“For some very interesting reasons, 1953 was a year when over forty different science fiction and fantasy magazine titles appeared on newsstands in English-speaking countries. I haven’t tried to research non-English countries. And I’m not even sure I’ve found all the magazines published in English. Some of the titles below are reprint titles, but most of these magazines published new fiction.” – James Wallace Harris, May, 2022
…so has written James Wallace Harris, at his insightful and entertaining blog, Classics of Science Fiction, in the aptly-titled essay The 1953 SF&F Magazine Boom. More than an analysis of the social, cultural, and economic impetus for the profusion of such magazines in the early- to mid-1950s, James posits an explanation as to why readers and aficionados of science fiction of different generations are primarily attracted to works published during a given time period. James suggests that the stories having the greatest impact upon a reader (I think this might be extrapolated to any and all literary genres) would be those whose years of publication were coincident with a reader’s childhood, and which – as a matter of timing – would subsequently form the focus of his reading by the time he reached his teens and twenties. As he explains, “I imprinted on 1950s science fiction because that’s what I first read. I embraced the 1960s and 1970s science fiction because that was my generation’s science fiction while I was going to high school and college. Now that I’m old, my mind is returning to the science fiction of the 1950s. I was born in 1951, so I don’t remember 1953 except through old books, movies, music, and TV shows I discovered in the 1960s.”
I agree with James’ thoughts, but my case was (is) a little bit different. Though born very (quite very!) late in the 50s, my tastes in science fiction, while now quite eclectic, generally focus upon works spanning the 40s, 50s, and early 60s, rather than the mid-60s and later. I suppose this is because my interest in science-fiction primarily arose during my early and mid twenties, when I discovered and was (quietly) enraptured by the tales I encountered in two major anthologies (the covers of both of which are illustrated at this blog!): Asimov and Greenberg’s Isaac Asimov Present The Great SF Stories, and, Wollheim and Carr’s World’s Best Science Fiction. Both anthologies – one to two books published per year, for each – were structured chronologically, such that each edition comprised a selection of stories published during a specific calendar year, moving forward in time. So, having symbolically moved through time with the reading of each book, in each series, my literary tastes never became focused too strongly on a particular decade. Instead, they centered around specific authors or sub-genres.
Prior my discovery of those two anthologies, my only substantive exposure to science fiction was during high school, through Volume I of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, (junior high) and, Robert Heinlein’s The Past Through Tomorrow (senior high; I still have my original copies of both. Though I greatly enjoyed several (not all) of the stories in those works, my primary reading during my teens was focused on history and aviation, “in general”.
Yet, I do have a point of resonance with James’ analysis: I never really developed much of an interest in science-fiction published from the 1970s onward. But, in recent years I’ve been branching out. A little. I thought Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series was absolutely spectacular (okay, to be specific, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion; regretfully not so much Endymion and The Rise of Endymion) and, recently, Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy.
So…
James’ post includes a list of the titles of forty-eight science-fiction and fantasy magazines that were available in English-speaking countries in 1953. Among these is William L. Crawford’s Spaceway, which was published from 1953 through 1955 and resurrected between 1969 to 1970, for a total of twelve issues. The ISFDB reveals that cover artists for the 1950s issues were Mel Hunter and Paul Blaisdell, and for the 1970s issues Morris Scott Dollens.
Here’s the cover of the issue Volume 1, Number 1, which, having been published in December, was the only issue of 1953…
Here’s a closer view of Mel Hunter’s cover art. Like Beyond Fantasy Fiction and the early issues of Galaxy – and unlike Astounding and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – the illustration occupies a specific portion of the cover, with title and other text set above and alongside it, rather than overlapping onto the artistic “real estate”. (I like that.)
Aside from illustrating a predicament inherent to perilous planetary plunges, notice how Hunter has depicted each astronaut in a spacesuit of a different color. (Yellow, orange, green, blue, and red.) Where have we sees this before? Could it have been the 1950 film Destination Moon? Otherwise, despite the our explorers’ rather dire situation, the combination of a star-dappled bluish-black sky, a spacecraft vertically perched upon a frozen plain, icy precipices (water ice? carbon dioxide ice? methane clathrate? frozen nitrogen?) in gray, off-white, and traces of red (tholines?) – and of course, the colorfully suited explorers themselves – lends for a pleasing scene. (Despite the danger.)
https://youtu.be/v92InW0eSTQ?t=3995
Mel Hunter’s other contribution to the magazine’s inaugural issue is this leading illustration for Charles Eric Maine’s “Spaceways to Venus”.
As far as the impact and significance of Spaceway? Well, when I made a cursory glance at the table-of-contents of each issue in the magazine’s issue grid at the ISFDB, I had no glimmer of recognition for any story title. And, it seems that the magazine’s 1969-1970 iteration recycled stories from its 1950s issues, and, a few works from the 1930s.
So, at least some of the other early covers were nice!
For Your Further Digression, Distraction, and Diversion
Spaceway, at…
… Internet Speculative Fiction Database
William L. Crawford, at…
… Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Charles Eric Maine, at…
… Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Mel Hunter, at…
