All good things must come to an end.

Now that our seventeenth issue has been published, I’m stepping down as editor-in-chief of Future SF, and the magazine will most likely go on hiatus unless another brave and foolhardy editor steps up to take over the considerable workload of running a magazine.

I’m very proud of what Future SF has accomplished. We’ve published stories that have gone on to be nominated for awards and been reprinted in Year’s Best volumes. More importantly, we’ve had the privilege of featuring great fiction from across the globe, to showcase the fact that excellent, thoughtful science fiction is not an exclusive domain of the Anglosphere. We also managed to last five years, which is far longer than the average life of an internet semiprozine.

So why am I stepping down now? Frankly, I can’t handle the workload. Between a full-time job, my own writing, my translation work, and some freelance consulting gigs, the weight of all my responsibilities has put considerable stress on me. It has become a rat race, a struggle to keep up with everything. And whenever I couldn’t keep up, it was my own writing that has suffered by getting kicked to the back of the line. As I write this introduction, it has been months since I’ve had the time and headspace to write any fiction at all. I enjoy editorial work, but I’m a writer first and foremost, and I must reduce my overall workload in order to protect that. I will still edit an occasional anthology, but my primary focus (health permitting) in the near future is going to be on writing.

I’m deeply thankful to the Future Affairs Administration, who have been wonderful partners and friends and without whom Future SF simply wouldn’t have existed. Also, to our team of associate editors, and especially Tarryn Thomas, who has been our copy editor and taken on a lot of additional tasks to help the magazine run smoothly.

This issue is a great example of exactly what I envisioned for the magazine when it was being launched. A range of voices and tones, telling science fiction stories from across three continents. I’m proud of it, as I’m proud of so much my team has accomplished with the magazine.

One more time, and with utmost sincerity: happy reading!