Galaxies is a French magazine quarterly dedicated to science fiction. Founded in May 1996 by Stéphanie Nicot, the first Galaxies appeared until 2007 before discontinuing its publication in October 2007. It has 41 issues, oddly numbered from 1 to 42, and No. 41, which was to be dedicated to Joëlle Wintrebert, never appeared. The magazine also counted several special editions to its credit: Utopia, The Universe and Hyperfuturs Science Fiction.
The disappearance of a magazine like Galaxies, which had acquired science fiction a real status in the worlds of french literature, was felt in the SF circles as a thunderclap. Therefore, with the consent of the former editor, Stéphanie Nicot, a group of professionals and fans has been formed in order to find a solution to revive a magazine considered essential for the french science fiction.
Thus these fans have turned to Pierre Gévart, organizer of the french national conventions of science fiction in 2006 and 2009, creator and editor of the fanzine Red Giant (La Géante Rouge), proposing the relaunching of Galaxies with the guarantee of a starting capital for the resumption of service of current subscriptions.
The second series of Galaxies opened in July 2008 and was launched to the Imaginales Festival in Epinal. Galaxies special guest was Alastair Reynolds. The Galaxies magazine is a quarterly, with a special issue for each year of publication. It publishes articles, news and French and foreign studies as well as numerous reading notes. Each issue has a feature ddicated to an author (story, article, interview, bibliography). The format is 21 x 13.5cm, 192 pages, color cover with four faces. The magazine is available by subscription or library. It is divided into four parts: a section reserved for the most new short stories in French, a second section comprising a dossier on an author or theme, a third section is bringing together recurrent reviews. Finally, a comics critical section held by Laurianne Gourrier and Alain Dartevelle. The 2012 Galaxies had a print run between 1000 and 1500 copies, out of which 600 copies distributed by subscription.
On April the 28th, 2012 in Zagreb, during the European Convention of Science Fiction (Eurocon Kontakt) the ESFS (European science fiction society : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Science_Fiction_Society) awarded it’s 2012 Award for the best european magazine science fiction to Galaxies.
In addition to news and reviews, the 2013 January issue includes a feature on an author, this time it’s Daniel Walther, a prolific and reputed French SF writer but little known to the wider european public. Other interesting SF stories are belonging to the romanian author Christian-Mihail Teodorescu, to the russian writer Leonid Kaganov, to the french writers Loïc le Borgne and Jean-Pierre Andrevon and to the american writer Ken Liu.
An article by Arvind Mishra presents the debates which agitate the world of science fiction in India. Beautiful and sometimes turbulent pages of SF history and its authors are then discussed by Philippe Ethuin, Pierre Stolze and Denis Labbé. As usual, this issue ends with calls for papers for the 2013 Alain de Bussy Award and with the announcement of the fortieth French Science Fiction Convention taking place in Aubenas from 22nd to 25th August 2013.
Bifrost is a french quarterly journal of science-fiction created in April 1996 and directed by Olivier Girard. It’s been published by Le Bélial’ Publishing Press, Bifrost aims to present a complete news about imaginary worlds. To this objective it gives a large part in the thematic reports to the interviews with authors, to the book reviews, and to the articles. Each issue is devoted to an author or a particular theme and contains a comprehensive bibliography of the works of each author. Since its Number 62 (April 2011) the magazine is also sold in PDF digital format, DRM-free in accordance with the policy publisher.
The January 2013 issue of Bifrost is dedicated to the “Culture and rock science fiction” theme, which includes texts by Norman Spinrad, Jean-Marc Ligny and Eric Holstein and also Olivier Girard, Jacques Barberi, Daniel Walther, Stéphanie Benson, Alastair Reynolds, Thomas Day, Pierre Stolze, Hervé Le Roux, Éric Holstein, Norman Spinrad, Jean-Marc Ligny, Philippe Thyeire, Richard Comballot, Roland Lehouck, Sébastien Steyer, Viktoriya Lajoye, Patrice Lajoye, Pierre-Paul Durastanti.