The Magazine of fantasy and science fiction : a 30-year retrospective

by Edward L Ferman

  Table of Contents

  F&SF at 30

  Fondly Fahrenheit

  And Now the News...

  Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot

  Not with a Bang

  Flowers for Algernon

  A Canticle for Leibowitz

  Love Letters from Mars

  One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts

  The Women Men Don't See

  Born of Man and Woman

  Jeffty Is Five

  Ararat

  Me

  Sundance

  Three Cartoons

  The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out

  Dreaming Is a Private Thing

  Poor Little Warrior!

  Imaginary numbers in a Real Garden

  We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

  Selectra Six-Ten

  Dance Music for a Gone Planet

  Problems of Creativeness

  The Quest for Saint Aquin

  In January 1946, two California writers and editors, Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, came to New York City to discuss an idea for a new magazine with Lawrence Spivak, then publisher of The American Mercury, Inc. The magazine would contain new and old short stories in the fantasy, supernatural and ghost genres. Spivak was immediately enthusiastic about the idea and asked Boucher and McComas to assemble material for a test issue. In March, McComas wrote to Spivak:

  For the hitherto unpublished part of the magazine, we have lined up "off-the-trail" stories by Raymond Chandler, S. Guy Endore, Dorothy B. Hughes, Philip MacDonald, H. F. Heard and/or Stuart Palmer. I think you will agree that that is certainly a top-flight group of selling names! Both Chandler and Endore have a trunkful of our type of manuscripts, unpublished for lack of a proper market. We could certainly count on them to be regular contributors. For the reprint section we have such authors as M. R. James, H. R. Wakefield, John Dickson Carr, Fitz-James O'Brien, Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft.

  My father, Joseph W. Ferman, was Mercury's general manager (he would later succeed Spivak as publisher). In May 1946 he sent a memo to Spivak discussing details of the contract between the editors and the publishing company. It also notes that: "The new magazine will certainly have to be held up until there's a substantial recovery in newsstand sales." It concludes with a P.S.:

  I don't think the title is yet among those listed. Supernatural Stories and Unbelievable Stories sound a little too much like pulp. Here are a couple of additional suggested titles:

  THE MAGAZINE OF TERROR & THE SUPERNATURAL UNSUSPECTED WORLDS FANTASY AND TERROR

  But I don't think we have the right one yet.

  Choosing the right title for a new magazine is an agonizing business. I suppose that in some high-level corporate offices, this type of decision is achieved through something approaching a scientific formula. But having been through it several times, I've begun to feel that one reasonably descriptive title is much the same as another in the long run.

  However, in the early stages of a new magazine venture, the title decision seems a momentous one. The title that was finally settled on in late 1946 was Fantasy and Horror, and Boucher and McComas went ahead and purchased, at 1 cent to 2 cents per word, about 35,000 words of stories for the new publication. But Joe Ferman decided to postpone publication indefinitely, because of a substantial increase in printing costs and a shaky newsstand sale on Mercury's other magazines.*

  Nothing further was accomplished until early in 1949, when Joe Ferman noticed the new Avon Fantasy Reader on the stands (with a sexy cover and titles like "The Villain and the Virgin") and wrote to Tony Boucher making two suggestions, one good, one bad:

  We have been discussing again the possibility of testing a one-shot of Fantasy and Horror.

  Do you feel that we would be diluting the spirit and quality of the magazine too much if a science-fiction story was used in each issue?

  Also, do you think we might add a story with a little more sex in it—or possibly a story with more sex in the title than in the story?

  Boucher and McComas replied:

  We're very warm toward the idea of regularly including at least one science-fiction story. In fact, we'd been planning from the first to slip in borderline science fiction from time to time. The borderline between science fiction—look, let's save typing and call it stf—and fantasy (and even horror) is a difficult one to draw; the best of stf has or could have a very strong appeal to the fantasy reader. The

  * These included The American Mercury, then a prestigious opinion journal, and several quality mystery magazines, most notably Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

  routine gadget-type of stf or the interplanetary horse opera we wouldn't be using; they're passe by now anyway among the stf mags which cater to the sort of audience we hope to attract. And intelligent stf would in no wise "dilute the spirit" of fantasy & horror.

  Now we come to Sex. (McComas leers over my shoulder.—AB) We gather that your reason for bringing this up is the commercial success of the Avon Fantasy Reader. Their approach on this has been, as you've probably gathered, strictly a deceptive hocuspocus. An occasional story does have a sex slant (of the somewhat slavering and obvious pulp kind), but even that never remotely lives up to the cover.

  We're afraid that deliberately trying to get sex in could be a very bad idea. If an editor starts looking for a sexy story or an author is asked to produce one, the result is apt to be either purely unprintable or simply in questionable taste. We're all for sex where it is a natural and well-integrated part of a fantasy story; we'd like to feel that our editorial standards in that respect would be far more liberal than those of, say, Street & Smith, t But we're doubtful about going out hunting for it.

  The story in this first issue with the most marked sex element is the Stuart Palmer "Seek and Ye Shall Find"; retitling that, with a humorously sexy twist, might be a very wise idea indeed.

