Galaxy Science Fiction

right|250px|thumb|David Stone's cover for the first issue of Galaxy

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by World Editions, a French-Italian company looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.

Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as Fahrenheit 451; Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters; and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time.

Under Pohl, Galaxy had continued success, regularly publishing fiction by writers such as Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Silverberg. Pohl never won the annual Hugo Award for his stewardship of Galaxy, winning three Hugos instead for its sister magazine, If. In 1969, Guinn sold Galaxy to Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation (UPD) and Pohl resigned with Ejler Jakobsson replacing him. Under Jakobsson, the magazine declined in quality. It recovered under James Baen, who took over in mid-1974. However, when he left at the end of 1977, the deterioration resumed and there were financial problems, resulting in writers not being paid on time and the schedule becoming erratic. By the end of the 1970s, the gaps between issues were lengthening and the title was finally sold to Galileo publisher Vincent McCaffrey, who brought out only a single issue in 1980. A brief revival as a semi-professional magazine followed in 1994, edited by H. L. Gold's son, E. J. Gold. This lasted for eight bimonthly issues.

At its peak, Galaxy greatly influenced the science fiction genre. It was regarded as one of the leading science fiction magazines almost from the start, and its influence did not wane until Pohl's departure in 1969. Gold brought a "sophisticated intellectual subtlety" to magazine science fiction according to Pohl, who added that "after Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naive." but World War II and its resulting paper shortages led to the demise of several magazines. In the late 1940s, the market began to recover. Galaxy appearance in 1950 was part of this boom. According to sf historian and critic Mike Ashley, its success was the main reason for a subsequent flood of new releases: 22 more science fiction magazines appeared by 1954, when the market dipped again as a side effect of US Senate hearings into the putative connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency.

Origins and 1950s

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!1950

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!1951

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!1952

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!1953

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!1954

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!1955

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!1956

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!1957

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!1958

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!1959

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|colspan="13" style="font-size: 8pt; text-align:left"|Issues of Galaxy from 1950 to 1959, showing volume/issue number. H. L. Gold<br/>was editor throughout the 1950s. With the advent of the war, Gold left publishing and went into the army, but in late 1949 he was approached by Vera Cerutti, who had once worked for him. Cerutti was now working for a French-Italian publisher, Éditions Mondiales Del Duca founded by Cino Del Duca, that had opened an office in New York as World Editions. Gold knew about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a digest launched in the fall of 1949, but felt that there was still room in the market for another serious science fiction magazine.|group=notes According to Gold, the circulation director and the head of the American office stockpiled many issues instead of distributing them, and made sure that the ones that did get distributed went to areas of the United States, such as the South, where there was little or no audience for the magazine. He remained on the masthead as "editor emeritus", a post invented to keep Pohl from moving to one of the other sf magazines, and went back to his writing career. Jack Gaughan was made art editor.

Galaxy circulation had held relatively steady in the mid-1960s, ranging between 73,000 and 78,000, but the UPD acquisition coincided with a precipitous drop—from 75,300 for the year ended October 1968, circulation fell to 51,479 just one year later. Difficulties with distribution also cut into income, and Arnold Abramson, UPD's owner, decided to cut costs and maximize profits. Galaxy went bimonthly in August 1970, ending a two-year spell of monthly scheduling (though a couple of months had been missed). The page count, which had been cut from 196 to 160 when UPD bought it, was increased again, and the price was raised from 60 cents to 75 cents. A British edition began in May 1972, published by Tandem Books, which was owned by UPD. The net effect of all these changes was a substantial increase in profitability. Circulation in 1972 also rose by about 6,000 issues, though it is possible that this was solely due to the new British edition.

