Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size
science fiction magazine, published from 1950
to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian
company, World Editions, which was looking
to break into the American market. World Editions
hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made
Galaxy the leading science fiction (sf) 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, to be replaced by Ejler
Jakobsson. Under Jakobsson the magazine declined
in quality. It recovered under James Baen,
who took over in mid-1974, but when he left
at the end of 1977 the deterioration resumed,
and there were financial problems—writers
were not paid on time and the schedule became
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 sf 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." SF historian David
Kyle agreed, commenting that "of all the editors
in and out of the post-war scene, the most
influential beyond any doubt was H. L. Gold".
Kyle suggested that the new direction Gold
set "inevitably" led to the experimental New
Wave, the defining science fiction literary
movement of the 1960s.
== Publication history ==
The first science fiction magazine, Amazing
Stories, appeared in 1926. By the end of the
1930s, the genre was flourishing in the United
States, 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. From a low of eight active US
magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20
just four years later. Galaxy's 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 ===
H. L. Gold, Galaxy's first editor, had worked
at Standard Magazines in the early 1940s as
an assistant editor, reading for Standard's
three science fiction pulps: Startling Stories,
Thrilling Wonder, and Captain Future. 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.
She initially asked Gold for guidance on how
to produce a magazine, which he provided.
World Editions took a heavy loss on Fascination,
its first attempt to launch a US magazine,
and Cerutti returned to Gold asking for recommendations
for new titles. 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. He sent a prospectus
to World Editions that included a proposal
for a series of paperback sf novels as well
as a periodical, and proposed paying three
cents a word, an impressively high rate, given
that most competing magazines were paying
only one cent a word. World Editions agreed,
hired Gold as the editor, and the first issue
appeared in October 1950. The novel series
subsequently appeared as Galaxy Science Fiction
Novels.Gold initially suggested two titles
for the magazine, If and Galaxy. Gold's art
director, Washington Irving van der Poel,
mocked up multiple layouts and Gold invited
hundreds of writers, editors, artists, and
fans to view them and vote for their favorite;
the vote was strongly for Galaxy as the title.
For the first issue, Gold obtained stories
by several well-known authors, including Isaac
Asimov, Fritz Leiber, and Theodore Sturgeon,
as well as part one of Time Quarry by Clifford
D. Simak (later published in book form as
Time and Again). Along with an essay by Gold,
Galaxy's premiere issue introduced a book
review column by anthologist Groff Conklin,
which ran until 1955, and a Willy Ley science
column. Gold sought to implement high-quality
printing techniques, though the quality of
the available paper was insufficient for the
full benefits to be seen. Within months, the
outbreak of the Korean War led to paper shortages
that forced Gold to find a new printer, Robert
M. Guinn. The new paper was of even lower
quality, a disappointment to Gold. According
to Gold, the magazine was profitable within
five issues: an "incredible" achievement,
in his words.In the summer of 1951, disagreements
within World Editions led to attempts to disrupt
Galaxy's distribution. 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.
The head of the French office of World Editions
came to the United States to find out what
the problem was, and recommended that the
magazine be sold to the two Americans, for
$3,000—a very low price. They tried to recruit
Gold, but he contacted the Italian office,
which rejected the sale and eventually agreed
to sell Galaxy to the printer, Robert M. Guinn.
It was only after the sale was complete that
the sabotaged distribution came to light;
World Editions wanted to buy back the magazine,
but Guinn quoted a price four times as high
as he had paid. In Gold's words, "he, Guinn,
knew what he was buying, whereas World Editions
hadn't known what they were selling".Guinn's
new company was named Galaxy Publishing Corporation,
and it took over beginning with the October
1951 issue. Gold remained as editor, but lost
the assistance of staff at World Editions,
relying instead on help from Jerome Bixby,
Algis Budrys, Theodore Sturgeon, and Gold's
wife, Evelyn Paige. Science fiction author
Frederik Pohl, then working as a literary
agent, was also helpful in connecting writers
with Gold.By the late 1950s, the science fiction
magazine boom was over, and the relatively
low circulation of the magazines did not endear
them to distributors, the middlemen who transported
magazines from the publishers to the newsstands
and other outlets. Gold changed the title
from Galaxy Science Fiction to Galaxy Magazine
with the September 1958 issue, commenting
that the term science fiction "scares many
people away from buying". Galaxy's circulation,
at about 90,000, was the highest of the science
fiction magazines, but Guinn decided to cut
costs, and in 1959 raised the cover price
and changed the magazine to a bimonthly schedule,
while increasing the page count. Guinn also
cut the rates paid to authors from three (and
occasionally four) cents a word to one and
a half cents a word. These changes saved Galaxy
over $12,000 a year. The result was a fall
in circulation to about 80,000 within two
years, but this was sustainable because of
the savings from the fiction budget.
