, though, that this link will take you away from these pages, so you might want to save that till later.)
Of course that's not the whole story by any means. All else aside, we'd have been just about ready to call it quits by now anyway. For one thing, some of us — most of us — have other demands on our lives. Several staff members have serious medical problems. Some have writing careers to claim their attention; others have jobs that leave them with little time or energy to spare.
For myself, I've got a major and ongoing family medical situation that has to take priority over everything else. Besides, I'm tired. I'm 66 years old, for God's sake; I'd like to spend whatever years I have left in less stressful ways. Riding bike, playing with my grandchildren, whatever.
Back when all this started, we made an agreement among ourselves that we would stop as soon as it quit being fun. It's just about reached that point; it's gotten to be entirely too much work for too little laughs.
It was always basically an interesting experiment, something done for our own amusement. That it turned into something more is gratifying; but still, it's time to wind it up and find something else to do.
But don't misunderstand; none of us are complaining. On the whole, we've had a good time. It's given us deep satisfaction to be able to create and run a first-class magazine, one that has gotten considerable and mostly favorable attention; it's been an accomplishment in which we will always take great pride. We've published a lot of excellent fiction that might otherwise never have been read, some of it by newer writers whose work we were honored to be able to bring before the reading public — and if a few of those writers have chosen strange ways in which to demonstrate their gratitude, well, we weren't buying their personalities, just their writing.
We would like, then, to express our appreciation to those who have made it all possible, by supporting the magazine with their donations as well as in other ways (sometimes a simple email reading "U guyz rock!!!" can be just what was needed to keep going); we know some of you are going to be genuinely disappointed that we're closing down, and we're sorry. But perhaps someone else will step up and start a new magazine to take our place.
That's the other thing we've accomplished, it seems to me; we've proved that a magazine doesn't have to have a big budget, or pay professional rates, in order to publish first-quality work in a professional manner. It would be nice if our example should inspire others.
Come to that, I think we've also proved something else: that the sky doesn't automatically fall because a magazine publishes something of a controversial nature. In the time Helix has been in existence, we've published stories calculated to offend all sorts of people — including groups notorious for their readiness to take offense — and we've never received so much as a vague threat, nor has there been any perceptible effect on donations. All the controversy surrounding the magazine has had to do with such irrelevancies as the Senior Editor's personal correspondence, or, in the beginning, our restricted submissions policy; nobody's gotten out the pitchforks and torches over anything we've published. Really, it's been rather disappointing. We had all this nice boiling oil that we hardly ever got to use.
Speaking for myself, now, I want to publicly thank the other staff members who have worked to make it all happen. All of them had other things to do — things that generally paid better — and some of them had health problems as well, but they got in there and did the work and none of them ever complained. People have talked as if Helix were my personal project, but in fact I didn't do all that much; if it hadn't been for the others, this would never have gotten beyond the late-night-wild-idea stage.
And so with charity toward most, with malice toward none save those who deserve it, we turn down the lights, usher the remaining guests to the door, and hang the CLOSED sign in the window. It's been an interesting episode in our lives, and provided us with memories to treasure forever; and we leave you with the hope that you too have gotten something of value from the experience. Goodbye, now, and may whatever gods you recognize bless you.
Perpetrators and Co-Conspirators
William Sanders, Senior Editor
Lawrence Watt-Evans, Managing Editor
Bud Webster, Poetry Editor
Berry Kercheval, Communications Officer
John Barnes, Senior Contributing Editor
Doranna Durgin, Señorita Contributing Editor
Lynn Calvin, Editorial Associate
Robert Brown, Technical Advisor
Blasts From The Past
A Complete List of Stories, Poems
and Columns From the Pages of Helix,
With Links
