When Gawker Media launched the io9 sci-fi blog last week, I was initially concerned that their coverage “seems to skew much more heavily towards movies and television than literary SF,” but they closed out their initial week of operations with what promises to be the first in a series of posts on great science fiction bookstores by profiling San Francisco’s Borderlands, including this photo of Ripley, the store cat. And you know how I feel about bookstore cats. (What’s that? You’re new here, and don’t know? Well, I love them very much.)
On a more serious note, can anybody explain to me why New York City has several mystery bookshops, and several comic book shops, and even a couple stores specializing in New Age-y “magickal” handbooks, but no science fiction and fantasy bookstore? (And, no, the three bookcases on the ground floor of Forbidden Planet don’t count.) Is it just that the anchor Barnes & Noble outposts have huge enough selections that a specialty store would be meaningless? Is it the rents? Or am I simply unaware of an existing store at which I would likely spend gobs of money if I knew where it was? Bonus question: The city must have had such a store in the past; where was it, when did it close, and what’s there now?