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{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 1707, "ep": 10, "ec": 2269} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 1,707 | 10 | 2,269 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era | 20% of all young men (from 90% at the height of the cold war), but remained present in UN peacekeeping forces, not least the Yugoslav wars, where former prime minister Carl Bildt was envoy for the EU, and later the UN.
In the first half of 2001, Sweden held the rotating EU Presidency, and hosted a series of high-profile meetings and workshops, culminating in June with a summit in Gothenburg visited by George W. Bush and all the major EU heads of government - this was the first visit of a sitting US President in Sweden. This summit was an important |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 2269, "ep": 10, "ec": 2871} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 2,269 | 10 | 2,871 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era | step for the eastward expansion of the EU three years later, but the event was challenged by protesting left-wing groups rioting and attacking police downtown. A referendum in 2003, after years of uneasy discussion, lead to a resounding no to the proposed adoption of the euro. The perplexing effect on the leading political strata, many business people and the media, in all of which groups the support for the adoption of the euro had been overwhelming, of this vote was increased by the bitter fact that the campaign had been disrupted four days prematurely by the assassination of Foreign Minister |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 2871, "ep": 10, "ec": 3467} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 2,871 | 10 | 3,467 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era | Anna Lindh, who, had she lived, would likely have succeeded Göran Persson within one or two years (as confirmed by the PM himself in later interviews and by her obvious standing within her party).
While the assassination of Anna Lindh was not connected to the campaigning on the Euro, or on EU issues in general, and while the trend toward a rejective vote was clear in polls weeks before the referendum, both the Gothenburg riots and the no to the euro show that many Swedes, and in particular many young Swedes, feel disenfranchised by the new EU-oriented and less self-assured country |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 3467, "ep": 10, "ec": 4116} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 3,467 | 10 | 4,116 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era | they are living in.
On 26 December 2004 during a Christmas holiday and Boxing Day celebration, a thousands of Swedish people in Thailand and the other part across the region of South and Southeast Asia were among thousands of people killed by the catastrophic tsunami from the magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake off Indonesian island's west coast of Sumatra, and many thousands are suffered from the significant lost of Scandinavian lives. A memorial service held at Storkyrkan in Stockholm in January 2005. On behalf of all Scandinavians.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs was unmanned due to the holidays, and the lack of government |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 4116, "ep": 10, "ec": 4747} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 4,116 | 10 | 4,747 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era | action caused a political scandal which shook the confidence of Persson's cabinet, not least Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds. She resigned after another scandal, where she had been informed in advance of a Swedish Security Service shutdown of the Sweden Democrats' web site featuring the infamous Muhammad cartoons. Swedish press noted that this was the first case of Swedish government censorship due to foreign threat since World War II. Sweden is one of few western countries where these cartoons have not been published in any mainstream mass media, but was still affected though the proximity to Denmark and Norway - |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 10, "sc": 4747, "ep": 14, "ec": 400} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 10 | 4,747 | 14 | 400 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Persson Era & The Reinfeldt Era | Norwegian-Danish-Swedish dairy producer Arla suffered from middle-eastern boycotts, and when Minister for International Development Cooperation Carin Jämtin went to Sudan to investigate the Darfur genocide, the governor of Darfur used the cartoons as a pretext not to receive her. The Reinfeldt Era Several new political parties - among them Feminist Initiative led by former leftist leader Gudrun Schyman, the euro-skeptical June List (originating in the 2004 European Parliament elections) and the anti-copyright Pirate Party ran for the Riksdag election of 2006 with attention from mass media, but with little success. In this election, the conservative coalition "Allians för Sverige" ("Alliance |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 400, "ep": 14, "ec": 1013} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 400 | 14 | 1,013 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | for Sweden") gained a majority in the riksdag and presented Fredrik Reinfeldt of the Moderates as their prime minister candidate. The success of the Sweden Democrats, who gained seats in several municipal councils, and got 2.9% of the Riksdag votes (though not meeting the 4% threshold), intimidated the established parties. During the first week, there was a series of scandals, where some of the cabinet ministers from the Moderate Party turned out to have dodged the television license fee, and paid maids under the table. Ministers Maria Borelius and Cecilia Stegö Chilo stepped down after only a few days in |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 1013, "ep": 14, "ec": 1669} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 1,013 | 14 | 1,669 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | office. The cabinet was criticised for lack of gender equality and diversity because it contained only nine women (out of 22 ministers). On the other hand, defenders of the cabinet pointed out that Sweden now had their first African-born minister (Nyamko Sabuni) and their first openly homosexual minister (Andreas Carlgren) ever. Foreign minister Carl Bildt was questioned for his former directorship in Vostok Nafta, and his possible bias in the question of the planned Nord Stream pipeline. The pipeline in question was intended to reach between Russia and Germany on the floor of the Baltic sea, through Swedish territorial waters.
Reinfeldt's |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 1669, "ep": 14, "ec": 2354} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 1,669 | 14 | 2,354 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | policy was focused at lowering unemployment, by lowering taxes, as well as allowances for sick and unemployed. Until the onset of the subprime crisis employment rose, though the red-green opposition claimed that the main cause has been the current global prosperity.
During the second half of 2009, Sweden held the rotating EU Precedency, during which Reinfeldt represented the EU at several high-profile summits with Barack Obama and other world leaders, including the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Reinfeldt also presided over the final negotiations surrounding implementation of The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 2354, "ep": 14, "ec": 3030} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 2,354 | 14 | 3,030 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | resulting in the appointment of Herman Van Rompuy as President of the European Council and Catherine Ashton as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The boost in perceived statesmanship that Persson enjoyed hosting the EU Presidency in 2001 largely evaded Reinfeldt however, and in opinion polls ahead of the 2010 general election support for his government continuously trailed that of the Social Democratic opposition. The Social Democrats joined forces in December 2008 with the Greens to form a Red-Green coalition to challenge the ruling liberal alliance. Starting in 2009, the Sweden Democrats consistently enjoyed support of |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 3030, "ep": 14, "ec": 3672} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 3,030 | 14 | 3,672 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | over 4% in the opinion polls, and along with the Pirate Party, which got 7.1% in the 2009 EU Parliament election, had the potential to become kingmakers and alter the political landscape at the 2010 general election. However, despite a 5.7% result for the Sweden Democrats and a 49.7% result for the Reinfeldt government, the sitting government could remain as a significantly weaker minority government. The hopes of the Sweden Democrats to become kingmakers were ultimately turned down when both prospective prime ministers publicly announced that they would never cooperate with the Sweden Democrats. Instead both the Social Democrats and |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 3672, "ep": 14, "ec": 4365} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 3,672 | 14 | 4,365 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | the Green party have been giving passive or sometimes active support to the liberal alliance to assure the stability of the government.
In December 2009, Cecilia Malmström was nominated new EU Commissioner, to succeed Margot Wallström, who was appointed UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Following in her father's footsteps marrying a commoner, on 24 February 2009 the Royal Court of Sweden officially announced the engagement of Crown Princess Victoria to Daniel Westling. The wedding took place on 19 June 2010 in Stockholm. On 11 August 2009, her sister, Princess Madeleine, announced her engagement to Jonas Bergström.
On December 11, 2010, |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 4365, "ep": 14, "ec": 5024} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 4,365 | 14 | 5,024 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | the Swedish capital of Stockholm was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing himself and injuring two others. Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt described the event as the "Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm. Failed — but could have been truly catastrophic." Although Swedish citizens of foreign background have committed suicide attacks abroad, this was the first time such an incident took place on Swedish ground. The incident is known as the 2010 Stockholm bombings.
