Another two years, another issue of Nova Express.

Really, we didn't intend it to take this long. We started planning for this issue back in 1993, and then things just sort of slipped away from us. A little history, if I might, for the uninitiated (longtime readers are excused to check their e-mail and skip ahead a few paragraphs). In 1987, Mike Sumbera, Dwight Brown, and Richard Simental started Nova back when all of us were still in college (or at least college aged). I signed on with the second issue, with Glen Cox and Jill Engel joining the editorial board a few issues later. The purpose, then and now, was to take advantage of the desktop publishing revolution to put out the sort of magazine we wanted to read, one covering cyberpunk and other exciting developments in the genre with offbeat humor and a critical eye. With the naïve enthusiasm and energy of youth, we set out to do just that.

And, if I can blow our collective horn for a moment, we did a pretty damned good job. With the work (and costs) spread amongst the six of us on the "ruling junta," we put out solid issues on a reasonably regular basis. After hitting our stride with Number 3 (the Howard Waldrop issue), we discovered a talent for doing interesting, in-depth interviews, and used that talent to good effect on K.W. Jeter, Pat Cadigan, Joe Lansdale, and several other writers to fine effect (in fact, the Jeter interview was later picked up and translated for a book in France). All the aforementioned are keepers, and I think the Bruce Sterling interview in this issue will be one as well. Add to that a lot of good reviews, a few spiffy critical articles, and some uneven but interesting fiction, and you have a pretty respectable record for a magazine that's never sold more than 750 copies of any issue in its life.

So, if we're such hot shit, why has it taken us two years to get out the latest issue?

Well, basically, we all got old.

Not that any of us are really decrepit in conventional terms-we all bear the stigma (and no doubt the stigmata) of being Generation X'ers. But we're all within spitting distance of age 30 now, and the virtues of youth are not always the virtues of maturity. Where multiple staffers once meant sharing the editorial and financial burden, it now means coordinating several busy schedules. Most of us have graduated or "aged out" of college to the world of day jobs (save Mike, the Perpetual Grad Student), and 3 A.M. layout sessions lack the zany fun of yesteryear when you have to get up and go to work the next morning.

For myself, I seized the editorial reigns of Nova mainly because no one else seemed to be doing it. It really wasn't much of a change from my previous role as Bad Cop, but now I seem to have as much trouble kicking my own ass as anyone else's (does the fact I'm writing this at two in the morning the night before final lay-out give you a hint?). For me, every hour I spend on Nova is an hour less I can spend on my professional writing career, and everyone else is just as busy with their own lives (or low-calorie life-substitutes, as the case may be). The time between issues got longer and longer, resulting in the two year gap between this and the last, and two good interviews (with Walter Jon Williams and Gene Wolfe) "aged in the can" so long that it would have been pointless to run them. For a while we even considered officially ending the magazine. We could have done a big final issue, gone out with a bang, and refunded any remaining subscriptions. However, we finally decided to keep the old beast up and running for several reasons.

First, as mentioned in the ad on page 27, there's the fact (or rather FACT) that the 1997 Worldcon is being held in San Antonio. We figure that if we're ever going to get a Hugo nomination (yeah, like not having gotten one really keeps us from sleeping nights), it will be then. Not that we're actually going to win, given we don't engage in nearly enough of the back-scratching, letter-hacking, or politicking that characterizes the tight little clique of award fandom these days.

Not that we're bitter.

Indeed, we don't have time to be bitter, or do any of the aforementioned, just because we're too damn busy. But we thought running a blatant, shameless Give Nova Express a Hugo campaign might be fun, and will at least keep our feet to the fire about getting out issues between now and then. Plus 1997 will be the tenth anniversary of Nova Express, and we think that's a pretty good run.

And if we win, we might even keep publishing.

Finally, however, the main reason we're still publishing is the one that got us started in the first place: If not us, who?

There's no one else out there putting out something like Nova Express. We're still running the interviews, articles, and reviews that we would want to read. And until someone else steps up to the plate (and I suspect we might be waiting a loooong time for that to happen), we'll try to keep the old gray beast chugging along.

Damn this editorial is long. Five years ago I would have knocked this out in 30 minutes and 500 words. And it would have been funnier, too.

What a drag it is getting old . . .

- Lawrence Person