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! !!Jan !! Feb !!Mar !!Apr !!May !!Jun !!Jul !!Aug !!Sep !!Oct !!Nov !!Dec

!1970

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!1971

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!1972

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!1973

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!1974

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!1975

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!1976

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!1977

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!1978

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!1979

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!1980

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!1994

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!1995

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|colspan="13" style="font-size: 8pt; text-align:left"|Issues of Galaxy from 1970 to the last issue, including the revival in 1994, showing<br/>volume/issue number; the apparent errors at July and September 1973, and the odd<br/>numbering of volume 35, are in fact correctly shown. The editors, in sequence, were<br/>Ejler Jakobsson, James Baen, J.J. Pierce, Hank Stine, Floyd Kemske, and E.J. Gold. Baen also took over the editorship of If, but rising paper costs forced the closure of If at the end of 1974, and the title was merged with Galaxy. The magazine had returned to a monthly schedule in September 1973, but it was only patchily adhered to, with at least a couple of issues missed every year except 1974. Baen was successful at increasing circulation again, bringing it from 47,789 when he took over to 81,035 when he left. The magazine was profitable for UPD, but the financial pressure on the parent company took its toll and Baen left in late 1977 to work for Ace Books—the October issue was his last.

Baen was replaced by John J. Pierce, but the situation only worsened. Pierce resigned within a year: the company was in increasing debt, and his office assistant recalls that the office appeared inefficiently run, though he commented that Pierce "clearly loved what he did and knew what he was talking about". Pierce's replacement was Hank Stine, who took over in late 1978, though because of Galaxy irregular schedule Pierce's last issue was March–April 1979. Stine managed to produce only two more issues, June–July 1979 and September–October 1979, before UPD's financial problems spelled the end. Rights to the title were transferred to a new company, Galaxy Magazine, Inc., owned by Vincent McCaffrey, proprietor of Avenue Victor Hugo, a second-hand book store in Boston; UPD retained a ten percent interest in order to receive income from future sales to pay off their debts. Stine had compiled two more issues, but neither ever appeared; McCaffrey, who had also launched a separate magazine, Galileo, had cash-flow problems that prevented him from distributing the magazine as he had planned. One more issue did finally appear from McCaffrey, in July 1980, in a large format; it was edited by Floyd Kemske. A subsequent issue, to be dated October 1980, was assembled, but never distributed.

The last few years of Galaxy life were marked by stories of unpaid contributors. John Varley, for example, reported that he was still owed money for his stories five years after they appeared. Submissions from well-known writers fell away, and the lack of financial support from UPD meant that the pay rate was an unattractive one cent per word. Higher postal rates, higher paper costs, and continuing competition from the paperback science fiction market all added to the pressure on Galaxy. These problems were not resolved by the sale to McCaffrey, who did not even have enough money to pay for circulation postage, with the result that not every Galaxy subscriber received a copy of the final issue.

Relaunches of the magazine

In 1994, the magazine reappeared briefly as a semi-professional publication under the editorship of E. J. Gold, son of H. L. Gold. E. J. Gold produced eight issues on a regular bimonthly schedule, starting with the January–February 1994 issue, and ending with March–April 1995.

In August 2024, Starship Sloane Publishing relaunched Galaxy Science Fiction with Justin T. O'Conor Sloane serving as editor, Jean-Paul L. Garnier as deputy editor, Daniel Pomarède as science editor and Robert Silverberg as a contributing editor. The first issue featured cover art by Bruce Pennington, with new fiction by David Gerrold and Christopher Ruocchio among other notables.

Contents and reception

Early years

Gold intended Galaxy to publish stories of sufficient literary quality to attract readers of the slick magazines, as well as those who came to Galaxy already familiar with genre science fiction. His editorial policy was broader than that of John W. Campbell, the editor of the leading magazine in the field, Astounding Science Fiction: Gold was interested in sociology, psychology, and other "soft" sciences, and was also willing to publish humorous and satirical stories. Gold managed to persuade the publisher to let him offer three to four cents a word, which exceeded the highest rates paid in the field at that time. Astounding soon matched Galaxy rates.|group=notes In addition to the high rates, Galaxy was an attractive market for writers because Gold bought only first magazine rights, unlike the other leading magazines.

thumb|left|Rear cover of first issue

The cover for the first issue was by David Stone, depicting a scene from Simak's Time Quarry. The image was muted, in contrast to the sensational art typically found on the covers of the sf pulps; the intention was that Galaxy should look like an sf magazine, but one "that you were not embarrassed to hold", in the words of Mike Ashley. The relatively expensive production processes that Gold had insisted on enabled more sophisticated internal artwork, which could be integrated with type in ways not possible with cheaper letterpress printing.

