Science Fantasy (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine
, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds
. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell
, the editor of New Worlds, as a cost-saving measure. Carnell edited both magazines until Nova went out of business in early 1964. The titles were acquired by Roberts & Vinter, who hired Kyril Bonfiglioli
to edit Science Fantasy; Bonfiglioli changed the title to Impulse in early 1966, but the new title led to confusion with the distributors and sales fell, though the magazine remained profitable. The title was changed again to SF Impulse for the last few issues. Science Fantasy ceased publication the following year, when Roberts & Vinter came under financial pressure after their printer went bankrupt.
Gillings had an inventory of material that he had acquired while editing Fantasy, and he drew on this for Science Fantasy, as well as incorporating his own fanzine
, Science Fantasy Review, into the new magazine. Once Carnell took over, Science Fantasy typically ran a long lead novelette along with several shorter stories; prominent contributors in the 1950s included John Brunner
, Ken Bulmer
, and Brian Aldiss
, whose first novel Nonstop appeared (in an early version) in the February 1956 issue. Fantasy stories began to appear more frequently during the latter half of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s Carnell began to publish Thomas Burnett Swann
's well-received historical fantasies. Carnell felt that the literary quality of Science Fantasy was always higher than that of New Worlds, and in the early 1960s his efforts were rewarded with three consecutive Hugo
nominations for best magazine. Under Bonfiglioli more new writers appeared, including Keith Roberts
, Brian Stableford
and Josephine Saxton. In the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley
, the final year of Impulse, as it was titled by that time, included some of the best material ever published in a British science fiction magazine.
In early 1946, British fan John Carnell
launched a new science fiction (sf) magazine titled New Worlds
, published by Pendulum Publications. The first issue appeared in July 1946 and failed to sell well. The second issue, in October of that year, sold better, but Pendulum went out of business before the end of 1947 with only one more issue released. A group of sf fans, including Carnell and Frank Cooper, decided to restart the magazine under their own control, and formed Nova Publications Ltd. The fourth issue appeared in April 1949.
At the same time that the first issue of New Worlds appeared, a separate British magazine called Fantasy was launched by Walter Gillings, a science fiction fan and a reporter by profession. Fantasy lasted for only three issues before dying in 1947, but Gillings had accumulated a substantial inventory of stories—enough to fill nine issues. Gillings followed the demise of Fantasy by publishing a fanzine
, titled Fantasy Review, beginning in March 1947.
In 1950, with New Worlds on a stable quarterly schedule, Nova Publications decided to launch a companion, Science Fantasy. They chose Gillings as the editor, and his fanzine, which had been retitled Science Fantasy Review in 1949, was incorporated in the new magazine as a department. The first issue was dated Summer 1950, but printing disputes meant that the second issue was delayed until winter. Paper rationing delayed the third issue to Winter 1951, but before it appeared, Nova decided that it could no longer afford to have separate editors for New Worlds and Science Fantasy, and Gillings was let go. According to Carnell, there were also "fundamental differences of opinion" that led to the decision to replace him.
After the Spring 1953 issue Nova Publications decided to switch printers, in order to cut costs and bring the cover price down from 2/-
(10 p) to 1/6 (7.5 p). The new printers, The Carlton Press, failed to keep to the agreed printing schedule, and produced poor quality work; there were also printers' strikes, and this disruption caused extended delays in the appearance of the seventh issue. While the dispute with the printers was going on, Carnell and Maurice Goldsmith, a journalist acquaintance of Carnell's, put together a small conference of well-known science fiction authors, including Arthur C. Clarke
and John Wyndham
. Goldsmith covered the conference for Illustrated, a weekly magazine, and the article caught the attention of Maclaren & Sons Ltd, a technical trade publisher interested in launching a new sf magazine. Carnell turned down the offer because of his loyalty to Nova Publications, but subsequent discussions ultimately led to Maclaren taking control of Nova Publications, with a commitment to produce New Worlds on a monthly basis and Science Fantasy on a bimonthly schedule. Maclaren's legal department was helpful in resolving the dispute with The Carlton Press, and the seventh issue of Science Fantasy finally appeared with a cover date of March 1954.
In 1958, Nova decided to launch a British reprint of the American magazine Science Fiction Adventures
, under the same title. The British Science Fiction Adventures
lasted until May 1963, when it was felled by declining sales. New Worlds, Nova's flagship title, and Science Fantasy were also suffering from poor sales, with circulation estimated at about 5,000, though a switch from bimonthly to a monthly schedule was also considered that year for Science Fantasy. In September Nova decided to close down both remaining titles, and in preparation for the change Carnell signed a contract in December 1963 to edit an original anthology series, New Writings in SF
, for publisher Dennis Dobson. Readers' responses to news of the planned demise of the magazines included a letter from Michael Moorcock
, published in the April 1964 New Worlds, asking how the British market would now be able to train writers to sell to the higher-paying U.S. magazines.
