text: science fiction quarterly science fiction quarterly was an american pulp science fiction magazine that was published from 1940 to 1943 and again from 1951 to 1958 . charles hornig served as editor for the first two issues ; robert w. lowndes edited the remainder . science fiction quarterly was launched by publisher louis silberkleit during a boom in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1930s . silberkleit launched two other science fiction titles ( science fiction and future fiction ) at about the same time : all three ceased publication before the end of world war ii , falling prey to slow sales and paper shortages . in 1950 and 1951 , as the market improved , silberkleit relaunched future fiction and science fiction quarterly . by the time science fiction quarterly ceased publication in 1958 , it was the last surviving science fiction pulp . science fiction quarterly 's policy was to reprint a novel in each issue as the lead story , and silberkleit was able to obtain reprint rights to two early science fiction novels and several of ray cummings ' books . both hornig and lowndes were given minuscule budgets , and hornig in particular had trouble finding good material to print . lowndes did somewhat better , as he was able to call on his friends in the futurians , a group of aspiring writers that included isaac asimov , james blish , and donald wollheim . the second incarnation of the magazine also had a policy of running a lead novel , though in practice the lead stories were often well short of novel length . among the better - known stories published by the magazine were " second dawn " , by arthur c. clarke ; " the last question " , by isaac asimov ; and " common time " , by james blish . publishing history although science fiction ( sf ) had been published before the 1920s , it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of amazing stories , a pulp magazine published by hugo gernsback . by the end of the 1930s , the field was booming . louis silberkleit , a publisher who had once worked for gernsback , launched a pulp magazine in march 1939 titled science fiction , under his blue ribbon magazines imprint . for an editor , gernsback recommended charles hornig , who had edited wonder stories for gernsback from 1933 to 1936 . silberkleit took the recommendation , and hornig was hired in october 1938 . hornig had no office ; he worked from home , coming in to the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials , and pick up typeset materials to proof . he was given broad freedom to select what he wanted to publish , since silberkleit 's chief editor , abner j. sundell , knew little about sf and did not get involved with running the magazine . to spread his costs over more magazines , silberkleit soon decided to launch two additional titles . in november 1939 the first issue of future fiction appeared ; it was followed in july 1940 by science fiction quarterly . hornig was editor for all three of the magazines . in october 1940 , hornig , who was a pacifist , received his military call - up . he decided to move to california and register as a conscientious objector ; he continued to edit the magazines from the west coast , but silberkleit was unhappy with the arrangement . silberkleit allowed hornig to retain his post as editor of science fiction , and offered the editorship of the other two titles to sam moskowitz . moskowitz declined , saying afterwards that he " would never strike at a man 's job " , but donald wollheim , a member of a group of aspiring writers called the futurians , heard about the offer . wollheim told robert w. lowndes , another member of the futurians , about the opening , and urged him to write to silberkleit . lowndes later recalled wollheim 's idea : " in the letter , i 'd suggest that it might be a good idea to add a science fiction title to the list , offering my services as editor at a slightly lower price than hornig was being paid , and also find fault with all the other sf titles presently out , but particularly with hornig 's " . lowndes relates that silberkleit took the bait and hired him in november 1940 ; hornig recalls the separation as being by mutual consent because of his move to california . lowndes subsequently agreed that this was likely to be the real reason silberkleit replaced hornig . the first issues lowndes was responsible for were the spring 1941 issue of science fiction quarterly and the april 1941 issue of future fiction . initially silberkleit kept tighter control on lowndes ' editorial selections than he had over hornig , vetoing five of the seven stories lowndes proposed for the april 1941 future , but by the august 1941 issue , lowndes later recalled , silberkleit " was satisfied that i knew what i was doing , and [ ... ] didn 't need to oversee any story i had accepted " . in 1950 silberkleit revived future fiction , and the following year he brought back science fiction quarterly , with the first issue of the new series dated may 1951 . a new magazine , dynamic science fiction , followed in 1952 . all three were edited by lowndes and all were in pulp format . sales were satisfactory , but silberkleit decided to experiment with the digest format , which was starting to become more popular . by the end of 1955 he had cancelled dynamic science fiction , switched future fiction to digest format , and relaunched science fiction as a digest under a new title , science fiction stories . only science fiction quarterly was left in pulp format — silberkleit felt that a quarterly digest would not be as successful as a quarterly pulp . the pulps were dying off , and when other worlds switched to digest format in 1956 , science fiction quarterly became the only remaining sf magazine still being published as a pulp . in 1957 american news