Talk:The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Untitled

"Although it physically resembles a traditional pulp"...

No it doesn't! Pulps were bedsheet size and printed on pulp paper, often with tacky illustrations. F&SF has always been digest-sized, printed on book paper, and has no illustrations except cartoons and the occasional diagram in a science article.

My mistake, I've read it for years, always assumed it was like pulps, but without actually knowing... Stan 05:57, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Their rate of pay for stories seems comparable to the pulps of old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.45.22.250 (talk) 01:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Interior illustrations

The statement that the "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction never used interior illustrations of stories. . ." is in error. Interior illustrations of stories are present in the April to October 1954 issues.--RKihara 23:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Who were the illustrators? Pepso2 23:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

April 1954; The Inner Worlds - Uncredited, The Silence Game - Uncredited, Centaurus Changeling - Emsh. May 1954; Star Lummox - Kirberger. June 1954; Warrior in Darkness - Solovioff, Star Lummox - Kirberger. July 1954; Shadow of Wings - Solovioff, Careless Love - Solovioff, Star Lummox - Kirberger. August 1954; Fondly Fahrenheit - Solovioff, Gilead - Solovioff. September 1954; One Too Many - Solovioff, Brave New World - Kelly Freas, Prone - Faragasso, There Ought to be a Lore - Kelly Freas. October 1954; Lot's Daughter - Kelly Freas, Music of the Sphere - Kelly Freas, Mars is Ours - Solovioff. They may have stopped since a poll taken around this time showed that interior illustrations were not wanted by a majority of readers. Long stories and serials were also unpopular, but the editors felt that perhaps the sample was not representative--RKihara 06:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I just checked the F&SF Bibliography, http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/bibliography/bibliography.htm for interior art and they show more interior illustrations for September 1956 through December 1956, September 1957, and April, May 1959. Nothing else after.--RKihara 06:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

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Images updated

I've updated the image talk pages to indicate that their copyright has expired, as appears to be the case. Mike Christie (talk) 20:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

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Numbers

Can any-one give any figures on how many copies are distributed? A table covering the magazine's history would be very helpful. Kdammers (talk) 05:46, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Plan to take this to FAC

I plan to work on this article to get it up to featured quality; if anyone is interested in helping that would be great. I intend to restructure it along the same lines as Analog Science Fiction and Fact: Publication history, then contents/reception, then bibliographic details. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Editorial succession

I took out Kornbluth; per Mark Rich's bio of Kornbluth he was going to take a job as consulting editor but would have been under Mills. I am also going to take out Tenn, who is listed under 1958; no other sources list this, and as it's in 1958 it was again probably a temporary or subsidiary post. Tenn was certainly never listed on the masthead as editor, and the SFE3 doesn't mention any role for him at F&SF. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:05, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

There's a memoir by Tenn in the March 2009 issue of F&SF in which he tells how Mills asked him to replace Kornbluth and came to edit Robert Bloch's That Hell-bound Train. He goes on to say he'd quit by the time the story had won the Hugo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.210.73 (talk) 17:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Unsourced material

I can't source this: "Boucher's Berkeley residence at 2643 Dana Street served as F&SF's office, and shortly after the magazine began, the Berkeley Post Office called to inform Boucher that it was creating a special mail sack for all the incoming correspondence, a constant flow that included some 80 to 120 manuscript submissions each week" so I've removed it. It's specific enough that I suspect a source does exist somewhere; if anyone recalls seeing this (perhaps in one of Boucher's introductions?) please post a note here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:42, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I've also deleted this: "The story prefaces Boucher wrote were carefully calculated to pull the reader into the first paragraphs of the stories, setting the tone while providing background information and insights. This was one of the magazine's more distinctive features, and some readers chose to go through and absorb all of Boucher's prefaces before deciding which story to read first. Nolan, in the dedication to his book, 3 to the Highest Power (1968), took note of Boucher's brilliance in those illuminating introductions" -- I think this needs a better source than the short quote from Nolan. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:42, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

2009 change to bimonthly

GordonVG, you cut "To save money" from "To save money, Van Gelder reduced the publication frequency to bimonthly, increasing the page count and price". This was cited to SFE3, which says "To reduce costs Van Gelder switched to bimonthly publication from April 2009, but increased the page count from 160 to 260 with a corresponding price rise." Is this not correct? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Sourced re-adding

So now I've added three online sources for the fact that the German best-of version lasted up until volume 101 in 2000, including a lot of cover scans, plus a link to a site which displays Heyne's cover design for the unpublished volume 102 that had been scheduled for 2001. I hope that's sufficient for you. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 11:59, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and in case you want a source for the exact series title for volumes 1-33, 34-44, and 45-101, check out the cover scans at the sources I've added to the article: The Best Stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (German) on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, Heyne's entire SF back catalogue on sf-hefte.de, and Mythen der nahen Zukunft - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction on ottosell.de. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 12:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi -- I know a little German, and Google Translate helps, but I can't be sure what the website is that you're linking to. Is it a personal home page or the page of an organization? I don't doubt that the information is correct, but we do need to cite a reliable source to keep the information in, and a personal web page doesn't qualify. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:03, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