In early 1964, David Warburton of Roberts & Vinter, an established publisher, heard from the printer of Science Fantasy and New Worlds that the magazines were going to fold shortly. Warburton decided that having a respectable magazine would help him in getting good distribution for Roberts & Vinter's books: Science Fantasy and New Worlds both had distribution arrangements with the two main British newsagents of the time, John Menzies
and W.H. Smith
. Carnell did not want to continue to edit the magazines in addition to New Writings in SF, and recommended Moorcock to Warburton; Kyril Bonfiglioli
, an Oxford art dealer who was a friend of Brian Aldiss
, also expressed an interest. Warburton gave Moorcock the choice of which magazine to edit; Moorcock chose New Worlds, and Bonfiglioli became the new editor of Science Fantasy. Roberts & Vinter changed the format from digest to paperback, and the first issue under Bonfiglioli's control was number 65, dated June–July 1964. The schedule was initially somewhat irregular, with each issue dated with two months even when two issues were only a month apart—for example, June–July 1964 was followed by July–August 1964. From March 1965 a regular monthly schedule was begun.
Bonfiglioli often bought material from writers without an established reputation; he did not make any special effort to acquire stories from well-known names. He was known for writing long and helpful rejection letters to newcomers, but he also had a reputation for laziness, and much of the day-to-day editorial work was done by assistants—first James Parkhill-Rathbone, and then Keith Roberts.
Bonfiglioli disliked the title of the magazine, feeling that it "promised the worst of both worlds"; he proposed Caliban as the new title, but the publisher dissuaded him. He settled on Impulse instead, and the magazine appeared under the new title starting with the March 1966 issue. The paperback format was unchanged, but the volume numeration was restarted at volume 1 number 1, to "sever all connections with Science Fantasy", in the words of sf historian Mike Ashley. The name change proved to be disastrous; there was already a magazine called Impulse, and this caused distribution problems. In addition, treating Impulse as a new magazine meant a fresh distribution contract was needed. Bonfiglioli attempted to repair the damage by changing the name to SF Impulse starting in August 1966, but the result was a dramatic drop in circulation.
By late 1966 Bonfiglioli had made enough money from his antiques dealing to be able to retire to Jersey
. J.G. Ballard was briefly involved with the magazine in an editorial role, but his aims for the magazine were too far from the publisher's goals and he was quickly replaced by Harry Harrison
. Harrison almost immediately had to leave England and handed over much of the day-to-day management of the magazine to Keith Roberts. Despite the setback from Bonfiglioli's title change, the magazine was still profitable, but in July 1966 Roberts & Vinter's distributor, Thorpe & Porter, went bankrupt while owing Roberts & Vinter a substantial sum. The resulting financial pressure led Roberts & Vinter to decide to focus on their more profitable magazines, and the February 1967 issue of SF Impulse was the last, though New Worlds, the sister magazine, survived via an Arts Council
grant obtained by Brian Aldiss's efforts. The title was merged with New Worlds with effect from the March 1967 issue, though nothing of SF Impulses content was retained.
; and "Monster", by John Christopher
, writing as Christopher Youd. Gillings also included several non-fiction features, such as his fanzine, Science Fantasy Review, incorporated into Science Fantasy as a department, and condensed to a few pages. In the first issue Gillings reviewed an article about science fiction by Jacob Bronowski
which had appeared in the Continental Daily Mail. There were also three book review columns: two by Gillings, writing under pseudonyms, and one by John Aiken, the son of poet Conrad Aiken
.
When Carnell took over, he planned to distinguish Science Fantasy from its sister magazine, New Worlds, by adding more fantasy, while printing nothing but sf in New Worlds, though it took some time for the two magazines to develop separate personalities. Carnell also dropped the non-fiction features, though he did start a series of guest editorials, starting with Gillings in the third issue and H.J. Campbell in the fourth issue. The acquisition of Nova Publications by Maclaren gave Carnell access to the publishing facilities of a well-established company, and to established distribution channels, which freed him to focus on his editorial duties. Carnell tended to put longer stories in Science Fantasy than in New Worlds, and Science Fantasy typically ran a long lead novelette with several short stories. Stories that would not have suited New Worlds began to appear, such as William F. Temple
's "Eternity" (February 1955), in which aliens mysteriously provide haloes to thousands of people, and Dal Stiven's "Free Will", which featured robot ghosts. Stories in the whimsical fantasy tradition that had been started by Unknown
, however, did not often appear in Science Fantasy.
Many of the lead novelettes in the 1950s were provided by John Brunner
and Ken Bulmer
. Brunner's first appearance was in September 1955 with "The Talisman"; over the next few years he wrote both science fiction and fantasy for Science Fantasy, including "A Time to Read" (December 1956), an alternate-world fantasy, and "Lungfish" (December 1957), a generation starship
story. Bulmer's first appearance in Science Fantasy was in June 1955, with "Psi No More"; he contributed regularly thereafter. A short version of Brian Aldiss's first novel, Nonstop, appeared in the February 1956 issue, and Aldiss subsequently contributed some experimental stories. From 1956 onwards the magazine contained substantially more fantasy than sf.
