In 1970 it looked as though magazine science fiction was recovering, even though there was still a feeling of uncertainty. It was a boom period without the boom. Analog had a steadily rising circulation. Amazing Stories and Fantastic had a new editor, Ted White, who seemed able to handle Sol Cohen, and the magazines were starting to look fresh and exciting – and would indeed be vibrant during the early seventies. Galaxy and If had a new publisher and editor and changes were already appearing. Worlds of Fantasy and Worlds of Tomorrow had been revived. F&SF was holding its own.

But there were still plenty of questions. Were the magazines advancing sf in the way they had twenty years before – or even a few years before? And if they were, in what direction? What form was science fiction taking?

Sf, certainly in the American magazines, seemed to have come to a halt. Good fiction was still appearing, but was it the best of the old or the best of the new? Had it been overtaken by fantasy, or become a clone of Star Trek ? And then there was that British ‘new wave’ which had completely devastated New Worlds. Not only had this gripped the British scene but it was taking a hold on the paperback anthologies Orbit and Dangerous Visions and others that started to appear in great quantities from 1970 on: Quark and Nova and Universe and New Dimensions and even the return of Infinity. By 1970 there was no longer any doubt that the paperback book was dominating the magazine, and that fact, together with poor magazine distribution, was forcing the sf magazine into a backwater. Was the gradual rise of small, semi-professional magazines such as Weirdbook and Space and Time going to be an answer to this, or did the future lie in the paperback?

And what about the slick magazine approach? Science Fiction Plus, Analog, New Worlds, Vision of Tomorrow – all had flirted with that size and format and failed. Analog reverted to the digest size while New Worlds metamorphosed into paperbacks. Without advertising, could the sf magazine survive by subscription alone?

In the months after the moon landing the drive also went out of the Apollo programme.