company , one of the biggest magazine distributors , was liquidated , and the resulting changes in the national magazine distribution network , along with poor sales , finally killed science fiction quarterly . the last issue was dated february 1958 . contents and reception silberkleit 's magazines were given very limited budgets . hornig worked with julius schwartz , a literary agent who was a friend of his ; this gave him access to stories by the writers schwartz represented , but schwartz would not allow his authors ' real names to be used unless they were paid at least one cent per word . hornig could not afford to pay the one cent rate for everything he bought , so he paid half a cent a word for much of what he acquired through schwartz , and ran those stories under pseudonyms . unsurprisingly , given the low rates , the stories sent to hornig had usually already been rejected by the better - paying markets . the result was mediocre fiction , even from the better known writers that hornig was able to attract . the magazines paid on publication , rather than acceptance , and this slower payment also discouraged some authors from submitting material . science fiction quarterly was intended by silberkleit to include a full - length novel in each issue . silberkleit obtained permission from hugo gernsback to reprint two novels from science wonder quarterly : the moon conquerors by r.h. romans , and the shot into infinity by otto willi gail . although these stories were somewhat dated , they were better quality than the fiction hornig was able to obtain for his other magazines . when lowndes took over , the policy of including a novel in every issue continued , and silberkleit again obtained reprint rights to fill some of these slots , this time with ray cummings , five of whose novels would appear in science fiction quarterly over the next two years , starting with the conqueror in the summer 1941 issue . lowndes bought many stories from the futurians to fill the remaining space in the magazine . these were of variable quality , but overall science fiction quarterly improved once lowndes took control , and the fiction was as good as or better than the stories to be found in many of the contemporary magazines . when the magazine was revived , the stated policy was still to publish lead novels and fill the remaining space with short stories , but in fact , with few exceptions , the lead fiction was not of novel length . there were no more reprints , as there had been for the first series . lowndes was unable to pay his writers rates that were competitive with the magazines that were leading the field , but he was an able editor and produced a magazine of reasonable quality every quarter . the futurians still occasionally appeared in science fiction quarterly , but lowndes also attracted some of the newer writers , such as poul anderson , william tenn , and arthur c. clarke . clarke 's " second dawn " , which appeared in the august 1951 issue , is among the better stories lowndes was able to obtain ; he also published isaac asimov 's " the last question " in the november 1956 issue , and james blish 's " common time " , in august 1953 . lowndes was also able to acquire some good quality nonfiction for the magazine , including a series of articles by james blish on science in sf , and articles on science fiction by thomas d. clareson and l. sprague de camp . blish , writing as william atheling , jr . , commented in 1953 that lowndes was doing a " surprisingly good job " with all of silberkleit 's science fiction magazines , despite the low rates and the slow payment to authors . bibliographic details charles hornig was the editor of the first two issues of the first incarnation of science fiction quarterly ; robert w. lowndes edited all the subsequent issues . the magazine was printed in pulp format throughout both series . the price was 25 cents throughout the first run , for 144 pages ; the second series began at 25 cents , but the price increased to 35 cents for the august 1957 issue . the page count for the second series was 128 pages for much of the run , but from the november 1953 issue to the may 1957 issue it was 96 pages . the publisher for the first issue was double action magazines , with offices in holyoke , massachusetts ; thereafter the publisher was columbia publications for both versions of the magazine . both double action and columbia were owned by louis silberkleit . there were three british reprints of the first series , all published by gerald swan . the summer 1940 issue was reprinted twice . it appeared first ( with cuts ) as yankee science fiction , issue 3 , in february 1942 , and then again , uncut , as a paperback , titled the moon conqueror , in 1943 . the winter 1941 / 42 issue was also reprinted in 1943 , titled into the fourth dimension and other stories . ten issues of the second series were reprinted in the u.k. by thorpe & porter . the issues , which were cut from the u.s. editions , appeared between february 1952 and august 1955 , and corresponded to 10 of the first 13 issues , from may 1951 to may 1954 . the omitted issues were november 1951 , may 1952 , and august 1953 . the order of publication was not the same as for the us editions : the sequence was may 51 / august 51 / february 52 / november 52 / august 52 / may 53 / february 54 / november 53 / february 53 / may 54 . each issue was 128 pages and was priced at 1 / - ( 5p ) . there are no anthologies of stories drawn solely from science fiction quarterly . however , in the 1960s ivan howard edited several anthologies for silberkleit 's publishing imprint , belmont books , with contents drawn solely from silberkleit 's magazines . one of these , rare science fiction ( 1963 ) , included three stories from science fiction quarterly .