In Carnell's opinion, the literary quality of Science Fantasy was "far higher" than that of New Worlds, but New Worlds was always the better-selling of the two magazines. Carnell's determination to keep the quality high led him to delay publishing issue 20 for two months because of a "lack of suitable material". His efforts were rewarded by frequent appearances of stories from Science Fantasy in the annual Year's Greatest SF anthology series edited by Judith Merril
. Carnell occasionally used reprints, often selecting stories in line with the magazine's focus on offbeat fantasy, such as Fritz Leiber
's "Space-Time for Springers", and Theodore Sturgeon
's "The Graveyard Reader". Towards the end of the 1950s Carnell began to reintroduce non-fiction, and starting in 1959 he printed a series of articles by Sam Moskowitz
on key figures in the early history of sf, such as Edgar Allan Poe
; these articles, which had first appeared in American magazines such as Satellite Science Fiction
, were later collected as Explorers of the Infinite. The artwork was of variable quality, in the opinion of critic Brian Stableford
; among the better covers Stableford cites the work of Brian Lewis, who supplied almost all Science Fantasys cover art from 1958 through 1961. Historian David Kyle commented on the "remarkable" cover by R.M. Bull for the third issue, which he regarded as "strikingly reminiscent of the work of Margaret Brundage for Weird Tales in the thirties."
became strongly associated with Science Fantasy. He had published a couple of genre short stories before beginning to sell to Carnell with "The Dryad-Tree" in the August 1960 issue. Swann's speciality was historical fantasy, and Where Is the Bird of Fire?, his retelling of the Romulus and Remus
myth, which was serialised in Science Fantasy in 1962, "received more praise than any other [novelette] in recent years", according to Carnell. Swann was one of the three mainstays of Science Fantasy in the early 1960s: the others were Michael Moorcock and J.G. Ballard. Ballard's first story in Science Fantasy was "Prima Belladona", which appeared in the December 1956 issue; his work over the next few years was ideally suited to Science Fantasy and he became a regular contributor. He published some conventional stories in the British magazines, but over the next few years Ballard's more traditional science fiction material appeared mostly in the American market, with Science Fantasy and New Worlds reserved for more experimental material that was a harbinger of New Wave science fiction. Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné
series, about a sword and sorcery
anti-hero, began with "The Dreaming City" in the June 1961 Science Fantasy, and Moorcock appeared frequently thereafter: he had either a story or an essay (and sometimes both) in all but four of the remaining issues edited by Carnell. Terry Pratchett
's first story, "The Hades Business", appeared in the August 1963 issue. Ashley regards the early 1960s as one of the high points of the magazine; it was nominated for the Hugo Award
for each of the last three years in which Carnell edited it, from 1962 to 1964, but it never won.
When Kyril Bonfiglioli took over in 1964, he complained in his first editorial that he had "just read through a quarter of a million words of ms [manuscript] and half of it was so bad it made me blush". He asked Brian Aldiss to help; the only unsold stories Aldiss had were from his early days, "written before I got the hang of things", but Bonfiglioli told Aldiss, "They can't possibly be worse than the rubbish that's being submitted". Aldiss provided four stories for the first two issues, under his own name and two pseudonyms, "Jael Cracken" and "John Runciman". Bonfiglioli's third issue included Keith Roberts
' first two stories: "Escapism", a time travel
tale, and "Anita", the first in a series about a witch; Roberts became a frequent contributor both under his own name and as "Alistair Bevan", and also provided the artwork for several covers. The Day of the Minotaur, another historical fantasy by Thomas Burnett Swann, began serialisation in the same issue under the title The Day of the Blue Monkeys. Other new writers that began to appear under Bonfiglioli's editorship included Josephine Saxton and Brian Stableford. Bonfiglioli's focus on stories that he liked personally, rather than on a specific editorial policy, led author Christopher Priest to describe Science Fantasy under Bonfiglioli's editorship as "a literate and charmingly eccentric magazine, with an atmosphere all its own".
At the World Science Fiction Convention
in 1965, held in London, Bonfiglioli persuaded several well-known writers to appear in an "all-star issue ... with specially written stories round the theme of 'sacrifice. The issue in question was the first one under the new title of Impulse, in March 1966; it included fiction by James Blish
, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, J.G. Ballard, Poul Anderson
, Jack Vance
, and Keith Roberts, who contributed "The Signaller", the first story in his Pavane
sequence. The second issue was also high quality, with another Pavane story and a short story by John Brunner from his "Traveller in Black" series. Subsequent issues did not sustain this high level, but overall, in Ashley's opinion, the twelve issues of Impulse contained "some of the best SF and fantasy ever published in British magazines". Christopher Priest's first story, "The Run", appeared in the May 1966 issue, and Chris Boyce
's second story, "George", was published in June 1966. Two novels were serialised in Impulse, both well-received: Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room!
(later made into the movie Soylent Green
), and Moorcock's The Ice Schooner. Other notable stories listed by Ashley include Thomas Disch's "The Roaches" and "The Number You Have Just Reached", and Aldiss's "The Eyes of the Blind King". Stableford also praises the covers for the last few issues, which were mostly done by Keith Roberts in a semi-abstract style unlike conventional genre art.
The publisher was Nova Publications until April 1964, and Roberts & Vinter Ltd thereafter.
