Before there was Wired, there was Omni.
A populist science magazine (hello, Carl Sagan) that was also home to some classic science fiction (including William Gibson’s early work and art from H.R. Giger), every issue of Omni is now available via Amazon in a digitized edition.
If you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you knew Omni: Co-founded by Penthouse’s Bob Guccione — who described the magazine at launch as “an original if not controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy and the paranormal” — the magazine was part of the first wave of science publications aimed toward a mainstream reader.
Editor Ben Bova called it a “magazine about the future,” and strove to make it “like lemon meringue pie: delicious and fun.”
It was certainly fun, and well ahead of its time: The mag was featured in Ghostbusters, had its own e-magazine by 1986 and went all digital in 1996 (before going out of business in 1998). If the “science” leaned a bit too much into the paranormal, hey, think of what the History Channel counts as “history.”
The full, digitized archive of Omni (1978-1995) is available now on Amazon, at $2.99 for each issue or free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to the Museum of Science Fiction.
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