Emerald City

An online fanzine edited by Cheryl Morgan.

http://www.emcit.com/

Issue 100 has much musing on what makes SF important.

http://www.emcit.com/emcit100.shtml

Ken Mac Leod:

"The great advantage of this explanation of the importance of SF is that it resonates with the experience of the reader, who certainly hasn’t opened a book with spaceships on the cover in order to learn science, or to discover that the future will be different from the present. They want to read stories set in the universe outside the world of human relationships, because (a) if they’re a typical new reader, i.e. an adolescent, they already have the world of human relationships ringing in their ears all the fucking time, and (b) they know that universe to be full of interest and wonder. "