Science Fantasy was digest-sized
for its first two issues. The size increased to a large digest for the next four issues, but with issue seven it returned to a small digest again, and remained in that format until the June–July 1964 issue, which was issued in paperback format. The remaining issues, including all those under the Impulse title, were published as paperbacks. It initially was priced at 2/-; the price was cut to 1/6 for the third issue, but returned to 2/- with the seventh issue. With issue 11 (December 1954) the price returned to 2/-, and it rose to 2/6 with issue 46 and to 3/- with issue 61. When the format changed to paperback with issue 65 the price dropped again to 2/6, and remained there until the title change to Impulse. All the twelve Impulse issues were priced at 3/6. The page count began at 96, and rose to 128 with issue 7. Issues 36 through 63 were 112 pages, and the final digest-sized issue was 124 pages. The paperback issues were 128 pages under the Science Fantasy title, and 160 pages for the Impulse issues. Volume numbering began with two volumes of three issues, but the second volume began with volume 2, number 4 instead of restarting the issue number at 1 as would usually be done. From issue 7 the volume number was dropped completely.
The schedule was initially quite irregular, with the first two issues, in Summer and Winter 1950, followed almost a year later by a Winter 1951–52 issue. Spring and Autumn 1952 were followed by Spring 1953 and then another long delay to the seventh issue which was dated 1954, without a month or season given. The schedule became more regular thereafter, with May 1954 inaugurating a bimonthly schedule that lasted till November 1955, except that September 1954 was followed by a December issue, and June 1955 was followed by September. After February, May and August 1955, the December 1956 issue began a regular bimonthly sequence that was marred only by the appearance of a November 1959 issue between the August and December issues. After the switch to paperback, the sequence ran as follows: June–July 1964, July–August 1964, September–October 1964, December 1964 – January 1965, January–February 1965, and then monthly from March 1965 to the end.
There have been no anthologies drawn solely from the pages of Science Fantasy, but Weird Shadows From Beyond, edited by John Carnell, and published by Corgi Books
in 1965, drew eight of its ten stories from the 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....
, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds
New Worlds (magazine)
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine which was first published professionally in 1946. For 25 years it was widely considered the leading science fiction magazine in Britain, publishing 201 issues up to 1971...
. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell
John Carnell
Edward John Carnell , known to his friends as either Ted or John, was a British science fiction editor known for editing New Worlds in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited Science Fantasy from the 1950s...
, the editor of New Worlds, as a cost-saving measure. Carnell edited both magazines until Nova went out of business in early 1964. The titles were acquired by Roberts & Vinter, who hired Kyril Bonfiglioli
Kyril Bonfiglioli
Kyril Bonfiglioli was born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli in Eastbourne, to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. Having served in the army from 1947 to 1952, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford where he took his degree...
to edit Science Fantasy; Bonfiglioli changed the title to Impulse in early 1966, but the new title led to confusion with the distributors and sales fell, though the magazine remained profitable. The title was changed again to SF Impulse for the last few issues. Science Fantasy ceased publication the following year, when Roberts & Vinter came under financial pressure after their printer went bankrupt.
Gillings had an inventory of material that he had acquired while editing Fantasy, and he drew on this for Science Fantasy, as well as incorporating his own fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
, Science Fantasy Review, into the new magazine. Once Carnell took over, Science Fantasy typically ran a long lead novelette along with several shorter stories; prominent contributors in the 1950s included John Brunner
John Brunner (novelist)
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
, Ken Bulmer
Kenneth Bulmer
Henry Kenneth Bulmer was a British author, primarily of science fiction.-Life:Born in London, he married Pamela Buckmaster on 7 March 1953. They had one son and two daughters, and were divorced in 1981...
, and Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
, whose first novel Nonstop appeared (in an early version) in the February 1956 issue. Fantasy stories began to appear more frequently during the latter half of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s Carnell began to publish Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann was an American poet, critic and fantasy author.His criticism includes works on the poetry of H.D. and Christina Rossetti.-Poetry:...
's well-received historical fantasies. Carnell felt that the literary quality of Science Fantasy was always higher than that of New Worlds, and in the early 1960s his efforts were rewarded with three consecutive Hugo
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...
nominations for best magazine. Under Bonfiglioli more new writers appeared, including Keith Roberts
Keith Roberts
Keith John Kingston Roberts , was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, "Anita" and "Escapism.Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonym...
, Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
and Josephine Saxton. In the opinion 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 final year of Impulse, as it was titled by that time, included some of the best material ever published in a British science fiction magazine.
Gillings and Carnell
| Spring | Summer | Autumn | Winter | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| 1950 | 1/1 | 1/2 | ||||||||||
| 1951 | 1/3 | |||||||||||
| 1952 | 2/4 | 2/5 | ||||||||||
| 1953 | 2/6 | |||||||||||
| 1954 | 7 (nd) | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |||||||
| 1955 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |||||||
| 1956 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | ||||||||
| 1957 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | ||||||
| 1958 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | ||||||
| 1959 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | ||||||
| Issues of Science Fantasy in the 1950s, showing volume/issue number, and color-coded to show who was editor for each issue. Walter Gillings was the editor for the first two issues; John Carnell took over for the remainder of the 1950s. Underlining indicates that the magazine was titled with the season (e.g. "Summer 1950") for that issue. Issue 7 was only dated with the year, 1954. |
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John Carnell
Edward John Carnell , known to his friends as either Ted or John, was a British science fiction editor known for editing New Worlds in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited Science Fantasy from the 1950s...
launched a new science fiction (sf) magazine titled New Worlds
New Worlds (magazine)
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine which was first published professionally in 1946. For 25 years it was widely considered the leading science fiction magazine in Britain, publishing 201 issues up to 1971...