After the 2010 Riksdag election, the Alliance formed the new government with Reinfeldt continuing as prime minister. His cabinet has |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 5024, "ep": 14, "ec": 5684} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 5,024 | 14 | 5,684 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | 24 ministers, three more than the previous one. The Moderates received 13 posts, an increase of three from their previous count, with the Liberals (4), Centre (4) and Christian Democrats (3) not gaining or losing ministers. Jan Björklund, the leader of the Liberal Party, was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister replacing Maud Olofsson. Carl Bildt remained Foreign Minister and Anders Borg remained Minister for Finance. The new ministers are Stefan Attefall, the Minister for Public Administration and Housing at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs; Ulf Kristersson, replacing Cristina Husmark Pehrsson as Minister for Social Security; Erik Ullenhag, the |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 5684, "ep": 14, "ec": 6420} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 5,684 | 14 | 6,420 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era | Minister for Integration at the Ministry of Employment; Hillevi Engström, the Minister for Employment; Anna-Karin Hatt, the Minister for Information Technology and Regional Affairs at the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications; Peter Norman, replacing Mats Odell as Minister for Financial Markets; and Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd, replacing Åsa Torstensson as Minister for Communications. Tobias Krantz, former Minister of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education and Research, is leaving with no successor having been named.
Reinfeldt issued a 30-page statement of government policy, saying it would "seek a broad-based and responsible solutions (sic)", and that it would "be natural...to hold regular discussions |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 14, "sc": 6420, "ep": 18, "ec": 100} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 14 | 6,420 | 18 | 100 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Reinfeldt Era & The Löfven Era | with the Green Party, in the first instance and also the Social Democratic Party where appropriate." In practice, this meant the end of the more far reaching reforms carried out by the Reinfeldt government as all decisions needed to be approved by one of the opposition parties. It also meant that the opposition, when supported by the Sweden Democrats, could get a majority in the Riksdag. This happened for example in the sensitive issues of unemployment subsidies and healthcare. The Löfven Era Stefan Löfven won the 2014 Swedish general election and formed a new government and was in his first |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 18, "sc": 100, "ep": 18, "ec": 746} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 18 | 100 | 18 | 746 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Löfven Era | few months challenged after the Sweden Democrats voted against his budget. During 2015, the number of asylum seekers, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, reached its highest level of all time.
In 2019, Löfven was re-elected for a second four-year term and formed a coalition government together with the Greens; This time with fewer seats than during the previous term, as such, the government relied upon support of the Greens, the Centre Party and the Liberals. The Alliance between the four centre-right parties, the Moderates, Centre Party, Liberals and the Christian Democrats - effectively ceased to exist during the attempts |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 18, "sc": 746, "ep": 18, "ec": 1400} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 18 | 746 | 18 | 1,400 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Löfven Era | at forming a government. Differences regarding the potential involvement of the right-wing Sweden Democrats in a proposed centre-right government coalition split the Alliance, eventually leading to the Centre Party and Liberals signing an agreement with the Social Democrats and Greens in January 2019, much to the dissatisfaction of the more conservative Moderates and Christian Democrats, with the latter party's leader Ebba Busch Thor calling the Alliance a "closed chapter". The deal meant that the Centre Party and Liberals were to tolerate the election of Stefan Löfven as Prime Minister as long as the policies of the two centre-right parties got |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 18, "sc": 1400, "ep": 22, "ec": 107} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 18 | 1,400 | 22 | 107 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | The Löfven Era & Culture and mass media | to play a role in government. The agreement contained numerous liberal economic reforms - the most notable of which include the abolishing of some taxes (such as the värnskatt) and a guarantee that the government would not seek to limit or prevent the ability of private companies to generate profits from their work in the public welfare system. The agreement also affirmed that the socialist Left Party would not have any influence over Swedish politics during the next few years. Culture and mass media During the 1990s Sweden became a leading power in information technology. Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 22, "sc": 107, "ep": 22, "ec": 818} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 22 | 107 | 22 | 818 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Culture and mass media | (M) and American President Bill Clinton were the world's first heads of government to exchange e-mail. Mobile telephony spread fast during the same decade, thanks to fruitful cooperation between the manufacturer Ericsson and government-owned network operator Televerket (which is now part of TeliaSonera). Sweden has converted to digital terrestrial television and is expanding the 3G network.
Since the 1990s, Sweden has been relatively tolerant to homosexuality and in 2002 outlawed hate speech against it. The first prosecution for this crime was in 2004-5 against Pentecostalist Åke Green, a case which brought international attention. However, Åke Green was eventually acquitted. Same-sex marriage |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 22, "sc": 818, "ep": 26, "ec": 57} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 22 | 818 | 26 | 57 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Culture and mass media & Popular culture | was legalized in 2009.
Another criminal case that brought international attention was The Pirate Bay trial in 2009, where four individuals was charged with promoting copyright infringement with the popular torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay.
The perceived unfair prosecution of file sharers and general curtailment of freedom and privacy on the Internet gave rise to the Pirate Party, which gained a lot of traction ahead of the 2009 EU Parliament elections, in wake of the contested Enforcement Directive (IPRED) and legislative changes regulating the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA). Popular culture In 1997 SVT introduced Expedition Robinson, the origin of |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 26, "sc": 57, "ep": 26, "ec": 699} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 26 | 57 | 26 | 699 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Popular culture | the Survivor format, which launched the reality television genre worldwide. The show was one of the biggest and most controversial successes in Scandinavia: the final episode of season four was viewed by 4,045,000 people out of a total population of 8.8 million.
Several Swedish recording artists and bands gained international success during the period, such as Ace of Base, The Cardigans, Dr. Alban, Army of Lovers, Stakka Bo, Rednex and Robyn. In 1993, Ace of Base had the world's biggest-selling debut album with a 23 million album sales for 'Happy Nation'. In addition, Swedish Songwriter/Producer Denniz Pop and Max Martin have |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 26, "sc": 699, "ep": 26, "ec": 1289} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 26 | 699 | 26 | 1,289 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Popular culture | written worldwide hits for pop artists like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. Heavy metal bands such as Dismember, Entombed and At the Gates in the 1990s has had a huge influence on metal music worldwide, while bands such as In Flames, Opeth, Dark Tranquillity and Amon Amarth are well known worldwide and help to spread the good image of Sweden to the rest of the world. In the last couple of years, many Swedish indie pop/rock acts have become widely known outside the country, for example Lykke Li, The Knife and Mando Diao.
Sweden won the Eurovision Song Contest |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 26, "sc": 1289, "ep": 30, "ec": 486} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 26 | 1,289 | 30 | 486 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Popular culture & Sports | four times, these being in 1991 with Carola, in 1999 with Charlotte Nilsson, in 2012 with Loreen and in 2015 with singer Måns Zelmerlöw. Sports Sweden has continued its success in sports such as alpine skiing (Pernilla Wiberg and Anja Pärson), golf (Annika Sörenstam), ice hockey (Mats Sundin, Nicklas Lidström and Peter Forsberg), and football (Tomas Brolin, Henrik Larsson and Zlatan Ibrahimović). Sweden has also emerged as a great power in track and field with world champions as Carolina Klüft, Kajsa Bergqvist, Stefan Holm, Christian Olsson and Susanna Kallur, and hosting of the World Championships in 1995 and the European |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 30, "sc": 486, "ep": 30, "ec": 1107} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 30 | 486 | 30 | 1,107 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Sports | Championships in 2006, both in Gothenburg. The national swimming team has boasted champions like Anders Holmertz, Therese Alshammar and Emma Igelström. In 2006, the ice hockey team won gold at the Turin Olympics and also at the World Championship in Riga, becoming the first hockey team ever to win at both the Winter Olympics and the World Championships in the same year.
