In case you are wondering what we are trying to do with this Web site, here is a simple statement of our goals and philosophy:

We like short fiction and we think there is a very natural connection between short fiction and the World Wide Web. Whereas it seems unlikely that novels can be read or downloaded efficiently on or from the Web (at least in the near future), those of us interested in fiction and especially short fiction might imagine the day when we turn to the Web in search of something to read by one of our favorite writers, something we have not read before, or perhaps something we have read before but have lost track of and would like to find and read again. In principle, the Web clearly has all the capabilities needed to accomplish such a goal today, but what is missing is the archival information needed to find and retrieve stories by your favorite author. CyberSpace Spinner has been designed to make browsing for fiction an experience unique to the Web. We will not have the fiction online anytime soon, but we plan to make it possible to locate genre fiction so the browser knows where to look. The best we can do at the moment is to offer for sale a rather limited number of magazines containing some of the fiction you will find indexed here. In the not too distant future perhaps the goal of downloadable fiction from these or competing archives will be much simpler than it is today.

We mentioned genre fiction. Which genres you may ask? Since time and money are limited, we must limit the genres to be covered in the near term. We intend to cover mystery, suspense, detective, spy, science and speculative fiction, horror, fantasy, and western fiction, and related entertainment from other media such as cinema, television, comics, and video games. We have no plans at this time to cover other obvious genres such as adventure, romance, classical, etc. If the present effort proves to be successful, we may expand in those directions at a later date.

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