, published by Pendulum Publications. The first issue appeared in July 1946 and failed to sell well. The second issue, in October of that year, sold better, but Pendulum went out of business before the end of 1947 with only one more issue released. A group of sf fans, including Carnell and Frank Cooper, decided to restart the magazine under their own control, and formed Nova Publications Ltd. The fourth issue appeared in April 1949.
At the same time that the first issue of New Worlds appeared, a separate British magazine called Fantasy was launched by Walter Gillings, a science fiction fan and a reporter by profession. Fantasy lasted for only three issues before dying in 1947, but Gillings had accumulated a substantial inventory of stories—enough to fill nine issues. Gillings followed the demise of Fantasy by publishing a fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
, titled Fantasy Review, beginning in March 1947.
In 1950, with New Worlds on a stable quarterly schedule, Nova Publications decided to launch a companion, Science Fantasy. They chose Gillings as the editor, and his fanzine, which had been retitled Science Fantasy Review in 1949, was incorporated in the new magazine as a department. The first issue was dated Summer 1950, but printing disputes meant that the second issue was delayed until winter. Paper rationing delayed the third issue to Winter 1951, but before it appeared, Nova decided that it could no longer afford to have separate editors for New Worlds and Science Fantasy, and Gillings was let go. According to Carnell, there were also "fundamental differences of opinion" that led to the decision to replace him.
After the Spring 1953 issue Nova Publications decided to switch printers, in order to cut costs and bring the cover price down from 2/-
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
(10 p) to 1/6 (7.5 p). The new printers, The Carlton Press, failed to keep to the agreed printing schedule, and produced poor quality work; there were also printers' strikes, and this disruption caused extended delays in the appearance of the seventh issue. While the dispute with the printers was going on, Carnell and Maurice Goldsmith, a journalist acquaintance of Carnell's, put together a small conference of well-known science fiction authors, including 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,...
and John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
. Goldsmith covered the conference for Illustrated, a weekly magazine, and the article caught the attention of Maclaren & Sons Ltd, a technical trade publisher interested in launching a new sf magazine. Carnell turned down the offer because of his loyalty to Nova Publications, but subsequent discussions ultimately led to Maclaren taking control of Nova Publications, with a commitment to produce New Worlds on a monthly basis and Science Fantasy on a bimonthly schedule. Maclaren's legal department was helpful in resolving the dispute with The Carlton Press, and the seventh issue of Science Fantasy finally appeared with a cover date of March 1954.
In 1958, Nova decided to launch a British reprint of the American magazine Science Fiction Adventures
Science Fiction Adventures (1956 magazine)
Science Fiction Adventures was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1956 to 1958 by Royal Publications as a companion to Infinity, which had been launched the previous year. It was edited by Larry T. Shaw throughout its short run...
, under the same title. The British Science Fiction Adventures
Science Fiction Adventures (British magazine)
Science Fiction Adventures was a British digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1958 to 1963 by Nova Publications as a companion to New Worlds and Science Fantasy. It was edited by John Carnell...
lasted until May 1963, when it was felled by declining sales. New Worlds, Nova's flagship title, and Science Fantasy were also suffering from poor sales, with circulation estimated at about 5,000, though a switch from bimonthly to a monthly schedule was also considered that year for Science Fantasy. In September Nova decided to close down both remaining titles, and in preparation for the change Carnell signed a contract in December 1963 to edit an original anthology series, New Writings in SF
New Writings in SF
New Writings in SF was a series of thirty British science fiction anthologies published from 1964 to 1977 under the successive editorships of John Carnell from 1964 to 1972 and Kenneth Bulmer from 1973 to 1977. There were in addition four special volumes compiling material from the regular volumes...
, for publisher Dennis Dobson. Readers' responses to news of the planned demise of the magazines included a letter from Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
, published in the April 1964 New Worlds, asking how the British market would now be able to train writers to sell to the higher-paying U.S. magazines.
Roberts & Vinter
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | ||||||
| 1961 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | ||||||
| 1962 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | ||||||
| 1963 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | ||||||
| 1964 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | ||||||
| 1965 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | |
| 1965 | 80 | 81 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 1/5 | 1/6 | 1/7 | 1/8 | 1/9 | 1/10 |
| 1967 | 1/11 | 1/12 | ||||||||||
| Issues of Science Fantasy in the 1960s, showing volume/issue number, and color-coded to show who was editor for each issue. John Carnell was the editor until April 1964, after which Kyril Bonfiglioli took over. The last five issues were edited by Keith Roberts and Harry Harrison. Issues 65 through 69 were titled with the name of two consecutive months—e.g. issue 66 was dated July–August 1964. |
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John Menzies
John Menzies plc is a Scottish business established in 1833. It has two main divisions: Menzies Distribution and Menzies Aviation. Menzies Distribution is a major distributor of newspapers and magazines throughout the United Kingdom...
and W.H. Smith
W H Smith
WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
. Carnell did not want to continue to edit the magazines in addition to New Writings in SF, and recommended Moorcock to Warburton; Kyril Bonfiglioli
Kyril Bonfiglioli
Kyril Bonfiglioli was born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli in Eastbourne, to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. Having served in the army from 1947 to 1952, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford where he took his degree...