Sweden is eighth in the all-time Olympic Games medal count (ninth for the Summer Olympic Games and sixth for the Winter Olympic Games). Although this success can be partly explained by competing countries' casualties in the World Wars, and |
{"datasets_id": 2411, "wiki_id": "Q5866759", "sp": 30, "sc": 1107, "ep": 30, "ec": 1673} | 2,411 | Q5866759 | 30 | 1,107 | 30 | 1,673 | History of Sweden (1991–present) | Sports | boycotts during the Cold War, Sweden remains a great power in sports despite its small size.
In 2001, having successfully managed Roma, Fiorentina, Benfica, Sampdoria and Lazio, Sven-Göran Eriksson controversially became the first foreign manager of the English national team, managing the team for two World Cups and Euro 2004. He made it to spot 97 on the 100 Greatest Swedes list published by the daily DN in 2009. Elin Nordegren married professional golfer Tiger Woods in 2004 and gained worldwide attention during their public falling out in late 2009. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 2, "sc": 0, "ep": 4, "ec": 545} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 545 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 545, "ep": 4, "ec": 1180} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 545 | 4 | 1,180 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 1180, "ep": 4, "ec": 1812} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 1,180 | 4 | 1,812 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
In 1933 Astounding was acquired by Street & Smith, |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 1812, "ep": 4, "ec": 2460} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 1,812 | 4 | 2,460 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | and it soon became the leading magazine in the new genre, publishing early classics such as Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time" in 1934. A couple of competitors to Weird Tales for fantasy and weird fiction appeared, but none lasted, and the 1930s is regarded as Weird Tales' heyday. Between 1939 and 1941 there was a boom in science-fiction and fantasy magazines: several publishers entered the field, including Standard Magazines, with Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories (a retitling of Wonder Stories); Popular Publications, with Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories; and Fiction House, with Planet Stories, which focused |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 2460, "ep": 4, "ec": 3092} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 2,460 | 4 | 3,092 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | on melodramatic tales of interplanetary adventure. Ziff-Davis launched Fantastic Adventures, a fantasy companion to Amazing. Astounding extended its pre-eminence in the field during the boom: the editor, John W. Campbell, developed a stable of young writers that included Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and A.E. van Vogt. The period starting in 1938, when Campbell took control of Astounding, is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Well-known stories from this era include Slan, by van Vogt, and "Nightfall", by Asimov. Campbell also launched Unknown, a fantasy companion to Astounding, in 1939; this was |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 3092, "ep": 4, "ec": 3747} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 3,092 | 4 | 3,747 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | the first serious competitor for Weird Tales. Although wartime paper shortages forced Unknown's cancellation in 1943, it is now regarded as one of the most influential pulp magazines.
Only eight science-fiction and fantasy magazines survived World War II. All were still in pulp magazine format except for Astounding, which had switched to a digest format in 1943. Astounding continued to publish popular stories, including "Vintage Season" by C. L. Moore, and "With Folded Hands ..." by Jack Williamson. The quality of the fiction in the other magazines improved over the decade: Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder in particular published |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 3747, "ep": 4, "ec": 4319} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 3,747 | 4 | 4,319 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | some excellent material and challenged Astounding for the leadership of the field. A few more pulps were launched in the late 1940s, but almost all were intended as vehicles to reprint old classics. One exception, Out of This World Adventures, was an experiment by Avon, combining fiction with some pages of comics. It was a failure and lasted only two issues. Magazines in digest format began to appear towards the end of the decade, including Other Worlds, edited by Raymond Palmer. In 1949, the first issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction appeared, |
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{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 4, "sc": 4319, "ep": 8, "ec": 220} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 4 | 4,319 | 8 | 220 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Early magazines | followed in October 1950 by the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction; both were digests, and between them soon dominated the field. Very few science-fiction or fantasy pulps were launched after this date; the 1950s was the beginning of the era of digest magazines, though the leading pulps continued until the mid-1950s, and authors began selling to mainstream magazines and large book publishers. Early magazines By the end of the 19th century, stories with recognizably science fictional content were appearing regularly in American magazines. These magazines typically did not print fiction to the exclusion of other content; they |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 8, "sc": 220, "ep": 8, "ec": 824} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 8 | 220 | 8 | 824 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Early magazines | would include non-fiction articles and poetry as well. In October 1896, the Frank A. Munsey company's Argosy magazine was the first to switch to printing only fiction, and in December of that year it began using cheap wood-pulp paper. This is now regarded by magazine historians as having been the start of the pulp magazine era. For twenty years the pulps were successful without restricting their fiction content to any specific genre, but in 1915 the influential magazine publisher Street & Smith began to issue titles that focused on a particular niche, such as Detective Story Magazine and Western |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 8, "sc": 824, "ep": 8, "ec": 1484} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 8 | 824 | 8 | 1,484 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Early magazines | Story Magazine, thus pioneering the specialized and single-genre pulps.
As the pulps proliferated, they continued to carry science fiction (SF), both in the general fiction magazines such as Argosy and All-Story, and in the more specialized titles such as sports, detective fiction, and (especially) the hero pulps. Science fiction also appeared outside the world of pulps: Hugo Gernsback, who had begun his career as an editor and publisher in 1908 with a radio hobbyist magazine called Modern Electrics, soon began including articles speculating about future uses of science, such as "Wireless on Saturn", which appeared in the December 1908 issue. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 8, "sc": 1484, "ep": 8, "ec": 2116} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 8 | 1,484 | 8 | 2,116 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Early magazines | The article was written with enough humour to make it clear to his readers that it was simply an imaginative exercise, but in 1911 Modern Electrics began serializing Ralph 124C 41+, a novel set in the year 2660. In 1913 Gernsback launched another magazine, The Electrical Experimenter (retitled Science and Invention in 1920), which frequently ran science fictional tales, written both by Gernsback and others.
In 1919, Street & Smith launched The Thrill Book, a magazine for stories that were unusual or unclassifiable in some way, which in most cases meant that they included either fantasy or science-fiction elements. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 8, "sc": 2116, "ep": 12, "ec": 110} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 8 | 2,116 | 12 | 110 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Early magazines & Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | The Thrill Book ceased publication in October 1919, having lasted sixteen issues; it carried some science fiction, particularly towards the end of its short run, but is not generally regarded as a science-fiction or fantasy pulp. Two years later, Gernsback launched yet another magazine, titled Practical Electrics, and in 1924 he sent a letter to its subscribers suggesting a magazine that would publish only scientific fiction. The response was weak, and Gernsback shelved the project. Weird Tales and Amazing Stories The first magazine to be primarily associated with fantasy and science fiction was Weird Tales, which appeared |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 110, "ep": 12, "ec": 720} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 110 | 12 | 720 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | in March 1923. It was initially edited by Edwin Baird and issued by Rural Publishing, a company owned by Jacob Clark Henneberger and John M. Lansinger. Rural had previously launched the magazine Detective Tales. Weird Tales was intended to provide a market for fantasy and weird fiction, and Henneberger was keen to obtain material unusual enough that it could not be sold to the existing pulp magazines. The planned monthly schedule soon began to slip, skipping July and December. As early as February 1924, Farnsworth Wright took over from Baird as interim editor. After the May-June-July 1924 Anniversary |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 720, "ep": 12, "ec": 1397} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 720 | 12 | 1,397 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | Issue was published, Henneberger and Lansinger split the company, each taking one of the magazines. Henneberger kept nominal control of Weird Tales, while the Cornelius Printing Company, of Indianapolis, to whom Rural owed most of its debt, took over primary ownership. The magazine went on hiatus for five months while Cornelius built a new printing plant. Weird Tales resumed publication with the November 1924 issue, with Farnsworth Wright as permanent editor. The magazine quickly began to improve, both in appearance and quality, as Wright nurtured talented fantasy writers such as Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft.