ISFDB and sf-hefte.de are organizations comparable to IMDB, but I'm afraid ottosell.de would be a private homepage. However, ottosell.de is only used to source the fact that Heyne had announced a volume 102 to be published in 2001, as that site has an image of Heyne's cover design for the cancelled volume 102 which he's scanned from Heyne's original print catalogue. It's the easiest way to source the announced but cancelled volume 102, and if you need another source, it'd take some time. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 12:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

BTW, Otto Sell also has an English version of his page[1], albeit it doesn't seem as up-to-date, but complete with an imprint and his street address and such. As said, I'm only using his site to source the fact that Heyne had announced volume 102 and already had a cover design. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 12:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The ISFDB is a fine source, and the fact that the listing only goes up to 101 and stops in 2000 is good enough for us to say that the series stopped with 101. It looks as though the ISFDB doesn't give the variation in titles that you quote; is that right, or am I missing it? I tried searching sf-hefte.de for the titles you give and found some links: issue 1, and this, which looks like it's later in that sequence but before the first title change. If ISFDB doesn't specify the titles, could we get links to the first issue with each title from sf-hefte.de?

For issue 102, I don't think ottosell.de is going to be good enough, based on what you say. I'll search some English-language sources but I doubt Locus covered it. If you can find another source that would be great. Thanks for your help! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, here's an Amazon.de link for volume 102: [2] Seems it's one of the buggy cases where an ISBN and such had already been assigned but then no factual publication followed, which is why there's an entry on Amazon but no physical copies available. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 12:27, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hah! Not quite sure how to use that; I know from working on the ISFDB that Amazon is not a reliable source exactly because of things like this. I guess we could use it to show that it was at least planned, but how can we source the fact that it didn't come out? Is there a way to search sf-hefte.de and show that it does not exist in their catalogue? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:36, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid there's no search function on sf-hefte.de, but there's the index for Heyne SF & Fantasy books no. 6300-6399: [3] These numbers refer to the official Heyne catalogue numbers from their SF & Fantasy department, and the last three volumes 99-101 of MF&SF had the official catalogue numbers of 6314 [4], 6330 [5], and 6347 [6]. From that, it should obvious the regular catalogue numbers gap between two volumes would be about 15 to 20, however no further publications within the series occurred up until catalogue no. 6399, nor did any futher publication within the series occur for no. 6400-6599 [7], 6600-6999 [8], 7000-7999 [9], 8000-8999 [10], 9000-9099 [11], 9100-9199 [12], 9200-9299 [13], 9300-9999 [14], 50000-51999 [15], 52000-52099 [16], 52100-52199 [17], 52200-52299 [18], 52300-52399 [19], 52400-52499 [20] 52500-52599 [21], 52600-52699 [22], 52700-52799 [23], 52800-52899 [24], or 52900-52999 [25] (which covers a timespan of 2000 up until circa 2012 for us, when usually about one to three volumes of the series had appeared per year until its demise). You see, even though it's harder to search or browse for any particular issues or series the good thing about sf-hefte.de is that unlike ISFDB, its indexes for all Heyne publications are complete, whereas ISFDB has many inconspicious gaps also within series. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 13:24, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

You can search the site using Google by searching for "site:sf-hefte.de <search string>"; I don't think a failed Google search would qualify, though. I think we can put together something from the links you give that demonstrate that the series stopped with 101. How about the title variations you list? Is there a way to source them, either via ISFDB or the Heyne site? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, as for title change, we could go by cover scans for every volume on ISFDB and sf-hefte.de, right? (Unfortunately, Heyne themselves don't have any official back catalogues listed on the internet that would go back any further than to their 2003 purchase by Random House.) Here's issue no. 33 [26] ("Eine Auswahl der besten SF-Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"), no. 34 [27] ("Die besten SF-Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"), no. 44 [28] (still the same title as no. 34). No. 45 (first issue with the series's final title "Die besten Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction") is a bit tough to source, as the regular entry on ISFDB [29] has no cover scan, on sf-hefte.de the entry's [30] cover scan is borked (although a tiny thumbnail is available in the index [31]), here's another private homepage with a thumbnail scan [32], and here's two more or less random googled larger scans: [33] and [34]. The earliest ISFDB entry with the final title that does have a cover scan is for no. 52: [35], whereas pirando.de (which is a second-hand bookstore website, where the bookstore is dedicated to SF books and the website informs about international SF awards winners) has a clickable cover scan for no. 46 (volume titled, Tod eines Samurais): [36] because its title story had won the 1977 Hugo Award. --2003:71:4E33:E525:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hah! Found the bug behind the borked cover scans at sf-hefte.de: Some links just have one "0" too many when it comes to the catalogue numbers, so here's the sf-hefte.de scan of volume no. 45: [37] --2003:71:4E33:E525:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, looks like we have enough now. I'll do some tweaking and add links and report back here in a bit. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:37, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Science Fiction Story Reader (1974-1984) was a different series that had nothing to do with MF&SF. Here's the ISFDB entry for Heyne's Science Fiction Story Reader: [38] Heyne indeed was a great place for German SF publications from the 1970s up to the 1990s with many parallel publications and stand-alone titles, it's a real pity what happened to the publisher after it was bought by Random House in the early 2000s. --2003:71:4E33:E513:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 12:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