, an Oxford art dealer who was a friend of Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
, also expressed an interest. Warburton gave Moorcock the choice of which magazine to edit; Moorcock chose New Worlds, and Bonfiglioli became the new editor of Science Fantasy. Roberts & Vinter changed the format from digest to paperback, and the first issue under Bonfiglioli's control was number 65, dated June–July 1964. The schedule was initially somewhat irregular, with each issue dated with two months even when two issues were only a month apart—for example, June–July 1964 was followed by July–August 1964. From March 1965 a regular monthly schedule was begun.
Bonfiglioli often bought material from writers without an established reputation; he did not make any special effort to acquire stories from well-known names. He was known for writing long and helpful rejection letters to newcomers, but he also had a reputation for laziness, and much of the day-to-day editorial work was done by assistants—first James Parkhill-Rathbone, and then Keith Roberts.
Bonfiglioli disliked the title of the magazine, feeling that it "promised the worst of both worlds"; he proposed Caliban as the new title, but the publisher dissuaded him. He settled on Impulse instead, and the magazine appeared under the new title starting with the March 1966 issue. The paperback format was unchanged, but the volume numeration was restarted at volume 1 number 1, to "sever all connections with Science Fantasy", in the words of sf historian Mike Ashley. The name change proved to be disastrous; there was already a magazine called Impulse, and this caused distribution problems. In addition, treating Impulse as a new magazine meant a fresh distribution contract was needed. Bonfiglioli attempted to repair the damage by changing the name to SF Impulse starting in August 1966, but the result was a dramatic drop in circulation.
By late 1966 Bonfiglioli had made enough money from his antiques dealing to be able to retire to Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
. J.G. Ballard was briefly involved with the magazine in an editorial role, but his aims for the magazine were too far from the publisher's goals and he was quickly replaced by Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
. Harrison almost immediately had to leave England and handed over much of the day-to-day management of the magazine to Keith Roberts. Despite the setback from Bonfiglioli's title change, the magazine was still profitable, but in July 1966 Roberts & Vinter's distributor, Thorpe & Porter, went bankrupt while owing Roberts & Vinter a substantial sum. The resulting financial pressure led Roberts & Vinter to decide to focus on their more profitable magazines, and the February 1967 issue of SF Impulse was the last, though New Worlds, the sister magazine, survived via an Arts Council
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
grant obtained by Brian Aldiss's efforts. The title was merged with New Worlds with effect from the March 1967 issue, though nothing of SF Impulses content was retained.
1950s
In the first issue, Gillings declared that he was interested in science fantasy "in all its forms: with its significant ideas, its surprising prophecies, its sheer fictions, its evolution as a fascinating literature". Stories in the first issue, drawn from Gillings' inventory of material acquired for Fantasy, included "The Belt", by J.M. Walsh; "Time's Arrow", by Arthur C. ClarkeArthur 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,...
; and "Monster", by John Christopher
Samuel Youd
Samuel Youd is a British author, best known for his science fiction writings under the pseudonym John Christopher, including the novel The Death of Grass and the young adult oriented novel series The Tripods...
, writing as Christopher Youd. Gillings also included several non-fiction features, such as his fanzine, Science Fantasy Review, incorporated into Science Fantasy as a department, and condensed to a few pages. In the first issue Gillings reviewed an article about science fiction by Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-Jewish British mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor...
which had appeared in the Continental Daily Mail. There were also three book review columns: two by Gillings, writing under pseudonyms, and one by John Aiken, the son of poet Conrad Aiken
Conrad Aiken
Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...
.
When Carnell took over, he planned to distinguish Science Fantasy from its sister magazine, New Worlds, by adding more fantasy, while printing nothing but sf in New Worlds, though it took some time for the two magazines to develop separate personalities. Carnell also dropped the non-fiction features, though he did start a series of guest editorials, starting with Gillings in the third issue and H.J. Campbell in the fourth issue. The acquisition of Nova Publications by Maclaren gave Carnell access to the publishing facilities of a well-established company, and to established distribution channels, which freed him to focus on his editorial duties. Carnell tended to put longer stories in Science Fantasy than in New Worlds, and Science Fantasy typically ran a long lead novelette with several short stories. Stories that would not have suited New Worlds began to appear, such as 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...
's "Eternity" (February 1955), in which aliens mysteriously provide haloes to thousands of people, and Dal Stiven's "Free Will", which featured robot ghosts. Stories in the whimsical fantasy tradition that had been started by Unknown
Unknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...
, however, did not often appear in Science Fantasy.
Many of the lead novelettes in the 1950s were provided by John Brunner
John Brunner (novelist)
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
and Ken Bulmer
Kenneth Bulmer
Henry Kenneth Bulmer was a British author, primarily of science fiction.-Life:Born in London, he married Pamela Buckmaster on 7 March 1953. They had one son and two daughters, and were divorced in 1981...
