Yesterday while having lunch with my wife, I off-handedly said to her that a fun project would be to relaunch a new version of Omni Magazine. Originally published in late 1978, running through till 1995, Omni covered a lot of the same ground that we do here on TDG – interesting new science, science on the fringe, and even science ‘beyond’ the fringe through its wonderful science fiction shorts (authored by SFF giants such as Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Robert Heinlein, Stanislaw Lem, George R.R. Martin, Orson Scott Card, Harlan Ellison, and Ben Bova, along with art by the likes of H.R.Giger and other wonderful artists).
So it was a nice little synchronicity – and a wonderful, pleasant surprise! – when, late last night, I learned that pretty much the complete run of Omni is available to download freely from the Internet Archive! Quickly browsing through the issues, it’s interesting to see how things have changed (and some not so much) in the 34 years since Omni’s first issue. In terms of stasis, in the first few issues there is some coverage of the looming space shuttle era, which has only just now come to a close. On the other hand, with coverage of the beginnings of personal computing (along with cute ads for fledgling companies like Apple), there’s also a sense of how far we’ve come.
Along with those technological markers, and the wonderful science fiction stories, there’s plenty of coverage of the big science issues of the day, along with a number of articles on ‘fringe science’ topics such as parapsychology and UFOs (the latter getting the skeptical treatment pretty much every issue through James Oberg’s regular column).
So much to read and enjoy. Go grab them all, and I’ll see you back here in December…
