If (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Science fiction magazine
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....
launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn
James L. Quinn
James L. Quinn was an American science fiction editor and publisher.Quinn was the founding publisher of the science fiction magazine If and, after Paul W. Fairman left shortly after its launch in 1952, became its editor as well as publisher until 1958...
. Quinn hired Paul W. Fairman
Paul W. Fairman
Paul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
to be the first editor, but early circulation figures were disappointing, and Quinn fired Fairman after only three issues. Quinn then took over the editorial position himself. He stayed in that role until late 1958, though Larry T. Shaw took over most editorial duties for a year from mid-1953. In 1958 Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
was hired as editor, but within three issues Quinn sold the magazine to Robert Guinn at Galaxy Publishing.
The new editor at Galaxy Publishing was Horace L. Gold, who was also editing Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
. After two years Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
took over as editor, and it was under Pohl that If achieved its greatest success, winning the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968. In 1969 Guinn sold all his magazines to Universal Publishing and Distribution (UPD). Pohl decided not to continue as editor as he wanted to return to his writing career. Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
became editor; the magazine was not successful under his management and circulation plummeted. In early 1974 Jim Baen
Jim Baen
James Patrick "Jim" Baen was a noted U.S. science fiction publisher and editor. In 1983 he founded his own publishing house, Baen Books, specializing in the adventure, fantasy, military science fiction and space opera genres...
took over from Jakobsson as editor, but increasing paper costs meant that UPD could no longer afford to publish both Galaxy and If. Galaxy was regarded as the senior of the two magazines, so If was merged into Galaxy after the December 1974 issue, its 175th issue overall. A semi-professional magazine named If appeared in 1986, intended as a revival of the original, but it folded after a single issue.
The magazine was moderately successful, though it was never regarded as one of the first rank of science fiction magazines. It published many award-winning stories over its 22 years, including Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth....
, and Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
's short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream". Several well-known writers sold their first story to If; the most successful was Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
, whose story "The Coldest Place" appeared in the December 1964 issue.
Publication history
Although science fiction had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazinePulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
published by Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
. By the end of the 1930s the field was undergoing its first boom, but World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and its attendant paper shortages led to the demise of several titles. By the late 1940s the market began to recover again. From a low of eight active magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 in 1950, and a further 22 had commenced publication by 1954. If was launched in the middle of this second publishing boom.
Origins and 1950s
Ifs origins can be traced to 1948 and 1949, when Raymond Palmer founded two magazines while working at Ziff-Davis in Chicago: Fate and Other WorldsOther Worlds (magazine)
Other Worlds Science Stories was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Raymond A. Palmer with Bea Mahaffey. It was published by Palmer's Clark Publishing in Evanston, Illinois beginning in the late 1940s...
. Fate published articles about occult and supernatural events, while Other Worlds was a science fiction magazine. The two were sufficiently successful to attract the notice of James L. Quinn
James L. Quinn
James L. Quinn was an American science fiction editor and publisher.Quinn was the founding publisher of the science fiction magazine If and, after Paul W. Fairman left shortly after its launch in 1952, became its editor as well as publisher until 1958...
, a New York publisher. When Ziff-Davis moved to New York City in late 1950, Paul W. Fairman
Paul W. Fairman
Paul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
, a prolific writer, went with them, and was soon in touch with Quinn, who decided to found a pair of magazines modelled after Palmer's. One was a non-fiction magazine entitled Strange; the other was If.
Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...
turned down the job (a decision he is reported to have later regretted) but Quinn was able to engage Larry T. Shaw, an active science fiction fan who had sold a few stories. Shaw joined in May 1953 as associate editor and soon began writing editorials (beginning with the September 1953 issue) and assisting with story selection. The magazine's quality quickly improved and soon Quinn felt able to switch to a monthly schedule, instead of bi-monthly. Shaw left after only a year, and Quinn resumed full editorial responsibilities.