Wright frequently published science fiction, |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 1397, "ep": 12, "ec": 2010} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 1,397 | 12 | 2,010 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | including Edmond Hamilton's first story, which appeared in August 1926, and work by J. Schlossel and Otis Adelbert Kline, as well as weird and occult fiction. The first magazine devoted entirely to science fiction joined Weird Tales on the newsstands on 10 March 1926, titled Amazing Stories and dated April. Gernsback had delayed the launch a couple of years after his subscriber survey had shown only limited interest in a science fiction magazine, but finally decided to take the plunge. He ceased publication of Practical Electrics (recently retitled The Experimenter) but retained the editor, T. O'Conor |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 2010, "ep": 12, "ec": 2608} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 2,010 | 12 | 2,608 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | Sloane, to edit the new magazine, though Gernsback had final say over the fiction content. The first issue of Amazing consisted entirely of reprinted material, including Jules Verne's novel Off on a Comet, and stories by H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe, but new fiction quickly appeared, with Clare Winger Harris and A. Hyatt Verrill each finding success in one of Gernsback's early reader competitions. Both went on to become established writers. Gernsback also introduced a letter column, and encouraged his readers to join in lively discussions there. In the view of Mike Ashley, a historian |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 2608, "ep": 12, "ec": 3212} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 2,608 | 12 | 3,212 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | of science fiction, this was "the real secret of the success of Amazing Stories and is the cause of the popularity of science fiction": the letter column gave science-fiction fans, many of whom were lonely, a forum in which to make friends and talk about their interests. The resulting community of like-minded readers gave birth to science-fiction fandom, and also to a generation of writers who had grown up reading the genre.
Amazing was very successful, reaching a circulation of 100,000 in less than a year. It was some time before significant competition appeared, but two minor fantasy |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 3212, "ep": 12, "ec": 3817} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 3,212 | 12 | 3,817 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | magazines were launched the year after Amazing's first issue. One, Tales of Magic and Mystery appeared in 1927 and lasted only five issues; it specialized in stories about magic, including a series on Houdini. It was a financial failure, and is now remembered mainly for having published "Cool Air", a story by Lovecraft. The other was Ghost Stories, which was launched in mid-1926 by Bernarr Macfadden, who also published confessional magazines such as True Story. Much of the material in Ghost Stories was written in a similar confessional style, featuring tales of encounters with ghosts presented |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 3817, "ep": 12, "ec": 4458} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 3,817 | 12 | 4,458 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | as true events.
In June 1927 Gernsback published Amazing Stories Annual, twice the size (and twice the price) of the regular Amazing Stories. It carried a new Mars novel, The Mastermind of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which Burroughs had been unable to sell elsewhere, perhaps because it contained satirical elements aimed at religious fundamentalism. Burroughs' name was a powerful aid to sales, and since Gernsback had secured two stories by Abraham Merritt, who was also very popular, the magazine sold out all 150,000 copies, despite the high price. This success convinced Gernsback to launch another science-fiction title, |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 4458, "ep": 12, "ec": 5037} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 4,458 | 12 | 5,037 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | and the first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly appeared in 1928 with a Spring cover date. In the same year Gernsback printed E.E. Smith's first novel, in Amazing, titled The Skylark of Space. It was enormously successful, and on the strength of Smith's Skylark series of novels, and his later Lensman series, Smith became "one of the greatest names, if not the greatest of all" to science fiction readers of the 1930s.
Gernsback's declared goals for Amazing were to educate and to entertain. In the editorial for the first issue he asserted that "Not only do these |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 5037, "ep": 12, "ec": 5649} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 5,037 | 12 | 5,649 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories | amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading – they are also always instructive. They supply knowledge that we might not otherwise obtain – and they supply it in a very palatable form. For the best of these modern writers of scientifiction have the knack of imparting knowledge and even inspiration without once making us aware that we are being taught". It was difficult for Gernsback to find high-quality new material that was both entertaining and met his declared goal of providing scientific information, and the early issues of Amazing contained a high proportion of reprints. He discovered that |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 12, "sc": 5649, "ep": 16, "ec": 76} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 12 | 5,649 | 16 | 76 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Weird Tales and Amazing Stories & Wonder Stories and Astounding | his readers preferred the fantastical romances of Burroughs and Merritt to the more scientific stories of Verne and Wells, and perhaps in response published Merritt's "The Moon Pool" in the May 1927 issue of Amazing. The story was completely unscientific; Gernsback's introduction to the story claimed that Merritt was introducing a new science, but Ashley comments that Gernsback was simply "looking for an excuse for including such fantastic fiction in the magazine when it did not fit in with his basic creed". Wonder Stories and Astounding In early 1929 Gernsback went bankrupt, and his magazines were sold to Bergan |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 76, "ep": 16, "ec": 744} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 76 | 16 | 744 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | A. Mackinnon; both Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly continued publication under their new ownership, and Sloane remained as editor. Within two months Gernsback had launched two new magazines, Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories. Gernsback still believed in the educational value of science fiction, and contrasted his goals for Air Wonder Stories with the fiction appearing in aviation pulps such as Sky Birds and Flying Aces, which were "purely 'Wild-West'-world war adventure-sky busting" stories, in his words. He planned to fill Air Wonder with "flying stories of the future, strictly along scientific-mechanical-technical lines, full of |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 744, "ep": 16, "ec": 1337} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 744 | 16 | 1,337 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | adventure, exploration and achievement". Both Air Wonder and Science Wonder were edited by David Lasser, who had no prior experience as an editor and who knew little about science fiction, but whose degree from MIT had convinced Gernsback to take him on. Lasser printed work by some popular authors, including Fletcher Pratt, Stanton Coblentz, and David H. Keller, and two of the winners of the contests Gernsback frequently ran subsequently became well known in the field: Raymond Palmer, later the editor of Amazing Stories, and John Wyndham, best known for his 1951 novel The Day of the |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 1337, "ep": 16, "ec": 1975} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 1,337 | 16 | 1,975 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | Triffids. The readership of the two magazines overlapped strongly, most readers being science-fiction fans rather than aviation fans. With these two titles established, Gernsback added Science Wonder Quarterly in October 1929, also edited by Lasser. At the same time Gernsback sent a letter to some of the writers he had already bought stories from, asking for "detective or criminal mystery stories with a good scientific background", and in January 1930 he launched Scientific Detective Monthly, edited by his deputy, Hector Grey, as a new cross-genre title, giving him four magazines in all.
