Note, not Tor the publishing company itself, just the website. They’re now calling it ‘Reactor,*’ and will be watering down the genre focus of the site to the general level of, well, water. Sorry if I’m giving anything away; but, generally speaking, you don’t go looking for a new audience unless there’s insufficient interest from the audience you already have. From the linked announcement (bolding mine):
The site has been publisher agnostic since its founding, and the new name will reflect its independence from Tor Publishing Group. The short fiction program will continue under the Reactor name, and in addition to the daily commentary on science fiction, fantasy, and related subjects that readers have come to expect, the site will also now cover all aspects of genre, including horror, romance and and more, from a wide range of writers from all corners of the genre world, creating a true pop culture destination.
Devi Pillai, President and Publisher of Tor Publishing Group, remarked, “I am very excited to introduce Reactor to the world! We have always been the place to come to for science fiction and fantasy—but with a new name, a new design, we are going to have a magazine that will be more of a pop culture hub for people who love genre of all types. We want to expand the audience and the community that Tor.com has built over the past 15 years.”
(H/T: @BlkCrownAuthor)
I should make it clear that The Matter Of Tor/Reactor is not really my problem, since I didn’t read it in the past, and doubt I’ll be reading it in the future. But anyone who does read the site, and enjoys it, should become resigned to watching it steadily becoming less of a science fiction / fantasy site, and more of a… look, let’s be honest. There’s a nontrivial chance that this rebranding is a last-ditch chance to keep the site from going dark entirely. It wouldn’t be the first time that a corporate entity did a complete makeover in order to keep paying the bills.
Whether it’s a success is something that time will tell us later.
Moe Lane
*That choice of name is either a Freudian slip of the first order (revealing their subconscious feelings of helplessness about seizing the situation), or else an amusingly cynical bit of dark humor (acknowledging that they’re engaging in an act of dark publishing necromancy). If it’s the latter, then I do have to agree: ‘Reanimator’ would have been just a little bit too on the nose.
PS: The question of what Tor.com might have done in order to not dilute its, ah, genre ‘brand identity’ has been left as an exercise for the interested student.
Tor delenda est.
Beyond that, it is my fond hope that nobody gets stiffed during this rebranding.
And I very much expect that hope to be dashed.
This tells me they are turning to what has kept the rest of Mainstream Publishing afloat for the last decade: smut and money laundering. They haven’t contracted hardly anyone with the capability to ask the foundational “what if” in that time, only “I Want”, so the change is fitting.
My opinion of Tor in general isn’t too different from Luke’s. Having ignored the site thus far I will react to the announcement by continuing to ignore it. 😋