In late 1953, Quinn decided to run a competition for short fiction from new writers. The competition was only open to college students who had not sold a story before. The first prize was $1,000, the second prize $500, and there were five runner-up prizes of $100 each. Entries came in from writers who were later to become well-known, including Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
, Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
, and Andrew J. Offutt
Andrew J. Offutt
Andrew Jefferson Offutt is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He has written as Andrew J. Offutt, A. J. Offutt, and Andy Offutt. His normal byline, andrew j. offutt, has all his name in lower-case letters.-Life and family:Offutt has been married for over 50 years to Jodie McCabe...
, whose story "And Gone Tomorrow", about a man unexpectedly sent a hundred years into the future, won first prize and appeared in the December 1954 issue of If. The only other one of the seven announced winners who had a career as a science fiction writer was Leo P. Kelley. Quinn decided to move If to a monthly schedule with the March 1954 issue, perhaps because the competition had increased readership. It reverted to a bimonthly schedule with the June 1956 issue, as circulation dropped again.
In 1957, American News Company
American News Company
American News Company was a magazine distribution company founded in 1864 by Sinclair Tousey, which dominated the distribution market in the 1940s and 1950s...
, by far the largest magazine distributor, was liquidated. Almost all the science fiction magazines had to find a new distributor, and the smaller independent companies remaining in the market often demanded monthly publication and a larger format from the magazines they took on. Many of the magazines did not have the advertising revenue required to support these changes, and within two or three years many of them had disappeared: the number of science fiction magazines being published dropped from a high of forty-six in 1953 to less than a dozen by the end of the decade. For a while If was hard to find on the news stands, but it survived. Quinn did try the slick format (using glossy paper, unlike the cheaper paper used for pulps and digests) for a companion magazine, Space Age, which he launched in November 1958; the experiment was unsuccessful, however. In an attempt to improve Ifs circulation, Quinn hired writer Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
, whose first issue was October 1958. Circulation failed to increase, though this was at least partly due to the problems with distribution, and by early 1959 Quinn decided to sell the magazine. Knight's last issue was his third, dated February 1959.
Early 1960s
Ifs new owner was Robert Guinn, of Galaxy Publishing. The change of ownership was abrupt and led to a delay in publication, with the first issue under new editorship not appearing until July 1959. The editor was Horace Gold, who was also the editor of Galaxy Science FictionGalaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
; Galaxy had gone from a monthly to a bimonthly schedule at the start of 1959, and If and Galaxy appeared in alternate months for the next few years. In a 1975 retrospective article, Gold commented that his policy with If was to experiment, using new writers that had not yet established themselves. In the judgement of science fiction historian Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley (writer)
Michael Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.He edits the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, each arranged around a particular theme in mystery, fantasy, or science fiction...
, the effect was that If became the weaker of the two magazines, printing stories that were of lower quality than those Gold selected for Galaxy.
.gif)
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
took over the editorship of both If and Galaxy in 1961. Gold had had a car accident with sufficiently severe health consequences to prevent him from being able to continue as editor. Pohl, who had been intermittently helping Gold with editorial duties for some time prior to the car accident, is first listed as editor of If on the masthead of the November 1961 issue, and as editor of Galaxy for the December 1961 issue, but he had been acting as editor of both magazines for at least six months before the end of the year. Pohl paid one cent per word for the stories he bought for If, whereas Galaxy paid three cents per word, and like Gold he regarded Galaxy as the leading magazine of the two, whereas If was somewhere he could work with new writers, and try experiments and whims. This developed into a selling point when a letter from a reader, Clayton Hamlin, prompted Pohl to declare that he would publish a new writer in every single issue of the magazine, though he was also able to attract well-known writers. When Pohl began his stint as editor, both magazines were operating at a loss; despite Ifs lower budget Pohl found it more fun to edit, and commented that apparently the readers thought so too: he was able to make If show a profit before Galaxy, adding "What was fun for me seemed to be fun for them."