January 1930 also saw the first |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 1975, "ep": 16, "ec": 2617} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 1,975 | 16 | 2,617 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | issue of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which would go on to become the most influential magazine in the field within a decade. The publisher was William Clayton, a successful publisher of pulp titles. In 1928 Harold Hersey, who by then was working for Clayton, had suggested a new science-fiction magazine to add to the line-up; Clayton was unconvinced, but changed his mind the following year. Astounding's editor, Harry Bates, was uninterested in the educational goals that motivated Gernsback. Bates filled Astounding with adventure stories with minimal scientific content: the stories are generally considered to have been poor |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 2617, "ep": 16, "ec": 3254} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 2,617 | 16 | 3,254 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | quality, and Ashley considers Bates to have been "destroying the ideals of science fiction" with formulaic plots. Gernsback's magazines were infamous for low rates and very slow payment, and Astounding's high rates and quick payment attracted some well-known pulp writers such as Murray Leinster and Jack Williamson. (Asimov later said that in the early industry payment was "not on publication but (the saying went) on lawsuit".) Astounding was also better value for money than its competitors, with both the lowest price and, along with Amazing, the most pages. By mid-1930, Gernsback began to consolidate his magazines, merging Air |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 3254, "ep": 16, "ec": 3913} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 3,254 | 16 | 3,913 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | Wonder with Science Wonder Stories. The combined magazine was titled Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly was similarly retitled Wonder Stories Quarterly. At the same time Scientific Detective Monthly was retitled Amazing Detective Tales. Dropping "Science" and "Scientific" from the titles may have been intended to avoid giving readers the impression that these were actually scientific periodicals. Amazing Detective Tales, at least, was not helped by the title change, and after the October issue Gernsback sold the magazine to Wallace Bamber, who published five more issues the following year, though there was no longer any science fiction or |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 3913, "ep": 16, "ec": 4540} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 3,913 | 16 | 4,540 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | fantasy content.
Meanwhile, Ghost Stories, the Macfadden title launched in 1926, was suffering declining sales. Hersey, who by 1930 had gone into business as an independent publisher, acquired the title from Macfadden, and started another magazine, Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, the following year, with Elliott Dold as editor. Neither venture was a success. Miracle ceased publication after only two issues when Dold fell ill, though sales were poor in any case, and Hersey was unable to revive Ghost Stories' fortunes; it was cancelled at the start of 1932. 1931 also saw Amazing Stories change hands once |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 4540, "ep": 16, "ec": 5164} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 4,540 | 16 | 5,164 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | again; this time it was acquired by Macfadden, whose deep pockets helped insulate Amazing from the effects of the Depression. Sloane continued as editor.Weird Tales was by now well established, but in 1931 Clayton finally gave it some direct competition with Strange Tales, which was also edited by Bates. Like its competitor, Strange Tales frequently published science fiction as well as fantasy; as with Astounding it paid better rates than the competition, and as a result attracted some good writers, including Jack Williamson, whose "Wolves of Darkness", about an invasion by beings from another dimension, is one of |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 5164, "ep": 16, "ec": 5779} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 5,164 | 16 | 5,779 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | its better-remembered stories. Strange Tales did not last long: by late 1932, Clayton was in financial difficulties, and Astounding switched to a bimonthly schedule. Already bimonthly, Strange Tales also reduced its publication frequency. The bulk of Clayton's debts were owed to his printer, which Clayton tried to acquire to prevent it buying out his publishing house, but this proved a disastrous move. He lacked funds to complete the transaction, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. The January 1933 issue of both magazines was intended to be the last, but enough stories remained in inventory to produce |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 5779, "ep": 16, "ec": 6392} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 5,779 | 16 | 6,392 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | one more issue of Astounding, which appeared in March 1933. Street & Smith acquired Astounding and Strange Tales from the sale of Clayton's assets, and relaunched Astounding in October that year. Strange Tales did not reappear; Street & Smith decided to run the stories in Strange Tales' inventory in Astounding instead.
At Wonder Stories, David Lasser remained as editor during the early 1930s, though Wonder Stories Quarterly had to be cut for budget reasons at the start of 1933. Lasser corresponded with his authors to help improve both their level of scientific literacy, and the quality of their |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 6392, "ep": 16, "ec": 6984} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 6,392 | 16 | 6,984 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding | writing; Asimov has described Wonder Stories as a "forcing ground", where young writers learned their trade. Lasser was willing to print material that lay outside the usual pulp conventions, such as Eric Temple Bell's The Time Stream and Festus Pragnell's The Green Man of Graypec. Sf critic John Clute gives Lasser credit for making Wonder Stories the best science-fiction magazine of his day, and critics Peter Nicholls and Brian Stableford consider it to be the best of Gernsback's forays into the genre. Despite his success, Lasser was let go in mid-1933, perhaps because he was very |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 16, "sc": 6984, "ep": 20, "ec": 241} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 16 | 6,984 | 20 | 241 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Wonder Stories and Astounding & From Gernsback to Campbell | well-paid, since there is some evidence of a financial crisis in Gernsback's affairs at the time. Lasser was spending more time working on labor rights, and Gernsback may also have felt he was neglecting his editorial duties. Gernsback replaced Lasser with a 17-year-old science fiction fan, Charles Hornig, at less than a third of Lasser's salary. From Gernsback to Campbell Street & Smith was a well-established pulp publisher, with an excellent distribution network, and the revived Astounding was quickly competitive. It was edited by F. Orlin Tremaine, with assistance from Desmond Hall; both had come to Street |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 241, "ep": 20, "ec": 851} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 241 | 20 | 851 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | & Smith from the wreckage of Clayton. Tremaine was an experienced pulp editor, and Street & Smith gave him a budget of one cent per word, which was better than the competing magazines could pay. In December 1933 Tremaine wrote an editorial calling for "thought variant" stories that contained original ideas and did not simply reproduce adventure themes in a science-fiction context. The early stories identified by Tremaine as "thought variants" were not always particularly original, but it soon became apparent that Tremaine was willing to take risks by publishing stories that would have fallen foul of |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 851, "ep": 20, "ec": 1496} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 851 | 20 | 1,496 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | editorial taboos at other magazines. By the end of 1934, Astounding was the leading science fiction magazine; important stories published that year include Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time", the first genre science fiction story to use the idea of alternate history; The Legion of Space, by Jack Williamson; and "Twilight", by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart. Within a year Astounding's circulation was estimated at 50,000, about twice that of the competition.
The month after Tremaine announced his "thought variant" policy, Hornig launched his own "New Policy" at Wonder Stories; as with thought variants, the goal was |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 1496, "ep": 20, "ec": 2141} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 1,496 | 20 | 2,141 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | to emphasize originality and bar stories that merely reworked well-worn ideas. Hornig's rates were lower than Astounding's, and sometimes his writers were paid very late, or not at all; despite these handicaps, Hornig managed to find some good material, including Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey", which appeared in the July 1934 Wonder and has been frequently reprinted.
Amazing Stories, and its sister magazine, Amazing Stories Quarterly, both of which had been edited by T. O'Conor Sloane since Gernsback lost control of them in 1929, published little of note during the early 1930s, though Sloane did print the first story |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 2141, "ep": 20, "ec": 2773} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 2,141 | 20 | 2,773 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | by several writers later to become well-known, including John W. Campbell, John Wyndham, and Howard Fast. The Quarterly schedule became irregular in 1932, and it finally ceased publication with the Fall 1934 issue. Weird Tales had survived a bank failure in 1930 that froze most of the magazine's cash, and was continuing to publish well-received material—mostly fantasy and horror, but still including some science fiction. H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors, and Margaret Brundage monopolized the covers for a while, becoming perhaps the best-known artist to work for the magazine; almost all her |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 2773, "ep": 20, "ec": 3411} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 2,773 | 20 | 3,411 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | covers included a nude figure. Virgil Finlay began contributing interior artwork in the mid-1930s; both Finlay and Brundage were very popular with the readers.
