Good stuff in the middle of hokey stuff

I was at the grocery store the other day picking up a prescription and had to wait about 20 minutes so I was looking at the magazines they had and I picked up Realms of Fantasy Magazine. At first I thought it was just something that was for die hard Harry Potter fans and Eragon nuts but I was surprised to see that there were a few good short stories. And the best thing about it was that they were all varied and not what I was expecting. Half of the stories I read through were actually science fiction stories. I asked Clyde, my guru of all things fantasy, about it and he actually had a few old issues that he let me borrow to look at. I think the thing that I actually like about this magazine is that it offers a way for the common person to get into a writing market. I’m not saying that any person who writes a story is going to be published in the magazine, far from it, most of what I read was very good writing, some of it’s by established writers who get featured in each issue but with my experience so far with literary magazines and journals it does seem a bit stuffy and at times on the artsy side, so I think that its important for more than just literature readers to do the writings, who’s to say that someone brand new and inexperienced can’t have a good idea for a story. Also, we all have to start somewhere, and this magazine seems like as good a place as any. Other than about a dozen short stories, which included tales of deep space, quirky realities where robots run around, tales of biblical fiction and stories about anything you can imagine, there were also good articles on work coming out in all media from print, to film, to video games. There was a lot of hokey stuff too, gothic dresses, places you could buy swords and medieval weapons, and lots of propaganda for Eragon and Harry Potter stuff, but I would still give the magazine some credibility after what I read. Just because it’s common or in the main stream I don’t think it should be count out.