In April 1963, Galaxy Publishing brought out the first issue of Worlds of Tomorrow
Worlds of Tomorrow (magazine)
Worlds of Tomorrow was an American science fiction magazine published from 1963 to 1967, after it was merged into If. It briefly resumed publication in 1970 and 1971. The magazine was edited by Frederik Pohl in its first period of publication, and by Ejler Jakobsson in the second. It has published...
, another science fiction magazine, also edited by Pohl. The magazine published some well-received material and was profitable, but Guinn, the publisher and owner, decided in 1967 that it would be better to have Galaxy resume a monthly schedule; both Worlds of Tomorrow and Galaxy were bimonthly at that time, while If was monthly. With the August 1967 issue Worlds of Tomorrow was merged with If, though it was another year before Galaxy actually switched to a monthly schedule. By this time If had become monthly again, starting with the July 1964 issue (though the schedule had an initial hiccup, omitting September 1964).
The circulation rose from 64,000 in 1965 to 67,000 in 1967; the modest 5% increase was exceeded only by Analog
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
among the other science fiction magazines, and If won the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for best professional SF magazine three years running during this period. However, in March 1969, Robert Guinn sold all four of his magazines, including Galaxy and If, to Arnold Abramson at Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation (UPD). Pohl was in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
when he heard the news, and decided to resign his position as editor rather than continue under the new management. He had been considering a return to a writing career for some time and the change in ownership precipitated his decision to leave.
Decline and merger with
Galaxy The new editor was Ejler JakobssonEjler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
, though Pohl continued to be listed as editor emeritus on the masthead until the July–August 1970 issue. Much of the editorial work was actually done by Judy-Lynn Benjamin
Judy-Lynn del Rey
Judy-Lynn del Rey née Benjamin was a science fiction editor.Born with dwarfism, she was a fan and regular attendee at science fiction conventions and worked her way up the publishing ladder, starting with work at the science fiction magazine Galaxy.Judy-Lynn was friends with Lester del Rey and...
, who was hired by Pohl in 1969 as an editorial assistant. The new regime failed to impress readers, and circulation dropped from over 67,000 for the year ending October 1968 to under 45,000 the following year, a drop of over 30%. If went bimonthly in May 1970, as Abramson attempted to juggle the frequency of publication of several of his titles to maximize profits; the page count and price were also adjusted more than once over the next year, again increasing profitability. Abramson also began a British distribution of If, reprinted with a separate cover, priced in British currency. Circulation figures of the time show an increase of about 6,000 copies, but it is not clear if this includes sales in the UK.
In May 1973, Judy-Lynn Benjamin (Judy-Lynn del Rey since her 1971 marriage to Lester del Rey) resigned. She was briefly replaced by Albert Dytch, but within four months Dytch in turn left, and in August 1973 James Baen
Jim Baen
James Patrick "Jim" Baen was a noted U.S. science fiction publisher and editor. In 1983 he founded his own publishing house, Baen Books, specializing in the adventure, fantasy, military science fiction and space opera genres...
joined UPD. He was made managing editor of If with effect from the January 1974 issue, and full editor one issue later; Jakobsson was listed as editor emeritus until the August 1974 issue. Baen had little opportunity to work with If, however, as financial problems at UPD combined with the increasing cost of paper (a consequence of the rising price of oil) led to a decision to combine If with Galaxy. Despite the fact that in 1974 If
Eight selections of stories from If have been published. Two were edited by Quinn: The First World of If (1957) and The Second World of If (1958); four by Pohl: The Best Science Fiction from If (1964), The If Reader of Science Fiction (1966), The Second If Reader of Science Fiction (1968), and Worlds of If (1986); and two by Jakobsson, both published as by "The Editors of If": The Best from If (1973) and The Best from If Vol II (1974).