Gernsback experimented with some companion fiction titles in other genres in 1934, but was unsuccessful, and Wonder Stories' decline proved irreversible. After a failed attempt to persuade his readers to support a subscription-only model, he gave up and sold the magazine to Ned Pines of Standard Magazines in February 1936. It was retitled Thrilling Wonder Stories to fit in with Pines' other titles such as Thrilling Detective, and given to Mort Weisinger to edit, |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 3411, "ep": 20, "ec": 4063} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 3,411 | 20 | 4,063 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | under the supervision of Leo Margulies, Standard's editor-in-chief. The format was left unchanged, but the stories and covers became much more action-oriented. Standard's first issue, dated August 1936, contained stories by several well-known writers, including Ray Cummings, Eando Binder, and Stanley G. Weinbaum, but overall the fiction was unsophisticated compared to what could be found in Astounding. A comic strip, "Zarnak", was tried, but this only lasted eight issues.
Two more science-fiction and fantasy magazines were launched in 1936, but neither lasted beyond the end of the year. Hersey, who had tried the market in 1931 with |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 4063, "ep": 20, "ec": 4652} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 4,063 | 20 | 4,652 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | Miracle, brought out Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine, in an attempt to market pulp magazines to comics fans. Everett Bleiler, a historian of science fiction, describes the stories as "moronic" and "third-rate". Although the magazine was timed to exploit the release of the first Flash Gordon serial, it was a failure, and only one issue appeared. The Witch's Tales, a fantasy and horror pulp with ties to a popular radio show of the same name, was slightly more successful, with two issues in November and December 1936. Ashley considers the fiction to have been of reasonable |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 4652, "ep": 20, "ec": 5282} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 4,652 | 20 | 5,282 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | quality, and the magazine's failure may have been because Carwood, the publisher, was small and relatively inexperienced, and may have had weak financing and distribution.
At the end of 1937, Street & Smith promoted Tremaine to assistant editorial director, and his place as editor of Astounding was taken by John W. Campbell. A few months later Street & Smith let Tremaine go, and gave Campbell a freer hand with the magazine. Campbell immediately changed the title from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science-Fiction; his editorial policy was targeted at the more mature readers of science fiction, and he felt that |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 5282, "ep": 20, "ec": 5862} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 5,282 | 20 | 5,862 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | "Astounding Stories" did not convey the right image. He also asked his cover artists to produce more sober and less sensational artwork than had been the case under Tremaine. His most important change was in the expectations he placed on his writers: he asked them to write stories that felt as though they could have been published as non-science fiction stories in a magazine of the future. A reader of the future would not need long explanations for the gadgets in their lives, so Campbell asked his writers to find ways of naturally introducing technology to their stories. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 5862, "ep": 20, "ec": 6521} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 5,862 | 20 | 6,521 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | He also began running regular scientific fact articles, with the goal of stimulating story ideas. Campbell's approach differentiated Astounding from rivals; Algis Budrys recalled that "it didn't look like an SF magazine" because covers did not show men with ray guns and women with large breasts.
Meanwhile, Bernarr Macfadden's Teck Publications, the owner of Amazing Stories, was running into financial difficulties, and in 1938 the magazine was sold to Ziff-Davis, a Chicago-based publisher. Raymond Palmer, the editor, was a local fan. Under Sloane Amazing had been dull; Palmer wanted it to be fun, and soon transformed the magazine, publishing |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 6521, "ep": 20, "ec": 7149} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 6,521 | 20 | 7,149 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell | escapist stories. He was unable to make Amazing into a real rival to Astounding, and Ashley speculates that Bernard G. Davis, who ran the editorial offices of Ziff-Davis, may have instructed Palmer to focus on entertainment rather than on serious science fiction.
During the 1930s the hero pulps were among the most popular titles on the newsstands; these were magazines focused on the adventures of a single character, such as Doc Savage or The Shadow. These often had science-fictional plots, but were not primarily science-fiction or fantasy magazines. One example that was clearly fantasy was Doctor Death, which |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 20, "sc": 7149, "ep": 24, "ec": 462} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 20 | 7,149 | 24 | 462 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | From Gernsback to Campbell & Start of the boom | featured an evil genius who had supernatural powers. It appeared in February 1935 and lasted for only three issues. Start of the boom As Campbell began to hit his stride as editor of Astounding, the first boom in science-fiction magazine publishing took off, starting with Marvel Science Stories' appearance in 1938. This was an attempt by publishers Abraham and Martin Goodman to expand their list of titles into science fiction and fantasy. They were known for "weird menace" magazines, a genre incorporating "sex and sadism" into story lines that placed women in danger, usually because of a |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 462, "ep": 24, "ec": 1060} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 462 | 24 | 1,060 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | threat that appeared to be supernatural but was ultimately revealed to be the work of a human villain. For Marvel Science Stories, the Goodmans asked their authors to include more sex in their stories than was usual in the science fiction field; reader reaction was strongly negative to the spicier stories, but the Goodmans kept the magazine going until early 1941, and eventually revived it in 1950 for a few more issues when another science fiction magazine boom began. A companion magazine, Dynamic Science Stories, appeared in February 1939; it was intended to carry longer stories but only |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 1060, "ep": 24, "ec": 1720} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 1,060 | 24 | 1,720 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | lasted two issues.
Of more importance to the science-fiction and fantasy genres were several other magazines that debuted in 1939. The first to appear, from Standard Magazines, were Startling Stories and Strange Stories, launched in January and February respectively as companions to Thrilling Wonder Stories; Mort Weisinger edited all three. Startling included a lead novel and a "Hall of Fame" reprint section in every issue; the latter was possible because the publisher, Standard Magazines, owned the back catalog of Wonder Stories. At that time no other science fiction pulp was including novels; readers approved, and Startling quickly became |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 1720, "ep": 24, "ec": 2329} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 1,720 | 24 | 2,329 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | one of the most popular science fiction magazines. Strange Stories was launched as a direct competitor to Weird Tales, and the first issue featured many of Weird Tales' most popular authors, including Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Henry Kuttner and Manly Wade Wellman. Bloch, Derleth, and Kuttner were all frequent contributors over the magazine's life, but Ashley regards it as a poor imitation of Weird Tales, fewer of its stories having been anthologized since. At the end of 1938 Weird Tales' owner, B. Cornelius, sold his interest in the magazine to William J. Delaney, the publisher of Short Stories, |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 2329, "ep": 24, "ec": 2916} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 2,329 | 24 | 2,916 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | a general fiction magazine. Delaney's offices were in New York, and Weird Tales' editor, Farnsworth Wright, moved there from Chicago. Delaney made several changes to page count and frequency to try to increase circulation, but none were successful. While this took place, another competitor to Weird Tales was launched, this time by Street & Smith. The new magazine, titled Unknown, was a companion to Astounding and was also edited by John W. Campbell. Campbell's declared policy for the magazine was to "offer fantasy of a quality so far different from that which has appeared in |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 2916, "ep": 24, "ec": 3519} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 2,916 | 24 | 3,519 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | the past as to change your entire understanding of the term"; the goal was to bring "the science fiction rationale to fantasy", in Ashley's words. Unknown's first issue was dated March 1939, with L. Ron Hubbard and L. Sprague de Camp soon among the most frequent contributors.