  The editors later suggested retitling the Palmer story "The Devil's Filly" ("It's punchy, sexy and ties in nicely with the story. If you don't agree, what do you think of The Devil's a Rough Lover'?"). It soon became apparent that nobody had much heart for this momentary fling with saucy sf, and the story was finally retitled "A Bride for the Devil," a graceful and apt enough title, but one which, even in 1949, must have been at least a light-year short of "sexy." This marked the end of sex as a topic of editorial discussion until the 1960s, when science fiction (surely literature's last holdout) fell with us all under the onslaught of the sexual revolution.

  Science fiction was to remain around for a long time, however, indeed to this day. McComas wrote that he had found an "excellent sf short, done by a well-known man in the field, that combines not-too-difficult science with sharply satiric fiction." The author was Theodore Sturgeon, and his story was "The Hurkle is a Happy Beast," the first in a long and distinguished roster of science fiction stories in F&SF.

  Publishers of Astounding Science Fiction, now Analog.

  In late March of 1949 Joe Ferman scheduled the first issue: it would be dated Fall 1949 and would be published in September. The designer he chose was George Salter, a highly regarded book designer with a distinctive style that was perfectly suited for fantasy and horror. The cover of the first issue illustrated "A Bride for the Devil" and combined artwork and photography: there was a photo of an attractive woman wearing a strapless (but unsexy) gown and a drawing by Salter of a devil-beast. Salter tried the art/photo combination in one subsequent issue and then abandoned photography entirely. All F&SF covers since then have been drawings.

  Although the cover art
was well under way, there was still some indecision about the magazine's title. So in May, Joe Ferman wrote McComas suggesting that they go with simply: The Magazine of Fantasy. McComas replied:

  Tony and I heartily approve of the new title. It's less pulpish than the other—avoiding the use of the word "terror"$ will eliminate the risk of frightening off women readers—who love light fantasy but scare easily. Then too, not using "terror" will keep us from the attention of those self-appointed guardians of the public weal—the vigilante groups in all too many communities who have taken over censorship of the newsstands.

  Publication date for the first issue was set for October 7, and to celebrate the occasion, the publishers planned a luncheon at the Waldorf. The public relations firm that was hired to promote the magazine and to plan the luncheon felt it was necessary to tie the event in with some more significant happening. At first they selected September 29, which was the 160th anniversary of the formation of the Regular Army. This sounds hilarious now, but it should be remembered that it was 1949, and to the general public science fiction was in large measure equated with weapons of war, especially the atomic bomb.

  Larry Spivak suggested that instead of serving food in the usual way, "we might serve the luncheon in fantastic molds, so that no dish would be recognized for what it is."

  Apparently no one was up to executing this interesting proposal, since I have in front of me the menu for the occasion. It includes such down-to-Earth fare as: "Martinis, Manhattans, Scotch, Rye and Bourbon Highballs passed by Waiters; Breast of Chicken; Nest of Souffle Potatoes, Tiny Stringbeans Saute au Beurre," and so on.

  * It had been so long since the choice of the original title that McComas had apparently forgotten that the word was not "terror" but "horror."

  The fortuitous discovery that October 6 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe led to the creation of a Poe Centennial Fantasy and Science Fiction Committee, the tie-in that the PR people were so fond of, and an apt one. The luncheon party came off successfully on October 6. Fifty-three guests attended; the total cost was $265. The speakers included master of ceremonies Basil Rathbone, Lieutenant Colonel Albert Cassevant (from the U. S. Army Signal Corps), Willy Ley, Richard Hoffmann (a well-known psychiatrist), Larry Spivak and Tony Boucher.

  And so here we are now, some thirty years and 340 issues later. The book you hold in your hands is our celebration of F&SF's thirtieth anniversary. Immediately following are some introductory comments from Isaac Asimov, F&SF's most prolific and valued contributor, and then our party begins, this time with a truly fantastic menu.

  F&SF at 30

  Isaac Asimov

  Thirty years isn't much in the lifetime of the universe, but it is a good deal in the lifetime of a human being or a magazine.

  Thirty years is about a generation. It is the length of time that, on the average, separates parents from their children. With the passage of thirty years infants become parents; young adults become middle-aged; middle-aged become elderly.

  Or, to get down to cases, an experimental magazine becomes an established pillar of the field, whose existence seems, in the minds of its young readers, to have been eternal.

  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) first came into being in the fall of 1949, and it was not quite like anything else in the field. Its editors, Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, intended, as far as possible, to stress literary quality and to lift it above the pulp inheritance of magazine science fiction.

  To do this, they published not only the best new stories they could find, but also classic science fiction from other countries and from the non-magazine past. They published new and classic fantasies as well, for at no time did they neglect that allied field. Indeed, the first issue of the magazine, dated Fall 1949 was entitled simply The Magazine of Fantasy. It was only with the second issue that it became F&SF.

  There was no certainty that the magazine would succeed. In fact, any sensible gambler would have given odds it wouldn't.

  For one thing, fantasy magazines (as distinguished from science fiction magazines) did not usually prosper. The most venerable of the fantasy magazines, Weird Tales, did well enough when it was alone in the field, but it began a long, sad decline once science fiction magazines established themselves in the late 1920s.

