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Other Worlds (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Other Worlds Science Stories (usually referred to by readers as simply Other Worlds) 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. Sold for 35 cents, the digest size
publication was bi-monthly until September 1950, six-weekly until October 1952 and then monthly.
The first issue, dated November 1949, was credited to editor Robert N. Webster, one of Palmer's pseudonyms, since Palmer was, at the time, still employed by Ziff-Davis as the editor of Amazing Stories
and Fantastic Adventures
. Other Worlds debuted with "The Fall of Lemuria" by Richard S. Shaver, "Where No Foot Walks" by G.H. Irwin and "Venus Trouble Shooter" by John Wiley.
, Poul Anderson
, Hal Annas, Ray Bradbury
, Eando Binder
, Jerome Bixby
, Robert Bloch
, Anthony Boucher
, Marion Zimmer Bradley
, Fredric Brown
, Lester del Rey
, David H. Keller
, Daniel Keyes
, Fritz Leiber
, Rog Phillips
, Mack Reynolds
, Eric Frank Russell
, E. E. Smith
, Theodore Sturgeon
, William F. Temple
, A.E. van Vogt, Jack Vance
, H.G. Wells, Robert Moore Williams
, Donald A. Wolheim and others. In 1952-53, Other Worlds serialized L. Sprague de Camp
's non-fiction Lost Continents (published as a book in 1954). Covers were by Paul Blaisdell, Hannes Bok
, Virgil Finlay
, Robert Gibson Jones, Harold McCauley, James B. Settles, Malcolm H. Smith and J. Allen St. John
.
Stuart J. Byrne
(who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym John Bloodstone) produced a new Tarzan novel, Tarzan on Mars, but it remained unpublished because Palmer was unable to get authorization from the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs
. This led Palmer on an unsuccessful campaign for Byrne to be named as Burroughs' successor, notably with Palmer's "Tarzan Never Dies" article in the November 1955 issue. When two of Byrne's Other Worlds stories (from the October 1952 and January 1957 issues) were reprinted as an ebook in 2005, he wrote the following in the introduction:
Recovering from an accident in 1953, Palmer suspended Other Worlds with the 31st issue (July 1953). He took over the magazine Universe Science Fiction (previously edited for two issues by George Bell). At the same time, Palmer began a short-lived companion titled Science Stories (1953-54). Universe ran for ten issues until March 1955 when Palmer changed the title to Other Worlds while continuing the numeration of Universe. It ran for another 12 issues as Other Worlds with Palmer introducing more material about UFOs. From May 1955 until May 1957 the publishing firm was given as Palmer Publications in Evanston, Illinois.
. The editorial criteria were for "short, hard SF shockers, with impact" up to 3000 words.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction magazine
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....
, edited by Raymond A. 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...
with Bea Mahaffey. It was published by Palmer's Clark Publishing in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
beginning in the late 1940s. Sold for 35 cents, the digest size
Digest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
publication was bi-monthly until September 1950, six-weekly until October 1952 and then monthly.
The first issue, dated November 1949, was credited to editor Robert N. Webster, one of Palmer's pseudonyms, since Palmer was, at the time, still employed by Ziff-Davis as the editor of Amazing Stories
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...
and Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
. Other Worlds debuted with "The Fall of Lemuria" by Richard S. Shaver, "Where No Foot Walks" by G.H. Irwin and "Venus Trouble Shooter" by John Wiley.
Writers
It continued as a bi-monthly, running stories by Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
, Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
, Hal Annas, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, Eando Binder
Eando Binder
Eando Binder is a pen-name used by two mid-20th-century science fiction authors, Earl Andrew Binder and his brother Otto Binder . The name is derived from their first initials ....
, Jerome Bixby
Jerome Bixby
Drexel Jerome Lewis Bixby was an American short story writer, editor and scriptwriter, best known for his work in science fiction. He also wrote many westerns and used the pseudonyms D. B. Lewis, Harry Neal, Albert Russell, J. Russell, M. St...
, Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Many critics have noted a feminist perspective in her writing. Her first child, David R...
, Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
, Lester del Rey
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...
, David H. Keller
David H. Keller
David H. Keller was a writer for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century who wrote science fiction, fantasy and horror. He was the first psychiatrist to write for the genre, and was most often published as David H...
, Daniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes is an American author best known for his Hugo award-winning short story and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000.-Early life and career:Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New...
, Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
, 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...
, Mack Reynolds
Mack Reynolds
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in Galaxy Magazine and Worlds of If Magazine...
, Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell was a British author best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States, in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction and other pulp magazines. Russell also wrote horror fiction for Weird Tales, and...
, E. E. Smith
E. E. Smith
Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., also, E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and Ted was a food engineer and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others...
, Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...
, William F. Temple
William F. Temple
William Frederick Temple was a British science fiction writer. He was a member of the British Interplanetary Society and involved in science fiction fandom before writing. His best known work might be the novel which formed the basis for the film Four Sided Triangle, a novel which Groff Conklin...
, A.E. van Vogt, Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
, H.G. Wells, Robert Moore Williams
Robert Moore Williams
Robert Moore Williams , born in Farmington, Missouri, was an American writer, primarily of science fiction. Pseudonyms included John S Browning, H. H. Hermon, Russell Storm and E. K. Jarvis ....
, Donald A. Wolheim and others. In 1952-53, Other Worlds serialized L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
's non-fiction Lost Continents (published as a book in 1954). Covers were by Paul Blaisdell, Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard , was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds...
, Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques...
, Robert Gibson Jones, Harold McCauley, James B. Settles, Malcolm H. Smith and J. Allen St. John
J. Allen St. John
J. Allen St. John was an American author, artist and illustrator. He is especially remembered for his illustrations for the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, although he illustrated works of many types. He taught at the Chicago Art Institute and with the American Academy of Art...
.
Stuart J. Byrne
Stuart J. Byrne
Stuart James Byrne is an American screenwriter and writer of science fiction and fantasy. He published under his own name and the pseudonyms Rothayne Amare, John Bloodstone, Howard Dare, and Marx Kaye -Biography:Byrne was born in St...
(who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym John Bloodstone) produced a new Tarzan novel, Tarzan on Mars, but it remained unpublished because Palmer was unable to get authorization from the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
. This led Palmer on an unsuccessful campaign for Byrne to be named as Burroughs' successor, notably with Palmer's "Tarzan Never Dies" article in the November 1955 issue. When two of Byrne's Other Worlds stories (from the October 1952 and January 1957 issues) were reprinted as an ebook in 2005, he wrote the following in the introduction:
- This novella, Metamorphs, once came close to being on the motion-picture screen. In my Hollywood days of following the yellow brick road of "Show Biz," I had scripted it under the spectacular title, Monster In My Blood. The former producer of This Island Earth bought it for $8,000. However, his principal finance for the film depended on Boris KarloffBoris KarloffWilliam Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
acting the part of the chief Metamorph. Regrettably, friend Karloff died in the middle of casting. I also speculated a script for another producer who wanted to do a horror-monster adventure pic, staged in the tropics of South America. This of course resurrected The Naked Goddess, script titled The Bridge of Time. But alas! He, too, failed to raise his capital.
- But the memories engendered by these works embrace a far broader spectrum. The fact that both of these stories were cover-featured in Other Worlds magazine opens the true "other world" of the Roaring Fifties when science-fiction and fantasy reigned supreme. It also opens a special link to the editor of Other Worlds, Ray Palmer, who not only published many more of my stories but constituted a story in himself. There is also an untold link between The Naked Goddess and circumstances leading to my first meeting Ray in Chicago of 1947. The Naked Goddess has its background in South America, where I lived five years during World War II while working for Pan American-Grace Airlines (Panagra). But that background was originally used in the story, "Prometheus II," which became my first cover story, then published in Amazing Stories, whose editor then was--you guessed it--Ray Palmer.
Saucers spillover
In June 1957, Ray Palmer changed the title to Flying Saucers from Other Worlds (later shortened to Flying Saucers). This apparent continuation of Other Worlds prompted confusion, deliberately created by Palmer so sales outlets would not have to be persuaded to take a new magazine. In truth, the magazines overlapped for two issues with ambiguous titles. However, it did continue to carry science fiction stories until September 1957, at which point it totally focused on UFO articles. Other Worlds was dropped from the title after issue 29 (May 1958). Palmer continued to publish UFO material in different formats until his death in 1977.Another Other
Between 1988 and 1996, six issues appeared of a different magazine, also titled Other Worlds, edited by Gary Lovisi for Gryphon PublicationsGryphon Publications
Gryphon Publications, or Gryphon Books, is an American independent publishing company specializing in contemporary pulp stories. Owned and operated by Gary Lovisi, the company publishes Lovisi's own writing as well as that of other authors....
. The editorial criteria were for "short, hard SF shockers, with impact" up to 3000 words.