Founded in 1930 as Astounding Stories, this magazine has been the heart of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. On its pages, under the direction of John W. Campbell, writers like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and others have reached the success. Today, edited by Stanley Schmidt, Analog is the best hard science fiction magazine.

Stanley Schmidt: We have occasionally thought about trying new things with layout and format, but we've just changed publishers (the new publisher is Penny Press and I'm unpacking from the office move today) and it's too early to say what the new people might want to do.

Delos: How many readers do you have and what is your minimal number of readers in order to survive in this competitive market (Fantasy & and Science Fiction, Asimov's, SF Age, Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-FI Entertainment, Cinescape, etc.)?

Stanley Schmidt: Our current circulation is about 60,000, which is enough to sustain us but of course we hope to make it bigger soon. I don't know what the minimum possible would be, and we don't plan to find out!

Delos: When did you personally start dealing with SF in the professional manner and how did you put together your Analog team?

Stanley Schmidt: I started selling stories (to Analog) in 1968, while I was working on my doctorate in physics. Ben Bova "drafted" me as editor when he left in 1978, so I inherited his staff. Since then, of course, members of it have come and gone. Our present team is one of the best we've ever had.

Delos: I recently interviewed Robert J. Sawyer which is now publishing his novel STARPLEX in four parts on your magazine. He told me that ANALOG, in his opinion, is the best SF magazine on the market. How difficult is to find good stories each month?

Stanley Schmidt: The difficulty of finding stories varies . Sometimes it's very difficult indeed; sometimes I see far more good stuff than I can buy. Of course, it's not just a matter of finding them readymade. I see many stories that have a lot of potential but need some revision, and I work closely with the authors to get those into a form I'd like to publish.

Delos: Who is selecting the good stories you published and what kind of science fiction is preferred in the last years (space opera, cyberpunk., etc.)?

Stanley Schmidt: I read all submissions personally (except on rare occasions when I'm away for an extended period). I don't look for any specific subgenre; the stories I like best are ones I didn't know I was looking for until I saw them. My only general requirements are that some element of scientific speculation be integral and essential to the story (that is, you can't take it out without making the whole story collapse), and that the speculation be made as plausible as possible.

Delos: The winning part of ANALOG is also about the many drawings published in each issue regardless the stories. How long do you have to wait for getting the drawings ready to be published along with the related stories?

Stanley Schmidt: When we buy a story, we give it to an artist whose style seems well suited to it and ask him or her to read and illustrate it, with careful attention to both detail and the spirit of the story. Usually we get the illustrations within a couple of weeks.

Delos: Is ANALOG produced using Desktop publishing products? (If yes do you utilize Macs or standard PC's?)

Stanley Schmidt: For about the last year we have been using desktop publishing, on Power Macs, to produce Analog.

Delos: What are the main differences between your magazine and project like Fantasy & Science Fiction? Do you believe that the reader of your magazine is completely different from the target of SCI-FI Entertainment or Sci-Fi Universe? What sort of relationship do you have with those magazines?

Stanley Schmidt: The main difference between us and other science fiction magazines, I think, is that we are more insistent on having carefully extrapolated science play an integral role in our stories. This does not mean, however, that we're more interested in machines than in people, as some people wrongly assume! Our focus is usually not on scientific discoveries and gadgets per se, but on how they affect human (and other) life.

Delos: Are you able to make a picture of your average-reader (age, profession, etc.)?

Stanley Schmidt: On the basis of past surveys and the perennial flood of correspondence (which has increased greatly since we started publishing an e-mail address), our readers are generally well-educated and well-off and span a very wide range of occupations and backgrounds. Many of them are professionally involved with science or technology of some sort, but we also have everything from convicts to clergymen. Their average age is somewhere around 35, but that range, too, is wide; some have been reading Astounding/Analog for decades. What they all have in common, I think, is an active interest in trying to imagine what the future might be like-and figure out how to make it better.