  The most unusual of the fantasy magazines, Unknown, driven with all the force of the legendary John W. Campbell, Jr., never did as well as its sister magazine Astounding Science Fiction. After twenty-two issues it was forced to go bimonthly and after seventeen more issues it died.

  Other efforts in the 1950s had even less luck. Horace Gold's Beyond Fantasy Fiction had to drop the word "Fantasy" in its title after eight issues and died after two more.

  As for putting out a magazine that dealt with both fantasy and science fiction, that had never been properly tried, and one would naturally have thought it would fall between two stools. Surely the enthusiasts for one of those fields would be impatient with the other.

  Finally, the attempt to inject literary values into the field, a cynic might have believed, would have limited the readership, and this in itself would be enough to ensure failure.

  Boucher and McComas were, however, determined to stick to their guns, and they received the unwavering support of Joseph W. Ferman, the publisher.

  F&SF, having spent its first year as a quarterly, went bimonthly with the December 1950 issue, and monthly with the August 1952 issue. It has never wavered since.

  When the October 1979 F&SF was published—the thirtieth anniversary issue—it was whole number 341, and in F&SF's pages had appeared, all told, nearly four thousand stories and articles.

  It is a source of considerable pride to me that some of those stories were mine. It is a source of even greater pride that the last 252 issues, about 74 per cent of the total, and without one gap in the list, have each carried a science essay by me.

  If thirty years is a long time chronologically, it is even longer in terms of the rapidly changing world of our times. Consider that day in 1949 when F&SF's first issue appeared.

  World War II had ended only four years before, and the Korean War had not yet begun. Stalin was still alive, the Berlin blockade had just ended, and the Cold War was moving into high gear.

  Harry Truman was President of the United States, still a klutz in the eyes of most Americans and not yet the honest hero he was to become in nostalgic minds later on. Dwight D. Eisenhower, still unaware that he was to spend eight years vegetating as President of the United States, was vegetating as president of Columbia University. And no one had yet heard of a junior senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy.

  The Soviet Union was about to explode its first nuclear bomb, ending the American monopoly. The Chinese Communists had completed their conquest of the mainland, and the Nationalists had fled to Taiwan. A young man on the make had completed his task of working out the downfall of Alger Hiss and began his triumphant climb toward a far greater downfall of his own.

  Cuba was safely in the vest pocket of the United States, and virtually no one in the United States had ever heard of Vietnam.

  But that's just the world generally. For a real taste of how far we have come, consider the status of science in 1949.

  It was still possible to write stories set on the dark side of Mercury, where the nearby Sun was never seen, and where mounds of frozen gases could be used to supply human settlers—and to cite astronomical chapter and verse to prove that the story was scientifically accurate.

  The dank, warm swamps and forests of Venus were still home to Mesozoic monsters, and web-footed natives could rebel against Earthly domination.

  The canals of Mars crisscrossed the cool desert, and an old and decadent civilization (gentle, perhaps, or fiendish) was going down to its inevitable end, or was planning a strike across space against the lush-ness of Earth.

  Or perhaps the Martians had already established a base on the far side of the Moon. There, invisible to humani
ty, they could take advantage of a lunar hemisphere with an altitude generally lower than the one that faced us, a hemisphere where there were wisps of air, bits of water, and even a thin scattering of native life.

  Jupiter lacked a magnetosphere (and so, for that matter, did Earth), and there was no solar wind, in any case, to supply the energetic subatomic particles of the magnetosphere.

  The large satellites of Jupiter were ripe for colonization, and there was no danger, other than gravitational, in approaching the giant planet. Even the gravitation was no great problem if the spaceship was atomic-powered.

  Uranus had no rings. Jupiter had no rings. Pluto was as large as the Earth and had no satellites.

  There were no flying saucers, no ancient astronauts, no Velikovskian fantasies—except what a writer could make up out of his own head.

  Farther out in space there were normal stars, white dwarfs, and red giants, but that was all. There were no pulsars or neutron stars. There were no black holes and no dust clouds full of complicated molecules.

  The galaxies were tame, too. None exploded and there were no central black holes. There were no galactic cores sizzling in x-ray and gamma-ray radiation and humming with a dense array of microwave radiation.

  Rather, the central nuclei, where the stars were strewn thickly, was the natural home of any Galactic Empire. There, under a star-lit sky, pyrotechnically shining with half the brightness of our Moon, you would find the world-cities.

  There were no Seyfert galaxies, no distant quasars with their mysterious floods of energies. There were no white holes or worm tunnels or accretion disks.

  On Earth itself, atomic doom could not long be deferred—because as soon as the Soviet Union got the bomb there would be a nuclear war, and Earth would be inhabited by mutants with tails on each rump and two heads on each neck.

  If the nuclear war could be avoided in some way, there would be a glowing atomic future in which every house could power its furnace with a tiny pellet of uranium that would last for seventy years.

  There was no fusion bomb, of course, no artificial satellites, no weather satellites, no communications satellites. If people went out into space, it was non-stop to the Moon, flying by the seat of one's pants.