Contents and reception
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 1/5 | |||||||
| 1953 | 1/6 | 2/1 | 2/2 | 2/3 | 2/4 | 2/5 | ||||||
| 1954 | 2/6 | 3/1 | 3/2 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 3/5 | 3/6 | 4/1 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 | |
| 1955 | 4/5 | 4/6 | 5/1 | 5/2 | 5/3 | 5/4 | 5/5 | 5/6 | 6/1 | |||
| 1956 | 6/2 | 6/3 | 6/4 | 6/5 | 6/6 | 7/1 | ||||||
| 1957 | 7/2 | 7/3 | 7/4 | 7/5 | 7/6 | 8/1 | ||||||
| 1958 | 8/2 | 8/3 | 8/4 | 685 | 8/6 | 9/1 | ||||||
| 1959 | 9/2 | 8/6 | 9/4 | 9/5 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 9/6 | 10/1 | 10/2 | 10/3 | 10/4 | 10/5 | ||||||
| 1961 | 10/6 | 11/1 | 11/2 | 11/3 | 11/4 | 11/5 | ||||||
| Issues of If from 1952 to 1961, showing volume/issue number. Editors were Paul W. Fairman (yellow), James L. Quinn (blue), Larry T. Shaw (pink), Quinn again (blue), Damon Knight (purple) and H.L. Gold (green). |
||||||||||||
Howard Browne
Howard Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
's "Twelve Times Zero", a murder mystery with a science-fictional resolution; other stories were from Ray Palmer
Raymond A. Palmer
Raymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications...
, Richard Shaver, and Rog Phillips
Rog Phillips
Roger Phillips Graham was an American science fiction writer who most often wrote under the name Rog Phillips, but also used other names. Although of his other pseudonyms only Craig Browning is notable in the genre. He is most associated with Amazing Stories and is best known for short fiction...
, all writers associated with the Ziff-Davis magazines. Browne was the editor of Ziff-Davis's Amazing Science Fiction
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
, a leading magazine of the time, and had given Fairman his start in the field in the late 1940s. Fairman was familiar with Ziff-Davis's stable of writers, and his preference for them was a reflection of his experience, though this did not necessarily serve the magazine well—he referred to the acquisition of Browne's story as "the scoop of the century" and spoke in glowing terms of him in an introductory note despite the fact that Browne was reputed to detest science fiction. In addition to the fiction and the editorial by Fairman, there was a letter column, a profile of Wilson Tucker
Wilson Tucker
Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker was an American mystery, action adventure, and science fiction writer, who wrote professionally as Wilson Tucker....
, a selection of science news, a guest editorial by Ken Slater, a well-known British fan, and an approving review of the TV show Tales of Tomorrow
Tales of Tomorrow
Tales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
.
After Quinn dismissed Fairman and engaged Larry Shaw, the magazine improved significantly, and published several well-received stories, including James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
's "A Case of Conscience" in the September 1953 issue, later to become the first part of Blish's Hugo Award-winning novel of the same name
A Case of Conscience
A Case of Conscience is a science fiction novel by James Blish, first published in 1958. It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion; they are completely without any concept of God, an afterlife, or the idea of sin; and the species evolves through several forms...
, about a Jesuit priest on a planet of aliens who have no religion but appear free of sin. The dominant science fiction magazines of the 1950s were Astounding, Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
, and Fantasy and Science Fiction, but If was in the next rank in terms of quality: SF historian Frank M. Robinson
Frank M. Robinson
Frank M. Robinson is an American science fiction and techno-thriller writer.-Biography:Robinson was born in Chicago, Illinois. The son of a check forger, Frank started out working as a copy boy for International Service in his teens and then became an office boy for Ziff-Davis...
, for example, describes If as the "most major of the minors". Well-known writers who appeared in If in the 1950s include Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
and Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
: the original short story version of Clarke's novel The Songs of Distant Earth appeared in the June 1958 issue. Isaac Asimov's widely reprinted story "The Feeling of Power
The Feeling of Power
The Feeling of Power is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the February 1958 issue of If: Worlds of Science Fiction, and was reprinted in the 1959 collection Nine Tomorrows, the 1969 retrospective Opus 100, and the 1986 collection Robot Dreams...
