Science fiction magazine
The first specialized English-language pulps with a leaning towards the fantastic were Thrill Book (1919) and Weird Tales (1923), but the editorial policy of both was aimed much more towards weird-occult fiction than towards sf.
Web-based magazines tend to favor shorter stories and articles that are easily read on a screen, and many of them pay little or nothing to the authors, thus limiting their universe of contributors.
The first science fiction magazine,[5] Amazing Stories, was published in a format known as bedsheet, roughly the size of Life but with a square spine.
The premiere issue of Amazing Stories (April 1926), edited and published by Hugo Gernsback, displayed a cover by Frank R. Paul illustrating Off on a Comet by Jules Verne.
Much fiction published in these bedsheet magazines, except for classic reprints by writers such as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe, is only of antiquarian interest.
Some of the stories in the early issues were by scientists or doctors who knew little or nothing about writing fiction, but who tried their best, for example, David H. Keller.
Probably the two best original sf stories ever published in a bedsheet science fiction magazine were "A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum and "The Gostak and the Doshes" by Miles Breuer, who influenced Jack Williamson.
There have been a few unsuccessful attempts to revive the bedsheet size using better quality paper, notably Science-Fiction Plus edited by Hugo Gernsback (1952–53, eight issues).
Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy and Robert A. Heinlein's Future History in the 1940s, Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity in the 1950s, and Frank Herbert's Dune in the 1960s, and many other science fiction classics all first appeared under Campbell's editorship.
Pulp science fiction is known for clichés such as stereotypical female characters, unrealistic gadgetry, and fantastic monsters of various kinds.
For example, in the year 1939, all of the following renowned authors sold their first professional science fiction story to magazines specializing in pulp science fiction: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, A. E. van Vogt and Theodore Sturgeon.
Under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith, Amazing and Fantastic changed in notable part from pulp style adventure stories to literary science fiction and fantasy.
[19] There was also no shortage of digests that continued the pulp tradition of hastily written adventure stories set on other planets.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, written by Walter M. Miller, Jr., was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Gardner Dozois presents a summary of the state of magazines in the introduction to the annual The Year's Best Science Fiction volume.
Locus lists the circulation and discusses the status of pro and semi-pro SF magazines in their February year-in-review issue, and runs periodic summaries of non-US science fiction.
