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A LOOK AT SCI FI PULPS
Part Two: Sci-Fi Magazines
The first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, was published in a format known as bedsheet, roughly the size of Life magazine but with a square spine. Later, most magazines changed to the pulp magazine format, roughly the size of comic books or National Geographic but again with a square spine.
Except for the last issue of Stirring Science Stories, the last true bedsheet size sf (and fantasy) magazine was Fantastic Adventures, in 1939, but it quickly changed to the pulp size, and it was later absorbed by its digest-sized stablemate Fantastic in 1953. Before that consolidation, it ran 128 issues.
Most pulp science fiction consisted of adventure stories transplanted, without much thought, to alien planets. And most of it was so badly written that even today science fiction still carries a slight whiff of its pulp heritage. The classic image of pulp science fiction is a beautiful, scantily-clad, large-breasted woman being carried off by a bug-eyed monster. But there were also many famous stories first published in the crumbling pages of pulp magazines. In the groundbreaking year, 1939, all of the following writers sold their first professional sf story to the pulps: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, A. E. Van Vogt, and Theodore Sturgeon. These were among the most important sf writers of the pulp era, and all are still read today.
As noted above, the first science fiction magazine was Amazing Stories, edited and published by Hugo Gernsback. The first issue was dated April 1926 and features a cover by Frank R. Paul illustrating Off on a Comet by Jules Verne. After many minor changes in title and major changes in format, policy, and publisher, Amazing Stories ended in January 2005 after 607 issues.
Amazing Stories magazine, sometimes retitled Amazing Science Fiction, was first published in April 1926 in New York City, thereby becoming the first magazine devoted exclusively to publishing stories in the genre presently known as science fiction (SF). It is regarded as the world's first science fiction magazine. After the April 2005 issue, the magazine went on "hiatus" and as of March 2006, the magazine's current publisher announced that it would no longer be published.
Created by Hugo Gernsback, with many of its covers by the legendary Frank R. Paul, it featured a much-imitated logo of the magazine name in ever-shrinking letters. Amazing Stories was filled with stories of "scientific romance". Gernsback coined the portmanteau word "scientifiction" (abbreviated "STF") as a name for the genre which, over the years, became science fiction.
Turning now to the pulp format magazines, the first and most famous pulp science fiction magazine was Astounding Stories, which began in January 1930. After several changes in name and format (Astounding Science Fiction, Analog Science Fact & Fiction, Analog) it is still published today (though it ceased to be pulp format in 1943). Its most important editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., is credited with turning science fiction away from adventure stories on alien planets and toward well-written, scientifically literate stories with better characterization than in previous pulp science fiction. Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy and Robert A. Heinlein's Future History in the 1940s, Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity in the 1950s, and Frank Herbert's Dune in the 1960s, and many other science fiction classics all first appeared under Campbell's editorship.
Wonder Stories was a science fiction magazine which published 66 issues between 1930 and 1936, edited by Hugo Gernsback. There have been other magazines containing Wonder Stories in their name, which are closely related to this one.
Gernsback founded Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories in 1929, after he lost control of Amazing Stories. Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories published 11 and 12 issues respectively, before Air Wonder Stories merged with Science Wonder Stories, which was then renamed just Wonder Stories (beginning with Volume 2 No 1).
In 1936, Wonder Stories was sold to Thrilling Publications. To match with their other pulps (e.g. Thrilling Western, Thrilling Detective) the title was changed to Thrilling Wonder Stories. This is considered to be a continuation of Wonder Stories since it began with Volume 8, Number 1. This published a further 112 issues, closing in 1955.
The Gernsback Wonder Stories were all oversized, premium, pulp magazines with covers by Frank R. Paul and with a similar editorial slant to Amazing Stories. Thrilling Wonder Stories was standard pulp size and took a more junior slant, shown especially with a "Sergeant Saturn" policing the letters page. However it was to publish many major figures, including Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp Robert A. Heinlein, Henry Kuttner, Theodore Sturgeon, A. E. Van Vogt, and Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Startling Stories was a pulp science fiction magazine which also published a lot of science fantasy. A companion magazine to Thrilling Wonder Stories and Captain Future magazine, it published 99 issues from 1939 to 1955. It was edited by Sam Merwin, Jr. from 1945 to 1951.
It featured a novel in each issue, several of which were written by Henry Kuttner. Among the classic stories which were published in it were The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum, The Last Days of Shandakor and The Star-Men of Llyrdis by Leigh Brackett, and Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke. From 1940 to 1952 it featured covers by Earle Bergey. After Captain Future magazine ceased publication, some of the final stories about the eponymous character were published in Startling.
Planet Stories was a pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House with a total of 71 monthly issues appeared between 1939 and 1955. It featured a particular kind of romantic, swashbuckling adventure in a science fiction context, and was renowned for its colorful covers, typically featuring a young woman in (for the time) rather scanty apparel. For a brief time it was edited by Jerome Bixby. Twenty years later many of these stories were reprinted in paperback as space opera or science fantasy.
Reprints of Planet Stories, published under the same title, were published in the United Kingdom from March 1950 through September 1954 and in Canada from Fall 1948 through March 1951.
Fantastic Adventures was a fantasy and science fiction magazine published in the United States from 1939 to 1953. The pulp magazine began as a companion publication to Amazing Stories, but following its demise, was absorbed by Fantastic magazine in 1954.
Uncanny Tales was an American pulp science fiction magazine that ran from April 1939 to May 1940. Published by Martin Goodman (publisher) under the "Manvis Publications, Inc." imprint. It should not be confused with Goodman's "shudder" publication Uncanny Stories.
Science Fiction magazine was published from 1939 to 1942 for a total of 17 issues.
Authentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues under three editors: Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, and E.C. Tubb. The magazine was published by Hamilton and Co., and began in 1951 as a series of novels appearing every two weeks; by the summer it had become a monthly magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it had completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine.
Authentic published little in the way of important or ground-breaking fiction, though it did print Charles L. Harness's "The Rose", which later became well-regarded. The poor rates of pay—£1 per 1,000 words—prevented the magazine from attracting the best writers. During much of its life it competed against three other moderately successful British science fiction magazines, as well as the American science fiction magazine market. Hamilton folded the magazine in October 1957, because they needed cash to finance an investment in the UK rights to an American best-selling novel.
Famous Fantastic Mysteries was published from 1939 to 1953 for a total of 81 issues.
Only two issues of Out of This World published, both in 1950
Future Fiction was published from 1939 to 1943
Science Fiction Quarterly was published from 1940 to 1945for a total of ten issues. It was revived in 1951 and published through 1958
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J.C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre. Edwin Baird was the first editor of the monthly, assisted by Farnsworth Wright.
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_magazine
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