When my Dad was reading OMNI magazine back in the 1980′s I was just a little kid. I didn’t know that it was published by Bob Guccione or that OMNI was a visionary science magazine that hit a sweet spot between inspired scientific speculation, imaginative short science fiction, and the cutting edge of technology and research to create a publication that always felt like it had been published the day after tomorrow. OMNI has had a strange and somewhat troubled life online, but fans of the magazine now have some reason to celebrate. Here’s The Verge with the skinny…

Omni Magazine was an enormously influential publication that ran from 1978 to 1995. Created by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione and wife Kathy Keeton, it featured interviews with scientists such as Freeman Dyson, art from the likes of H.R. Giger and Chris Foss, and original fiction from established science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov and newcomers like William Gibson. The original magazine went digital in 1995, but shuttered in 1998. In 2013, Jerrick Media resurrected the magazine in an online format called Omni Reboot.

Until recently, back issues of Omni Magazine were stored on the Internet Archive, for readers to page through at no cost. The collection of issues was taken down a couple of years ago, but it’s now back online on Amazon.com.

Click through The Verge link to access the magazine on Amazon. In the meantime here’s a mind blowing playlist featuring “Inside the OMNI Vault” — a series of portraits highlighting the mind expanding visual artists who brought OMNI‘s features, interviews and essays to life…

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Today I have 1013 followers on Twitter, but last night I had 997. The milestone seemed like an opportunity to interact with some folks and get some help scrambling over the hump.

A while back, a literary journal I review books for was in a similar position: The folks in charge of their funding were coming to town and they wanted to show off 1K Facebook friends — they were already pretty close, but still 30 or so off the night before the big visit.

I took to Twitter and started messaging about the journal, linking to the Facebook page. For some reason, in the midst of my messaging, I thought “I should ask William Gibson to retweet this message to his followers. He’s a writer. He’ll get it. He’ll want to help.” There was no reason for William Gibson to help or even notice the message in his stream, but he did notice it, and he helped. Following Gibson’s RT the site’s Facebook page was well over the 1K mark by morning.

Yesterday night I messaged William Gibson again asking if he might give me a hand with an RT. He did. He’s a writer. He gets it.

Thanks again @GreatDismal!

Gibson’s latest book is The Peripheral Here’s the description on the Amazon page:

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran’s benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC’s elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there’s a job he’s supposed to do—a job Flynne didn’t know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He’s supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That’s all there is to it. He’s offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn’t what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.

And in keeping with recent posts, here’s Gibson at the Chicago Humanities Festival last November discussing “Technology, Science Fiction & the Apocalypse.”

Stay Awake!

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