=== 1960s ===
Guinn acquired If, another science fiction
magazine, in 1959, and gave it to Gold to
edit as well. The July 1959 issue of If was
the first under Gold's editorship. Galaxy's
shift to a bimonthly schedule had been intended
to help reduce the workload on Gold, who was
not in good health; he was able to take on
If as well because the two magazines alternated
months of publication. Towards the end of
the 1950s Frederik Pohl began to help Gold,
occasionally to the extent of performing all
the editorial duties, including writing the
editorials and blurbs and working with the
printer. Gold, who was agoraphobic, was making
efforts at this time to leave his apartment,
but in 1960 he was seriously injured in a
taxi accident, and proved unable to continue
as editor. Pohl took over at some point in
early 1961, though he was not listed on the
masthead as editor until the December 1961
issue.Pohl attempted to persuade Guinn to
double the pay rate of one and a half cents
a word back to the former level of three.
Guinn refused, but Pohl was able to find enough
material that he could purchase at a low rate
to allow him to offer some authors three cents
per word. The strategy was successful in improving
circulation, and Guinn eventually acceded
to the rate increase.Pohl also tried hard
to persuade Guinn and Sol Cohen, whom Guinn
had hired to help with the publishing duties,
to switch both Galaxy and If to monthly schedules.
In late 1962, they agreed, but soon changed
their minds and decided to start a third science
fiction magazine instead. This was Worlds
of Tomorrow, which was launched in April 1963
and lasted until mid-1967 (it was briefly
revived in 1970–71). Another companion magazine,
International Science Fiction, was tried in
late 1967, but lasted only two issues; it
showcased stories translated from other languages,
and sales were very weak. Finally, in 1968
Guinn launched Worlds of Fantasy, edited initially
by Lester del Rey, Galaxy's managing editor;
only four issues appeared. In the middle of
1968, Galaxy was restored to a monthly schedule.
=== 1970s and after ===
In 1969, Guinn sold Galaxy to Universal Publishing
and Distribution Corporation (UPD). Pohl was
in Rio de Janeiro at a World Science Fiction
Symposium when the sale went through; he heard
the news when he returned to the Galaxy office
afterwards and within a few days decided to
resign. 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. His place
was taken by Ejler Jakobsson, who was working
in UPD's book department. Lester del Rey stayed
on as features editor, and Judy-Lynn Benjamin
took his place as managing editor. Jack Gaughan
was made art editor.Galaxy's 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.
UPD began to have financial difficulties in
the early 1970s, and when Judy-Lynn del Rey
(formerly Judy-Lynn Benjamin) left in May
1973 to work at Ballantine Books, Jakobsson's
workload increased greatly. He resigned less
than a year later, citing overwork and other
issues, and was replaced by James Baen, who
took over with the June 1974 issue after Pohl
declined the post. 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's
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's 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. Frederik Pohl places the
blame for Galaxy's demise on Arnie Abramson,
who, Pohl contends, "simply did not perform
[the] basic functions of a publisher": paying
the authors, ensuring subscribers received
copies, and meeting other obligations.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.
== 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. 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. Galaxy was quickly
established as one of the three leading science
fiction magazines, along with Campbell's Astounding
and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(usually abbreviated to F&SF). Campbell had
been enormously influential over the previous
decade, but the appearance of Galaxy and F&SF,
launched just a year before, marked the end
of his dominance of the genre.