. Brunner's first appearance was in September 1955 with "The Talisman"; over the next few years he wrote both science fiction and fantasy for Science Fantasy, including "A Time to Read" (December 1956), an alternate-world fantasy, and "Lungfish" (December 1957), a generation starship
Generation ship
A generation ship is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than the speed of light...
story. Bulmer's first appearance in Science Fantasy was in June 1955, with "Psi No More"; he contributed regularly thereafter. A short version of Brian Aldiss's first novel, Nonstop, appeared in the February 1956 issue, and Aldiss subsequently contributed some experimental stories. From 1956 onwards the magazine contained substantially more fantasy than sf.
In Carnell's opinion, the literary quality of Science Fantasy was "far higher" than that of New Worlds, but New Worlds was always the better-selling of the two magazines. Carnell's determination to keep the quality high led him to delay publishing issue 20 for two months because of a "lack of suitable material". His efforts were rewarded by frequent appearances of stories from Science Fantasy in the annual Year's Greatest SF anthology series edited by Judith Merril
Judith Merril
Judith Josephine Grossman , who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist....
. Carnell occasionally used reprints, often selecting stories in line with the magazine's focus on offbeat fantasy, such as 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...
's "Space-Time for Springers", and Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...
's "The Graveyard Reader". Towards the end of the 1950s Carnell began to reintroduce non-fiction, and starting in 1959 he printed a series of articles by Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...
on key figures in the early history of sf, such as Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
; these articles, which had first appeared in American magazines such as Satellite Science Fiction
Satellite Science Fiction
Satellite Science Fiction was a science fiction digest-sized magazine that was published in the United States in the late 1950s.The first edition of Satellite Science Fiction was published in October 1956. It published a total of 18 editions and ceased publication after the May 1959 edition.The...
, were later collected as Explorers of the Infinite. The artwork was of variable quality, in the opinion of critic Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
; among the better covers Stableford cites the work of Brian Lewis, who supplied almost all Science Fantasys cover art from 1958 through 1961. Historian David Kyle commented on the "remarkable" cover by R.M. Bull for the third issue, which he regarded as "strikingly reminiscent of the work of Margaret Brundage for Weird Tales in the thirties."
1960s
In the early 1960s, Thomas Burnett SwannThomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann was an American poet, critic and fantasy author.His criticism includes works on the poetry of H.D. and Christina Rossetti.-Poetry:...
became strongly associated with Science Fantasy. He had published a couple of genre short stories before beginning to sell to Carnell with "The Dryad-Tree" in the August 1960 issue. Swann's speciality was historical fantasy, and Where Is the Bird of Fire?, his retelling of the Romulus and Remus
Romulus and Remus
Romulus and Remus are Rome's twin founders in its traditional foundation myth, although the former is sometimes said to be the sole founder...
myth, which was serialised in Science Fantasy in 1962, "received more praise than any other [novelette] in recent years", according to Carnell. Swann was one of the three mainstays of Science Fantasy in the early 1960s: the others were Michael Moorcock and J.G. Ballard. Ballard's first story in Science Fantasy was "Prima Belladona", which appeared in the December 1956 issue; his work over the next few years was ideally suited to Science Fantasy and he became a regular contributor. He published some conventional stories in the British magazines, but over the next few years Ballard's more traditional science fiction material appeared mostly in the American market, with Science Fantasy and New Worlds reserved for more experimental material that was a harbinger of New Wave science fiction. Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock, and the antihero of a series of sword and sorcery stories centering in an alternate Earth. The proper name and title of the character is Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné...
series, about a sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
anti-hero, began with "The Dreaming City" in the June 1961 Science Fantasy, and Moorcock appeared frequently thereafter: he had either a story or an essay (and sometimes both) in all but four of the remaining issues edited by Carnell. Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's first story, "The Hades Business", appeared in the August 1963 issue. Ashley regards the early 1960s as one of the high points of the magazine; it was nominated for 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 each of the last three years in which Carnell edited it, from 1962 to 1964, but it never won.
When Kyril Bonfiglioli took over in 1964, he complained in his first editorial that he had "just read through a quarter of a million words of ms [manuscript] and half of it was so bad it made me blush". He asked Brian Aldiss to help; the only unsold stories Aldiss had were from his early days, "written before I got the hang of things", but Bonfiglioli told Aldiss, "They can't possibly be worse than the rubbish that's being submitted". Aldiss provided four stories for the first two issues, under his own name and two pseudonyms, "Jael Cracken" and "John Runciman". Bonfiglioli's third issue included Keith Roberts
Keith Roberts
Keith John Kingston Roberts , was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, "Anita" and "Escapism.Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonym...
' first two stories: "Escapism", a time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
tale, and "Anita", the first in a series about a witch; Roberts became a frequent contributor both under his own name and as "Alistair Bevan", and also provided the artwork for several covers. The Day of the Minotaur, another historical fantasy by Thomas Burnett Swann, began serialisation in the same issue under the title The Day of the Blue Monkeys. Other new writers that began to appear under Bonfiglioli's editorship included Josephine Saxton and Brian Stableford. Bonfiglioli's focus on stories that he liked personally, rather than on a specific editorial policy, led author Christopher Priest to describe Science Fantasy under Bonfiglioli's editorship as "a literate and charmingly eccentric magazine, with an atmosphere all its own".
