Other Worlds, Universe Science Fiction, and Science Stories
Palmer entered a partnership with a Chicago businessman in 1953 to create Bell Publications, and printed Universe Science Fiction from June 1953.
Palmer used the new company to abandon Other Worlds and launch Science Stories, in order to escape from Clark Publications' financial difficulties.
Universe, on the other hand, was drab in appearance, but included some well-received stories, such as Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost", which examined homosexuality, a controversial topic for the time.
Circulation grew dramatically, but the publisher, Ziff-Davis, became alarmed at the ridicule the stories were drawing in the press, and ordered Palmer to tone down the material.
[2] Palmer had planned to distribute free copies of the first issue to fans at that year's World Science Fiction Convention in Cincinnati.
[4] He also met, and immediately hired, Bea Mahaffey, a Cleveland fan, as his managing editor, starting with the fourth issue, dated May 1950.
[3][4] Palmer planned another science fiction (sf) title, Imagination, to be launched in the fall of 1950,[5] but in June, he suffered a serious accident and was temporarily paralyzed, and Mahaffey took over in his absence.
[5][6] Despite the high cover price of 35 cents, Other Worlds did well enough for Palmer to increase the publication frequency from bimonthly to every six weeks, but faced competition from two new magazines launched at about the same time: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the first issue of which had appeared at the end of 1949, and Galaxy Science Fiction, which published its first issue in October 1950.
It stayed on a regular schedule until the July 1953 issue,[8] but Palmer's finances eventually worsened to the point that he was unable to pay his printer.
[12] When the anonymous businessman lost interest in the project Palmer bought him out, financed by the sale of his half share in Clark Publications, which had published Other Worlds and Fate.
Unlike almost every other sf magazine on the market, Other Worlds was edited and published by the same person, which meant there were no constraints on Palmer's editorial policy.
[25] Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson contributed "Heroes Are Made", the first in their Hoka series, and Palmer obtained fiction from other well-known writers such as Fredric Brown and Wilson Tucker.
[27] A high point of the non-fiction pieces was a series of articles by L. Sprague de Camp, abridged from his book Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, which ran from 1952 to 1953.
A lower page count meant less non-fiction material and readers' departments (such as letters) in Science Stories than in Other Worlds, but Palmer found space for cartoons and advertisements for his own books, such as The Coming of the Saucers, written with Kenneth Arnold.
Universe Science Fiction took the opposite approach, with uninteresting covers and poor interior artwork, but it had some good stories in the first two issues, which sf historian E.F. Casebeer attributes to Mahaffey's influence.
Murray Leinster, Mark Clifton and Mack Reynolds contributed to the early issues, with Robert Bloch, providing "Constant Reader", Theodore Sturgeon, and "The World Well Lost"; a treatment of homosexuality controversial for the 1950s.
Once Palmer became more involved with the magazine again the artwork improved, with Finlay, Lawrence Stevens, and Edd Cartier contributing good interior illustrations.
In Casebeer's view the Finlay and Lawrence illustrations were the best the magazine had to offer, and he considers the quality of the fiction to have gone downhill after a fairly promising start.
[31] Palmer had long been interested in UFOs, and ran an article in Other Worlds in 1951 titled "I Flew in a Flying Saucer", bylined "Captain A.V.G.
On the June 1970 issue, the cover picture showed a donut-shaped earth from space; Palmer claimed this was evidence from a satellite photograph.
