Statten Island

Although in America, in 1950, issues of science-fiction magazines outnumbered science-fiction paperbacks, the opposite was true in Britain. This was because paper rationing during the Second World War had meant that not only was there less paper to go round, so books were smaller, but there was also a restriction on starting any new serial publication.

It was a situation from which fiction magazines never really recovered. Even the grandfather of them all, The Strand Magazine, staggered on in a slim digest format, succumbing to financial pressures with its final issue in March 1950. Thereafter few fiction magazines of any kind survived, with science fiction being one of the exceptions.

Britain's two premier sf magazines were New Worlds and Science-Fantasy. New Worlds had first appeared in professional format in 1946 but the publisher had folded after three issues. A consortium of British fans and writers saw the magazine relaunched on a more robust financial basis in 1949 with the formation of Nova Publications. From the sixth issue, dated Spring 1950, New Worlds appeared on a regular quarterly schedule. The stronger financial base allowed Nova to publish a companion magazine, Science-Fantasy, which first appeared dated Summer 1950. This was edited by Walter Gillings, the pioneer of British sf magazines, who had started Tales of Wonder in 1937, and had edited the short-lived Fantasy just after the war, of which Science-Fantasy was a continuation in kind if not in name. After just two issues, though, the board of directors at Nova Publications felt that they could save money if John Carnell, who edited New Worlds, edited both magazines, and he took over Science-Fantasy from the third issue. This was quite a body-blow to Gillings, who felt fandom had betrayed him. This, and a family bereavement, meant that he turned his back on science fiction for twenty years, but we shall encounter him again in the late sixties.

For a period both New Worlds and Science-Fantasy published the same kind of science fiction, though New Worlds tended to follow traditional sf, in the vein of Astounding, while Science-Fantasy was less restrictive. Both magazines needed a while to establish themselves and develop a stable of writers.