At the World Science Fiction Convention
23rd World Science Fiction Convention
The 23rd World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Loncon II, was held 27–30 August 1965 at the Mount Royal Hotel in London, United Kingdom.The chairman was Ella Parker. The guest of honor was Brian W. Aldiss. The toastmaster was Tom Boardman...
in 1965, held in London, Bonfiglioli persuaded several well-known writers to appear in an "all-star issue ... with specially written stories round the theme of 'sacrifice. The issue in question was the first one under the new title of Impulse, in March 1966; it included fiction by 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:...
, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, J.G. Ballard, 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...
, 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...
, and Keith Roberts, who contributed "The Signaller", the first story in his Pavane
Pavane (novel)
Pavane by Keith Roberts is an alternate history science fiction fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1968. Most of the original stories were published in Science Fantasy...
sequence. The second issue was also high quality, with another Pavane story and a short story by John Brunner from his "Traveller in Black" series. Subsequent issues did not sustain this high level, but overall, in Ashley's opinion, the twelve issues of Impulse contained "some of the best SF and fantasy ever published in British magazines". Christopher Priest's first story, "The Run", appeared in the May 1966 issue, and Chris Boyce
Chris Boyce
Joseph Christopher Boyce was a Scottish science fiction author and fan.He worked in the Reference Library of the Glasgow Herald newspaper, and was there when he died suddenly. His fiction works include Catchworld, for which he was best known, and which jointly won the Sunday Times/Gollancz prize...
's second story, "George", was published in June 1966. Two novels were serialised in Impulse, both well-received: Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room!
Make Room! Make Room!
Make Room! Make Room! is a 1966 science fiction novel written by Harry Harrison exploring the consequences of unchecked population growth on society. The novel was the basis of the 1973 science fiction movie Soylent Green, although the movie changed much of the plot and theme, and introduced...
(later made into the movie Soylent Green
Soylent Green
Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Charlton Heston, the film overlays the police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution,...
), and Moorcock's The Ice Schooner. Other notable stories listed by Ashley include Thomas Disch's "The Roaches" and "The Number You Have Just Reached", and Aldiss's "The Eyes of the Blind King". Stableford also praises the covers for the last few issues, which were mostly done by Keith Roberts in a semi-abstract style unlike conventional genre art.
Bibliographic details
The editorial succession at Science Fantasy was as follows:- Walter Gillings: Summer 1950 – Winter 1950.
- John CarnellJohn CarnellEdward John Carnell , known to his friends as either Ted or John, was a British science fiction editor known for editing New Worlds in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited Science Fantasy from the 1950s...
: Winter 1951–1952 – April 1964. - Kyril BonfiglioliKyril BonfiglioliKyril Bonfiglioli was born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli in Eastbourne, to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. Having served in the army from 1947 to 1952, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford where he took his degree...
: June–July 1964 – September 1966. - Harry HarrisonHarry HarrisonHarry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
and Keith RobertsKeith RobertsKeith John Kingston Roberts , was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, "Anita" and "Escapism.Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonym...
: October 1966 – February 1967.
The publisher was Nova Publications until April 1964, and Roberts & Vinter Ltd thereafter.
Science Fantasy was digest-sized
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...
for its first two issues. The size increased to a large digest for the next four issues, but with issue seven it returned to a small digest again, and remained in that format until the June–July 1964 issue, which was issued in paperback format. The remaining issues, including all those under the Impulse title, were published as paperbacks. It initially was priced at 2/-; the price was cut to 1/6 for the third issue, but returned to 2/- with the seventh issue. With issue 11 (December 1954) the price returned to 2/-, and it rose to 2/6 with issue 46 and to 3/- with issue 61. When the format changed to paperback with issue 65 the price dropped again to 2/6, and remained there until the title change to Impulse. All the twelve Impulse issues were priced at 3/6. The page count began at 96, and rose to 128 with issue 7. Issues 36 through 63 were 112 pages, and the final digest-sized issue was 124 pages. The paperback issues were 128 pages under the Science Fantasy title, and 160 pages for the Impulse issues. Volume numbering began with two volumes of three issues, but the second volume began with volume 2, number 4 instead of restarting the issue number at 1 as would usually be done. From issue 7 the volume number was dropped completely.
The schedule was initially quite irregular, with the first two issues, in Summer and Winter 1950, followed almost a year later by a Winter 1951–52 issue. Spring and Autumn 1952 were followed by Spring 1953 and then another long delay to the seventh issue which was dated 1954, without a month or season given. The schedule became more regular thereafter, with May 1954 inaugurating a bimonthly schedule that lasted till November 1955, except that September 1954 was followed by a December issue, and June 1955 was followed by September. After February, May and August 1955, the December 1956 issue began a regular bimonthly sequence that was marred only by the appearance of a November 1959 issue between the August and December issues. After the switch to paperback, the sequence ran as follows: June–July 1964, July–August 1964, September–October 1964, December 1964 – January 1965, January–February 1965, and then monthly from March 1965 to the end.
There have been no anthologies drawn solely from the pages of Science Fantasy, but Weird Shadows From Beyond, edited by John Carnell, and published by Corgi Books
Transworld (company)
Transworld Publishers Inc. is a British publishing division of Random House and belongs to Bertelsmann, one of the world's largest media groups. It was established in 1950, and for many years it was the British division of Bantam Books. It publishes fiction and non fiction titles by various...
in 1965, drew eight of its ten stories from the magazine.