" appeared in February 1958.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | 11/6 | 12/1 | 12/2 | 12/3 | 12/4 | 12/5 | ||||||
| 1963 | 12/6 | 13/1 | 13/2 | 13/3 | 13/4 | 13/5 | ||||||
| 1964 | 13/6 | 14/1 | 14/2 | 14/3 | 14/4 | 14/5 | 14/6 | 14/7 | ||||
| 1965 | 15/1 | 15/2 | 15/3 | 15/4 | 15/5 | 15/6 | 15/7 | 15/8 | 15/9 | 15/10 | 15/11 | 15/12 |
| 1966 | 16/1 | 16/2 | 16/3 | 16/4 | 16/5 | 16/6 | 16/7 | 16/8 | 16/9 | 16/10 | 16/11 | 16/12 |
| 1967 | 17/1 | 17/2 | 17/3 | 17/4 | 17/5 | 17/6 | 17/7 | 17/8 | 17/9 | 17/10 | 17/11 | 17/12 |
| 1968 | 18/1 | 18/2 | 18/3 | 18/4 | 18/5 | 18/6 | 18/7 | 18/8 | 18/9 | 18/10 | 18/11 | 18/12 |
| 1969 | 19/1 | 19/2 | 19/3 | 19/4 | 19/5 | 19/6 | 19/7 | 19/8 | 19/9 | 19/10 | ||
| 1970 | 20/1 | 20/2 | 20/3 | 20/4 | 20/5 | 20/6 | 20/7 | 20/8 | ||||
| 1971 | 20/9 | 20/10 | 20/11 | 20/12 | 21/1 | 21/2 | ||||||
| 1972 | 21/3 | 21/4 | 21/5 | 21/6 | 21/7 | 21/8 | ||||||
| 1973 | 21/9 | 21/10 | 21/11 | 21/12 | 22/1 | 22/2 | ||||||
| 1974 | 22/3 | 22/4 | 22/5 | 22/6 | 22/7 | 22/8 | ||||||
| Issues of If from 1962 to 1974, showing volume/issue number. Editors were Frederik Pohl (orange), Ejler Jakobsson (pink), and James L. Baen (gray). |
||||||||||||
Skylark DuQuesne
Skylark DuQuesne was the final novel in the epic Skylark series by E. E. Smith. Written as Dr. Smith's last novel in 1965 and published shortly before his death, it expands on the characterizations of the earlier novels but with some discrepancies . The most significant point is that Dr...
, from E.E. Smith; the series had been started in the 1920s and was still popular with readers. Pohl also bought A.E. van Vogt's "The Expendables"; the story was van Vogt's first sale in 14 years and attracted long-time readers to the magazine. Another coup was the serialization of three novels by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, including the award-winning The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth....
, which ran in five parts from December 1965 to April 1966.
Pohl's policy of publishing a story by a new writer in every issue led to a series called "If-firsts"; the first one, Joseph L. Green
Joseph L. Green
Joseph Lee Green is an American science fiction author and a charter member of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He is a prolific short story author best known for his novel Gold the Man. His work has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French, Polish and Dutch.-Biography:Joseph L...
's "Once Around Arcturus", about the courtship between a man and woman of different planets, appeared in the September 1962 issue. Several of the writers featured in the If-first series, which were published from 1962 through 1965, became well-known, including Alexei Panshin
Alexei Panshin
Alexis Adams Panshin is an American author and science fiction critic. He has written several critical works and several novels, including the 1968 Nebula Award-winning novel Rite of Passage and the 1990 Hugo Award winning study of science fiction The World Beyond the Hill .-Other works:Panshin...
; the most prominent was Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
, whose first story, "The Coldest Place", appeared in December 1964. Niven later remarked that the story was immediately outdated; the plot relied on the discovery that the dark side of Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
was the coldest place in the universe, but space probes had recently discovered that Mercury did in fact rotate asynchronously. Gardner Dozois
Gardner Dozois
Gardner Raymond Dozois is an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004...
also made his first sale to If, with "The Empty Man", about a man possessed by an alien, in the September 1966 issue, and Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying into the religion. He is a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the...
