Checklists

Future Science Fiction/Science Fiction Stories

The story of Future (Science) Fiction and Science Fiction (Stories) is one of the more complex among SF magazines, and started with the launch in March 1939 of Science Fiction followed eight months later by its sister magazine Future Fiction. The two magazines ran in parallel until late 1941 when they merged as Future Combined with Science Fiction. This ran for a further two years, although it changed its name twice - to Future Fantasy and Science Fiction in October 1942 and to Science Fiction Stories in April 1943 for its last two issues.

During this period there was a short-lived British reprint edition of Science Fiction and a single issue of Future Fantasy and Science Fiction was reprinted as part of the Swan American Magazines series. There was also a short-lived Canadian magazine called Science Fiction which mainly reprinted from Science Fiction and Future Fiction, but also included some stories from elsewhere.

After the war, the two magazines were revived under the combined title of Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, starting the numbering over at volume 1 #1 and ran under that title for two years before changing to Future Science Fiction Stories in January 1952 and to Future Science Fiction two issues later. For most of this period a British reprint edition was also published.

During 1953, Science Fiction Stories had been separated from Future Science Fiction and had published two trial issues to test the market for a conversion to digest size. The results were apparently encouraging and shortly afterwards Future Science Fiction changed to digest size. However, after three issues the publisher apparently decided that Science Fiction Stories was the stronger title so Future Science Fiction was discontinued with the October 1954 issue and replaced with Science Fiction Stories, with Future Science Fiction's numbering continued in the new series of Science Fiction Stories. This latter again had a parallel British reprint edition.

Ordinarily this would be considered a simple title change but, to further confuse things, about a year after the title change the publisher revived Future Science Fiction again as a separate title, with a parallel numbering that was also derived from the October 1954 issue of Future Science Fiction. This also had a parallel British reprint edition.

Note that, from Sep-1955, Science Fiction Stories introduced the phrase "The Original ... " giving the impression that the title was The Original Science Fiction Stories. After it folded James Taurasi bought the rights to the title and put out three issues as a fanzine with the title The Original Science Fiction Stories as a result of this common misreading.

There was also an Australian magazine called Future Science Fiction which reprinted from a number of American magazines.