''Super-Science Fiction'' was an American digest

science fiction magazine A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novel ...

published from 1956 to 1959, edited by W. W. Scott and published by Feature Publications.

Robert Silverberg Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand ...

and

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of ''Psycho'', ...

, who were at the start of their careers at the time, were already selling crime stories to Scott for his other magazines, ''Trapped'' and ''Guilty'', and quickly started bringing Scott science fiction stories as well. Scott bought scores of stories from the pair during the magazine's short life; much of the remainder was sent in by literary agents, and generally comprised material rejected by other magazines first, though Scott did obtain two stories from

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and ...

. After a couple of years, Feature decided to switch the focus of the magazine to monster stories, hoping to cash in on the trend that was making ''

Famous Monsters of Filmland ''Famous Monsters of Filmland'' is an American genre-specific film magazine, started in 1958 by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman. ''Famous Monsters of Filmland'' directly inspired the creation of many other similar publicat ...

'' a success at that time. Four more issues appeared, all the stories featuring a monster in some way, but Feature brought the axe down in 1959. The last issue was dated October that year. The magazine is not highly regarded by critics, though Silverberg considers the material he wrote for Scott and other action-adventure magazine publishers to have helped him learn his trade as a writer.

Publication history

In 1940, Feature Publications began publishing ''

Prize Comics A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

'', and followed this with other successful superhero titles, including '' Frankenstein Comics'' and ''

Headline Comics ''Headline Comics (For The American Boy)'' was an American comics magazine published by Prize Comics (under the indicia titles American Boys' Comics, Inc. for 21 issues, and Headline Publications, Inc. for 26 issues) from February 1943 – Octob ...

''. The

Comics Code The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was formed in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America as an alternative to government regulation. The CCA allowed the comic publishers to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. ...

, introduced in 1954, forced Feature to stop publication of all three titles by late 1956. Two crime magazines took their place: ''Trapped'', under their Headline imprint, and ''Guilty''. Both were edited by William W. Scott, who had come over to Feature from

Fiction House Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister.Saunders, David"JACK BYRNE (1902-1972),"Field Guide to Wild American P ...

, which had gone out of business in 1955. Feature added ''Super-Science Fiction'' to Headline's list at the end of 1956, and gave it to Scott to edit, though he was not knowledgeable about the genre.Ashley (2005), pp. 167–69. According to

's later recollection, the new magazine had been Scott's idea, and Scott had persuaded Feature to launch it. Scott paid two cents a word for both fiction and non-fiction, a rate that made the magazine competitive with the other major titles in the field.Silverberg (2012), p. xvii. Science fiction magazines proliferated during the 1950s, with dozens of new titles launched during the decade, but by the end of the decade the market was moving away from fiction magazines and towards paperbacks. The popularity of TV and comics was another obstacle to success. Magazine distribution, which had to be reliable to support newsstand sales, was made far more difficult when a major distributor, American News Company, was liquidated in 1957. ''Super-Science Fiction'' was fortunate in having independent distribution, and so was able to avoid the worst effects of the change, but the disruption to the distribution business meant that smaller magazines could not always be reliably found on newsstands. The late 1950s also saw an increase in public interest in science fiction

monster movie A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall unde ...

s, such as ''

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film '' Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produ ...

'', or ''

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman ''Attack of the 50 Foot Woman'' is a 1958 independently made American science fiction horror film directed by Nathan H. Juran (credited as Nathan Hertz) and starring Allison Hayes, William Hudson and Yvette Vickers. It was produced by Berna ...

'', and a new magazine, ''

'', quickly became very successful. Other magazines, such as ''Monster Parade'' and ''Monsters and Things'', tried to take advantage of the trend.Silverberg (2012), pp. xxii–xxiii. Scott's response was to title the April 1959 issue of ''Super-Science Fiction'' a "Special Monster Issue", and to add a "Monster" banner to the cover of every subsequent issue. The move was a failure; only three more issues appeared before Feature Publications closed the magazine down.Ashley (2005), pp. 186–89. There have been no anthologies consisting solely of stories from the magazine, but in 2012 a collection of Robert Silverberg's stories, titled ''Tales from Super-Science Fiction'', appeared, with an introduction in which Silverberg reminisced about his involvement with the magazine.