's "Mountains Like Mice", about an abandoned group of colonists on Mars, appeared in the May 1966 issue. Technically this was not Wolfe's first sale, as he had already had "The Dead Man" published in the October 1965 issue of Sir!, but "Mountains Like Mice" had been written earlier.
Ifs covers during the 1960s were typically action-oriented, showing monsters and aliens; and several of the stories Pohl published were directed at a younger audience. For example, Blish's Welcome to Mars, serialized under the title The Hour Before Earthrise in July to September 1966, was about a teenage genius whose antigravity device stranded him and his girlfriend on Mars. Ashley has suggested that If was attempting to acquire readership from the many new fans of science fiction who had been introduced to the genre through television, in particular via the popular 1960s shows Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
and Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
. If also ran a friendly letter column, with more fan-oriented discussions than the other magazines, and between 1966 and 1968 a column by Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
introduced readers to various aspects of science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
. These features are also likely to have appealed to a younger audience.
Bibliographic details
The magazine was bimonthly until the March 1954 issue, which was followed by April 1954, inaugurating a monthly period that ran until June 1955. This was followed by August 1955, resuming a bimonthly schedule that ran until July 1964, with only one irregularity, when the February 1959 issue was followed by July 1959. After July 1964, If ran a monthly schedule until April 1970, with three omissions: there were no issues dated September 1964, June 1969, or August 1969. From May–June 1970, the issues were bimonthly and bore the names of two months. This bimonthly sequence ran through the last issue at the end of 1974. The date the magazine printed on the cover reverted to a single month with the June 1971 issue, though the contents page still used two months to identify the issue. The volume numbering began with six issues to a volume: there were three errors on the magazine contents page, with volume 8 number 1 incorrectly printed as volume 7 number 6; volume 9 number 3 printed as volume 8 number 6; and volume 10 number 1 printed as volume 10 number 6. Volume 14, which began in March 1964, ran through the end of the year, with seven numbers; the remaining volumes had 12 numbers each except for volume 19 which had 10 and volume 22 which had 8.
Several British editions of If were produced. In 1953 and 1954, Strato Publications reprinted 15 issues, numbering them from 1 to 15; another 18 were reprinted between 1959 and 1962, with the issue numbers being restarted at 1 again. Between January and November 1967 a UK edition appeared from Gold Star Publications; these were identical to the US edition dated ten months previously. Between 1972 and 1974, 15 of the UPD editions of If were imported, renumbered and repriced for UK distribution. The numbering, inexplicably, ran from 1 to 9, and then 11, 1, 13, 3, 4 and 5.
The editorial succession at If was as follows:
- Paul W. FairmanPaul W. FairmanPaul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
: March–September 1952. - James L. QuinnJames L. QuinnJames L. Quinn was an American science fiction editor and publisher.Quinn was the founding publisher of the science fiction magazine If and, after Paul W. Fairman left shortly after its launch in 1952, became its editor as well as publisher until 1958...
: November 1952 – August 1958. From May 1953 to March 1954, Larry T. ShawLarry Shaw (editor)Lawrence Taylor Shaw was a Hugo Award-winning science fiction fan, author, editor and literary agent who usually published as Larry T. Shaw....
was Associate Editor; he wrote editorials for at least three issues, beginning with September 1953, and generally did most of the editorial work. - Damon KnightDamon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
: October 1958 – February 1959. - H.L. Gold: July 1959 – November 1961.
- Frederik PohlFrederik PohlFrederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, January 1962 – May 1969. - Ejler JakobssonEjler JakobssonEjler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
: October 1969 – January/February 1974 - Jim BaenJim BaenJames Patrick "Jim" Baen was a noted U.S. science fiction publisher and editor. In 1983 he founded his own publishing house, Baen Books, specializing in the adventure, fantasy, military science fiction and space opera genres...
: March/April–December 1974. - Clifford Hong: September/November 1986.