On the rear cover of the first issue, Gold ran a feature called "You'll Never See It In Galaxy!", with two paragraphs side by side—one a parody of the introduction to a space western, the other the same story translated to become a true western, with spaceships replaced by horses. A sample: "He cut out his super-hyper-drive for the landing ... and at that point, a tall, lean spaceman stepped out of the tail assembly, proton gun-blaster in a space-tanned hand" became "He spurred hard for a low overhang of rimrock ... and at that point a tall, lean wrangler stepped out from behind a high boulder, six-shooter in a sun-tanned hand".

In the first issue, Gold asked for reader feedback on what should be included in the magazine—letters, editorials, book reviews, or other features. The response was against a letter column, but the readers wanted editorials, and short book reviews with recommendations that would help them identify what books to buy, as opposed to in-depth criticism. Gold was also concerned that harsh critical reviews would scare away new authors who might otherwise submit their work. Groff Conklin began a book review column, called "Galaxy Five Star Shelf", in the first issue; He was unapologetic, declaring, "I worked hard with writers, and they didn't always enjoy it".|group=notes Gold was agoraphobic and rarely left his apartment, but writers often visited him,

In March 1953 Gold announced a novel-writing contest, but it failed to attract any usable submissions. He asked Pohl and Kornbluth if they would allow him to print Gladiator-at-Law, which they had just completed, under a pseudonym, so he could claim that the contest had found a new talent. They refused, but shortly afterwards Pohl and Lester del Rey agreed to let Gold take their recently completed novel Preferred Risk and publish it as the winner under the pseudonym Edson McCann. Pohl and del Rey constructed a fake identity for McCann, but the news leaked out and Gold never ran another fiction competition. In July 1953, he launched a companion magazine, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, dedicated to fantasy material, which Galaxy editorial policy did not favor. It lasted for ten bimonthly issues, with the final one appearing in January 1955.

The ABC radio series Tales of Tomorrow, which began in 1952 as an offshoot of the TV series of the same name, used stories from Galaxy; the connection was announced at the start of each of its fifteen episodes. On April 24, 1955, another radio series, NBC's X Minus One, started a much longer run of 125 episodes, lasting until January 1958. From February 1956 onwards the scripts were adapted exclusively from stories in Galaxy, and from the April 1956 issue Galaxy ran advertisements for the series, which included work by Pohl, Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick.

Through the 1950s, Galaxy contributors routinely dominated the Hugo ballots, but neither the magazine nor the fiction it published won many awards, despite what sf historian Donald Lawler describes as its "deserved reputation for excellence".

1960s

When Pohl took over as editor in 1961, he broadened the magazine's scope, including more fantasy material. Regular contributors in the 1960s included Jack Vance, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, and Cordwainer Smith. Galaxy stories from this era that won awards include Vance's The Dragon Masters and "The Last Castle"; Clifford Simak's Way Station, serialized as Here Gather the Stars; Harlan Ellison's "'Repent, Harlequin,' Said the Ticktockman" and "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"; and Silverberg's "Nightwings". Pohl never succeeded in winning a Hugo Award as editor of Galaxy, although he won the award three consecutive times from 1966 to 1968 as editor of If, Galaxy sister magazine, and in theory the junior of the two publications. In the case of one of these stars, he offered an unusual arrangement: Robert Silverberg could write whatever he wished and Pohl promised that he would almost invariably buy it. Silverberg, who had been a high-volume producer of competent but unremarkable science fiction, began writing more ambitious work as a result, much of which was published in Galaxy throughout the 1960s.

In February 1965, Pohl brought in Algis Budrys as book reviewer, after a year in which no review column had appeared. Budrys's insightful reviews drew much praise, and editor David Hartwell has ranked him as one of the best sf critics of his generation.