Contents and reception

In 1956,

was living in uptown Manhattan, in the same apartment building as Robert Silverberg and

Randall Garrett Gordon Randall Phillip David GarrettGarrett, Randall
in ''

Manhunt'', a leading crime magazine, and Scott bought all of them for his crime titles, ''Trapped'' and ''Guilty''. Silverberg and Ellison both began selling regularly to Scott, and that summer Scott let them know he had persuaded Feature Publications to add a science fiction title, which would pay the same high word rates as the crime magazines. By the end of June Silverberg had sold Scott "Catch 'Em All Alive", a short story that appeared in the first issue of ''Super-Science Fiction'', as well as some short non-fiction material that Scott used to fill gaps at the bottom of pages in the magazine. Ellison also appeared in the first issue, with "Psycho at Mid-Point", as did Henry Slesar, whom Ellison had introduced to Scott. Scott's editorial in the first issue claimed that the magazine would focus on people: "The Man of The Future is going to conquer the universe with his fists and fury."Subotsky (1985), pp. 629–31. Mike Ashley and

Milton Subotsky Milton Subotsky (September 27, 1921 – June 27, 1991) was an American film and television writer and producer. In 1964, he founded Amicus Productions with Max J. Rosenberg. Amicus means "friendship" in Latin. The partnership produced low-bu ...

, both science fiction historians, comment on the contradiction between the editorial and the contents of the first couple of issues, in many of which the protagonists fail, die, or go insane. Both Silverberg and Ellison were producing work at high volume for the science fiction magazines active in the middle and late 1950s, and between them sold Scott nearly 40% of all the stories that appeared in the magazine. Silverberg also continued to sell Scott non-fiction filler material. Several literary agents, including

Harry Altshuler Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...

and

Scott Meredith Scott Meredith, born Arthur Scott Feldman (1923, New York City, NY – 1 July 1992, Manhasset, NY) was a prominent American literary agent, and founder of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. His clients included famous and successful writers ...

, sent Scott material that had been rejected by other magazines, and Silverberg later recalled one occasion on which he visited Scott in his office to find him laughing over one of these manuscripts. The agency had accidentally sent the manuscript's submission history along with the story, showing that it had been rejected eighteen times, starting in 1947, before reaching Scott, who also rejected it. Ellison was drafted in 1957, but Silverberg's college exemption enabled him to continue writing for Scott, who eventually bought 36 stories from him, never rejecting a single submission. One exception to the rule that only rejected stories reached Scott was

, who was turning to writing full-time, and was looking for new markets for his stories. Scott agreed to pay Asimov four cents a word, and bought two stories from him: " The Gentle Vultures", and " All the Troubles of the World", one of Asimov's stories about Multivac, a supercomputer. When the "Monster" banner was added to the cover, all stories had to have a monster appearing in them. Silverberg continued to produce stories for Scott to the end, providing twelve stories in the four monster-themed issues, all but one under a pseudonym.Silverberg (2012), p. xxv. At the time Silverberg was producing action-adventure work for Scott and other editors, he was also writing more sophisticated stories for other science fiction markets such as ''

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

'' and ''

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'', but he considers the space-adventure material he wrote to have been helpful in training him as a writer, and fun, recalling that he had "always had a sneaky fondness for the pulpier side of science fiction... when the chance came to write a slew of fast-paced action stories for W.W. Scott's ''Super-Science Fiction'', I jumped for it eagerly."Silverberg (2012), p. xxvi. Silverberg's stories included titles such as "Creatures of Green Slime" and "Beasts of Nightmare Horror", but Ashley comments that Silverberg was too talented to write stories as bad as the titles suggested. Ashley describes Scott's selections as "an appalling mixture", though he picks out two by Ellison, both in the second issue, as worthy of mention—"Mission: Hypnosis", and "The Untouchable Adolescents"—and also praises two other stories in the same issue:

Charles de Vet Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

's "Death of a Mutant", and

James Gunn James Francis Gunn Jr. (born August 5, 1966) is an American filmmaker and executive. He began his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s, starting at Troma Entertainment with '' Tromeo and Juliet'' (1997). He then began working as a direct ...

's "Every Day is Christmas". After that issue "the quality of the fiction dropped rapidly," according to Ashley, though he adds that "there were just enough good stories to make ''Super-Science Fiction'' always interesting, if often disappointing," picking out "Worlds of Origin", by

Jack Vance John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names. ...

, from his "Magnus Ridolph" series, and Asimov's "All the Troubles of the World" as highlights. In Subotsky's words, Scott was "unable to tell good fiction from bad", and the result was a magazine described by critic

Brian Stableford Brian Michael Stableford (born 25 July 1948) is a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped ...

as "mediocre".Stableford (1981), p. 585. Ashley suggests that the magazine's late focus on monster stories might be of interest to fans of monster movies, but that otherwise it was "one magazine too many, coming in the final wave of interest in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1950s at a time when readers were already turning to the paperback".

Bibliographic details

The magazine was published by Feature Publications under its Headline imprint, and was edited by W. W. Scott for all eighteen issues. The first issue was dated December 1956; it was bimonthly, and ended with the October 1959 issue. The volume numbering was completely regular, with three volumes of six numbers each.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Super Science-Fiction Bimonthly magazines published in the United States Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1956 Magazines disestablished in 1959 Science fiction magazines established in the 1950s