Also in March 1939, a new publisher entered the field: Louis Silberkleit, who had once worked for Gernsback, was the owner of the Blue Ribbon Magazines imprint; he launched Science Fiction, following up with Future Fiction in November that year. Both were edited by Charles Hornig, who had edited Wonder Stories for |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 3519, "ep": 24, "ec": 4142} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 3,519 | 24 | 4,142 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | Gernsback. Silberkleit gave Hornig a very limited budget, so he rarely saw submissions from established writers unless they had already been rejected by the better-paying markets. The result was mediocre fiction. Silberkleit was also slow to pay, which was an additional discouragement to authors deciding where to send their work. In May Ziff-Davis, the publishers of Amazing Stories, joined the fray, with Fantastic Adventures, also edited by Raymond Palmer. As with Amazing, Palmer focused on entertainment, rather than trying to break new ground. Fantastic Adventures was not positioned as a rival to Weird Tales |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 4142, "ep": 24, "ec": 4792} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 4,142 | 24 | 4,792 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | or Unknown, but focused instead on other-worldly adventures in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and soon developed a reputation for whimsical fantasy as well.
The original pulp publisher, the Munsey Company, still had no dedicated science-fiction or fantasy magazine by this time, but frequently published stories in Argosy and All-Story which were clearly within the genre. At the end of 1939 Munsey launched Famous Fantastic Mysteries as a vehicle to reprint these older stories. The editor, Mary Gnaedinger, choose Merritt's "The Moon Pool" and Ray Cummings' "The Girl in the Golden Atom" for the first issue, dated September/October; |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 4792, "ep": 24, "ec": 5429} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 4,792 | 24 | 5,429 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom | both titles were likely to attract readers. Gnaedinger engaged Virgil Finlay to do interior illustrations for the second issue, and the magazine was soon successful enough to switch from bimonthly to monthly publication.
The ninth and last new science-fiction or fantasy magazine to appear with a 1939 cover date was Planet Stories, its first issue dated December. The publisher was Fiction House, which had been a successful pulp publisher in the 1920s, though the Depression temporarily closed its doors. After a relaunch in 1934 Fiction House specialized in detective and romance magazines, and Planet was published by its |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 24, "sc": 5429, "ep": 28, "ec": 340} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 24 | 5,429 | 28 | 340 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Start of the boom & Golden Age | Love Romances, Inc. imprint. The editor, Malcolm Reiss, targeted younger readers, and focused solely on interplanetary fiction, though initially the stories were so weak that Ashley speculates Reiss was forced to start the magazine without enough time to acquire worthwhile material. Golden Age When Campbell took over as editor of Astounding, he began to attract some of the major writers in the field, including Clifford D. Simak, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jack Williamson. The launch of Unknown strengthened Campbell's dominance of the field; Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, and L. Sprague de Camp contributed to both of Campbell's magazines. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 28, "sc": 340, "ep": 28, "ec": 987} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 28 | 340 | 28 | 987 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Golden Age | As well as developing working relationships with these and other established writers, Campbell discovered and nurtured many new talents. In 1938, he bought Lester del Rey's first story, "The Faithful"; the following year, he published the first stories of A.E. van Vogt, Robert A. Heinlein, and Theodore Sturgeon, along with an early story by Isaac Asimov. All these writers were strongly associated with Astounding over the next few years, and the period starting with Campbell's editorship is sometimes called the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Heinlein rapidly became one of the most prolific contributors to Astounding, publishing |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 28, "sc": 987, "ep": 28, "ec": 1547} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 28 | 987 | 28 | 1,547 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Golden Age | almost two dozen short stories in the next two years, along with three novels: If This Goes On—, Sixth Column, and Methuselah's Children. In September 1940, van Vogt's first novel, Slan, began serialization; the book was partly inspired by a challenge Campbell laid down to van Vogt that it was impossible to tell a superman story from the point of view of the superman. It proved to be one of the most popular stories Campbell published, and is an example of the way Campbell worked with his writers to feed them ideas and generate the material he wanted to |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 28, "sc": 1547, "ep": 28, "ec": 2184} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 28 | 1,547 | 28 | 2,184 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Golden Age | buy. Asimov's "Robot" series began to take shape in 1941, "Reason" and "Liar!" appearing in the April and May issues; as with Slan, these stories were partly inspired by conversations with Campbell. The September 1941 issue included Asimov's short story "Nightfall", one of the most lauded science fiction stories ever written, and in November, Second Stage Lensmen, a novel in Smith's Lensman series, began serialization. The following year saw the beginning of Asimov's "Foundation" stories, with "Foundation" appearing in May and "Bridle and Saddle" in June. Van Vogt's "Recruiting Station", in the March issue, was the first story |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 28, "sc": 2184, "ep": 28, "ec": 2797} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 28 | 2,184 | 28 | 2,797 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Golden Age | in his "Weapon Shop" series, described by John Clute as the most compelling of all van Vogt's work.
Many of the stories from the Golden Age have demonstrated enduring popularity, but in the words of Peter Nicholls and Mike Ashley, "the soaring ideas of Golden Age science fiction were all too often clad in an impoverished pulp vocabulary aimed at the lowest common denominator of a mass market". Nicholls and Ashley acknowledge that, despite the uneven literary quality of the stories, the era did produce something extraordinary: "the wild and yearning imaginations of a handful of genre writers – who |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 28, "sc": 2797, "ep": 32, "ec": 324} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 28 | 2,797 | 32 | 324 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Golden Age & Boom continues | were mostly very young, and conceptually very energetic indeed – laid down entire strata of science fiction motifs which enriched the field greatly", and they consider that the Golden Age generated "a quantum jump in quality, perhaps the greatest in the history of the genre". Boom continues The boom in science fiction magazine publishing continued into 1940, Standard Magazines adding yet another title to Mort Weisinger's portfolio. This was Captain Future, a hero pulp with simple space opera plots in which Captain Future and his friends saved the solar system or the entire universe from a villain. Nearly all |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 324, "ep": 32, "ec": 1029} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 324 | 32 | 1,029 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | the lead novels were written by Edmond Hamilton. It appeared quarterly, the first issue dated Winter 1940. Standard's science fiction titles were unabashedly aimed at young readers, with patronizing gimmicks such as "Sergeant Saturn", who answered readers' letters in all three magazines.
Captain Future was followed by Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories, two new titles from Popular Publications, a well-established pulp publisher. Both magazines were bimonthly, Astonishing's first issue dated February 1940, and Super Science Stories appearing the following month; and both were edited by nineteen-year-old Frederik Pohl—he had shown up at Popular's offices looking for editorial |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 1029, "ep": 32, "ec": 1598} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 1,029 | 32 | 1,598 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | work just as they were considering starting a new magazine, and left as the editor of both new titles. Pohl had a very limited budget, but his contacts with other budding science fiction writers such as Cyril Kornbluth and James Blish meant he was able to find surprisingly good material. Popular paid promptly, which was more than could be said for some of the other publishers, and so despite the low rates Pohl soon began to see submissions that had been rejected by Campbell at Astounding but not sent anywhere else. As a result, he occasionally printed material |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 1598, "ep": 32, "ec": 2244} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 1,598 | 32 | 2,244 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | by some of the Astounding regulars, including "Genus Homo", a collaboration between L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller, and "Lost Legion", by Robert A. Heinlein.