(UNDENT) Oh and BTW, there's a reason why I'm speaking of volumes rather than issues for the German version: The German version are thick best-of omnibusses with several hundred pages per volume, so they're actual paperback books rather than thin magazine issues --2003:71:4E33:E525:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 14:32, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I think everything but issue 102 is now looking good. I couldn't find evidence on the amazon.de page for 102 that it was part of the series, so I think we're going to need another source for that; I've cut it for now. I updated the list of editors based on the ISFDB web page, and I linked Hahn to de-wiki. Are there any more de-wiki links I could use for the other German names? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:09, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Sad to see I haven't done enough to justify mention of volume 102. No more de-wiki links (though it could be notable that Charlotte Winheller was really the pen name of one Charlotte Franke), but I guess you could link the publisher Heyne Verlag, which even has its own en-wiki entry. --2003:71:4E33:E525:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 15:22, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Linked Heyne Verlag; thanks for pointing that out. We can always re-add 102 if we find the right source. Thanks for all the help with this; the non-English editions are hard to source well so I really appreciate it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:29, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I'm glad I could help particularly with this series. It's easily my favorite book series since I've come upon it in the 90s, not least of all due to Heyne's fancy covers and packaging from the early 70s up until the early 90s. Recently, my father's given me all his old SF books (containing maybe four volumes of F&SF), and I'm currently building my own collection of Heyne's 70s to 90s SF titles (not only F&SF) based upon the stock he's given me. Beside F&SF, they had above-mentioned Science Fiction Story Reader (international SF stories, not only from the Anglosphere), a German-translated version of Asimov's Science Fiction[39], Science Fiction Jahrbuch[40] (1980-2000, with several complete novels and short stories per annual volume), Internationale Science Fiction Stories[41] (a concept a lot like SF Story Reader, only that each volume had a lot more pages from the beginning), Science Fiction Magazin[42], the annual non-fiction series Das Science-Fiction-Jahr[43] (mostly interviews and reports on recent SF developments in literature and movies), and many, many stand-alone SF novels. --2003:71:4E33:E525:DCD8:8E1C:F76D:7A56 (talk) 18:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I have a large sf reference collection, and I even have some material on sf in Germany, so if you decide to work on any sf articles on de-wiki, I'd be happy to help out with sources. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Update: after a query at the FAC, I took another look at sf-hefte.de and it appears to be a hobby site run by an enthusiast and thus not acceptable as a source. This loses us the exact numbers of issues with each title for the German anthology edition; I was still able to use the ISFDB to give the editorial sequence and total length. If we can find a reliable source that shows those cover images we can put that information back in. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:10, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Flowers for Algernon

The 1959 Flowers for Algernon published by F&SF was a short story. It was expanded into a novel in 1966. I don’t have access to the source for the incomplete quote about it, so I don’t know how to correct the sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John W. Kennedy (talk • contribs) 16:37, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Are you referring to this sentence? 'Daniel Keyes had been unable to sell "Flowers for Algernon" until Mills bought it in 1959; it went on to win several awards and according to Clute and Nicholls is "arguably the most popular sf novel ever published".' What's the issue? It was both a short story and a novel, so I don't think the quote is inaccurate. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Asimov quote

@Ylee: the Asimov quote you added seems a bit out of place to me. You've put it in the right place chronologically, but the surrounding material is really about events related to the magazine. Something like this might belong with the discussion of Asimov's 399 science columns, but there's already a sentence about Asimov's feelings about that, which you added a cite to. I think the quote should be cut. Since we disagreed over Galaxy I didn't want to just cut it without discussion though. What do you think? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:57, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

The quote was really more to set up a contrast with Asimov later agreeing to endorse a competing magazine (while still writing for the first; neat trick, that) despite his warm feelings toward F&SF. I see your point, and will move the quote to Assessment. Ylee (talk) 12:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Does it really belong in the Assessment section, though? It's not really an assessment of the magazine itself. The rest of that section is about critical opinions of F&SF. I think the quote would be more usable in the article about Asimov himself, since it says more about him than it does about the magazine -- and we already have a comment about his relationship with F&SF. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:12, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I think Asimov's opinion of any magazine is inherently an assessment of the magazine itself, but I've removed the quote. Ylee (talk) 12:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Magazine site dead?

The site doesn't appear to have been updates since 2021 & email and other contact links no longer work. The magazine itself is still published but there is no way to contact them. 50.110.167.96 (talk) 13:18, 15 June 2023 (UTC)