In mid-1940 Louis Silberkleit, who already had two titles on the market (Science Fiction and Future Fiction, both edited by Charles Hornig), added a third, titled Science Fiction Quarterly, with the intention of including a full-length novel in every issue. Silberkleit obtained reprint rights to some of the lead novels from Gernsback's Science Wonder Quarterly that had appeared a decade earlier. The new magazine was added to Hornig's responsibilities, but by the |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 2244, "ep": 32, "ec": 2845} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 2,244 | 32 | 2,845 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | end of the year Hornig had moved to California and all three titles were given to Robert W. Lowndes to edit. Mid-1940 also saw Munsey launch Fantastic Novels, a companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries; like Science Fiction Quarterly it was planned as a vehicle for novel-length works, though in this case the novels were reprints from Munsey's backlog.
In December 1940 the first issue of Comet appeared. This saw the return to the field of F. Orlin Tremaine, who had been influential in the mid-1930s when he edited Astounding. The publisher, H-K Publications, was owned by Harold Hersey, |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 2845, "ep": 32, "ec": 3500} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 2,845 | 32 | 3,500 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | who had previously been involved with several failed magazines—The Thrill Book, Ghost Stories, Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, and Flash Gordon Strange Adventures. Tremaine had a relatively high budget for fiction compared to many of the new magazines, but this may have put Comet under greater financial pressure, and it only survived for five issues, ceasing publication with the July 1941 issue.
Two more magazines appeared in early 1941, Stirring Science Stories and Cosmic Stories, on alternating months, starting in February. These were published by a father and son operating under the name of Albing Publications; they had almost no |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 3500, "ep": 32, "ec": 4117} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 3,500 | 32 | 4,117 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues | capital, but persuaded Donald Wollheim to edit the magazine for no salary at all, with no budget for fiction. The plan was to start paying contributors once the magazine was profitable. Like Pohl, Wollheim knew several budding writers who were willing to donate stories, and managed to acquire some good fiction, including "Thirteen O'Clock" and "The City in the Sofa", by Kornbluth, which Ashley describes as "enjoyable tongue-in-cheek fantasies". In the event only six issues appeared in 1941 before Albing failed financially, though Wollheim was able to find another publisher for one more issue of Stirring in |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 32, "sc": 4117, "ep": 36, "ec": 124} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 32 | 4,117 | 36 | 124 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | Boom continues & War years | March 1942.
The final magazine to launch during 1941 was titled Uncanny Stories, published by the Goodman brothers. Marvel Science Stories ceased publication in 1941, and Uncanny was probably created to use up some remaining stories in its inventory. It was dated the same month as the last issue of Marvel: April 1941, and contained little worthwhile; Ashley comments that the lead story, "Coming of the Giant Germs" by Ray Cummings, was "one of his most appalling stories". War years In early 1940, Farnsworth Wright was replaced as editor of Weird Tales by Dorothy McIlwraith, who also edited Short Stories. |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 124, "ep": 36, "ec": 750} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 124 | 36 | 750 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | McIlwraith had no particular expertise in the horror field and, although she was a competent editor, the Wright era is generally considered to have been Weird Tales heyday. With Wright's departure, Unknown quickly became the leading magazine in its small field. Unknown acquired a stable of regular writers, many of whom were also appearing in Astounding, and all of whom were comfortable with the rigor that Campbell demanded even of a fantasy plot. Frequent contributors included L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon, and L. Sprague de Camp, who, in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt, contributed three stories about a world |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 750, "ep": 36, "ec": 1369} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 750 | 36 | 1,369 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | where magic operates by logical rules. The stories were later collected as part of Pratt and de Camp's "Incompleat Enchanter" series; John Clute has commented that the title of one of them, "The Mathematics of Magic", is "perfectly expressive of the terms under which magic found easy mention in Unknown". Other stories still regarded as classics include "They" by Heinlein, "Smoke Ghost" by Fritz Leiber, along with several stories in Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, and "Trouble With Water" by H.L. Gold. Unknown's influence was far-reaching; according to Ashley, the magazine created the modern genre |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 1369, "ep": 36, "ec": 2035} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 1,369 | 36 | 2,035 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | of fantasy, and science-fiction scholar Thomas Clareson suggests that by destroying the genre boundaries between science fiction and fantasy it allowed stories such as Simak's City series to be written. Clareson also proposes that Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, two of the most important and successful science-fiction and fantasy magazines, were direct descendants of Unknown.
In 1941 Weisinger left Standard Magazines to work on the early DC Superman comics, and Oscar J. Friend took over as editor of Startling, Thrilling Wonder, and Captain Future; Strange Stories, which had been Weisinger's idea, was killed off |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 2035, "ep": 36, "ec": 2695} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 2,035 | 36 | 2,695 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | with the January issue. Friend continued the juvenile focus of the three science fiction magazines, and the covers, often by Earle K. Bergey, reinforced the editorial policy: they frequently included women in implausibly revealing spacesuits or wearing Bergey's trademark "brass brassières". Captain Future ceased publication in early 1944, and later that year Friend was replaced as editor by Sam Merwin on both Startling and Thrilling. Planet Stories' first few issues contained little notable fiction, but it improved throughout the war. Leigh Brackett was a regular contributor of planetary romances—melodramatic tales of action and adventure on alien |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 2695, "ep": 36, "ec": 3357} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 2,695 | 36 | 3,357 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | planets and in interplanetary space—and her work had a strong influence on other writers, including Marion Zimmer Bradley. Other well-known writers who sold to Planet included Simak, Blish, Fredric Brown, and Asimov.
At Ziff-Davis, Palmer remained editor of both Fantastic Adventures and Amazing Stories throughout World War II. Much of the material in both magazines came from a group of Chicago-based writers who published under both their own names and various house pseudonyms; among the most prolific were William P. McGivern, David Wright O'Brien, Don Wilcox, and Chester S. Geier. The fiction was rarely noteworthy; Ashley describes the wartime |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 3357, "ep": 36, "ec": 4022} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 3,357 | 36 | 4,022 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | Fantastic Adventures as "concentrat[ing] more on quantity than quality, on brash sensationalism than subtlety", though he also comments that it was the most attractive science-fiction or fantasy magazine on newsstands at the time, with covers by J. Allen St. John, Harold McCauley, and Robert Gibson Smith. Similarly, the fiction in Amazing was of uneven quality, though occasionally Palmer obtained good material, including stories by Ray Bradbury, Eric Frank Russell, and John Wyndham.
Few of the new magazines launched during the boom lasted until the end of the war, which brought paper shortages that forced difficult decisions on the publishers. Not |
{"datasets_id": 2412, "wiki_id": "Q25338388", "sp": 36, "sc": 4022, "ep": 36, "ec": 4673} | 2,412 | Q25338388 | 36 | 4,022 | 36 | 4,673 | History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950 | War years | every magazine cancellation was because of the war; the usual vicissitudes of magazine publishing also played a role. In 1941, Silberkleit cancelled Science Fiction after 12 issues because of poor sales, merging it with Future Fiction. Two years later Silberkleit ceased publication of both Future and Science Fiction Quarterly when he decided to use the limited paper he could acquire for his western and detective titles instead. Both Science Fiction and Future eventually reappeared in the 1950s. Fantastic Novels merged with its stablemate, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, in 1941, probably because of wartime difficulties, after only five issues. |
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