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 early
artwork was generally unremarkable, though
Ed Emshwiller's humorous cover for the June
1951 issue, his first professional sale as
an artist, was a positive sign. "Emsh", as
he was known to science fiction readers, soon
became a regular contributor. 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". The feature drew much
attention, though James Blish commented that
Galaxy did not always avoid printing the kind
of fiction it parodied.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's Five Star Shelf", in the
first issue; Floyd Gale took it over with
the November 1955 issue—Gale was in fact
Gold's brother, using a slightly modified
surname. The inaugural issue also included
a competition for readers to explain UFOs
in under 200 words, the first of many contests
Gold would run.The first six issues contained
stories by well-known authors, including some
that became highly regarded such as Fritz
Leiber's "Coming Attraction", Damon Knight's
"To Serve Man", and Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman",
later expanded as Fahrenheit 451. Gold considered
these early issues exploratory, and some of
the material by major names was clearly lesser
work. With its second volume, beginning in
April 1951, Galaxy achieved consistently high
quality, with virtually every issue featuring
a story that would have a lasting reputation,
including C. M. Kornbluth's "The Marching
Morons", Wyman Guin's "Beyond Bedlam", and
Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, whose
serialization overlapped volumes 2 and 3.
Early feedback from readers had been opposed
to serialized novels, but here Gold did not
follow their opinion, and Galaxy is remembered
for featuring some very successful serials.
A contemporary anthology of science fiction
stories, E. F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty's The
Best Science Fiction Stories: 1951, commented
in an editorial that Gold's work "will succeed
in placing science-fiction on an equal basis
with any other field of modern literature".
With a circulation of over 100,000 in its
second year, Galaxy surpassed Astounding.
=== Mid- and late 1950s ===
Gold maintained Galaxy's high standards for
most of the 1950s. Alfred Bester's The Demolished
Man—according to critic Peter Nicholls,
"among the few genuine classics of genre sf"—was
serialized in early 1952. Pohl and Kornbluth's
The Space Merchants followed a few months
later, serialized as Gravy Planet; Brian Aldiss,
in his critical genre study Trillion Year
Spree, calls it "one of the most famous books
in SF". James Blish's "Surface Tension" and
Theodore Sturgeon's "Baby is Three", both
widely acclaimed, also appeared in 1952. Readers
had expressed support for science articles,
and in March 1952, Willy Ley, who had contributed
occasional essays since the first issue, began
a column, "For Your Information", in which
he replied to readers' scientific questions.
Running uninterrupted until Ley's death in
1969, Frederik Pohl describes it as "the most
popular single feature Galaxy ever had". The
Hugo Awards were inaugurated the following
year: The Demolished Man won the first Hugo
for Best Novel and Galaxy shared the first
Hugo for Best Magazine with Astounding.Gold
published a wide range of material, and Galaxy
became known for irony and satire; the work
of authors able to adopt the wry style he
favored, such as Knight and Robert Sheckley,
appeared regularly in the magazine and were
obvious commentaries on contemporary society.
In 1953, with McCarthyism at its height, Gold
refused to publish "The Liberation of Earth",
a story by William Tenn satirizing both the
Russian and American sides in the Korean War.
Tenn quotes Gold, an ex-radical, as saying
the idea made him "sweat green", though the
year before he had published Isaac Asimov's
"The Martian Way", a thinly veiled anti-McCarthy
story.L. Sprague de Camp commented that Gold
"sets an extremely high standard of literary
excellence for his writers", and observed
that he often demanded multiple revisions
and rewrites. Gold was also infamous for making
sweeping changes to the stories he printed.
In meetings and in phone calls he became well
known as a difficult editor whose determination
to achieve perfection sometimes alienated
his writers. He was unapologetic, declaring,
"I worked hard with writers, and they didn't
always enjoy it". The results were often very
positive: some successful stories are said
to have begun with an idea he provided to
one of his authors. In the case of The Demolished
Man, his involvement extended almost to the
point of collaboration. Gold was agoraphobic,
and rarely left his apartment, but writers
often visited him, and he held regular parties
and weekly poker games; in addition to the
members of the science fiction community,
the avant-garde composer John Cage often attended.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 be willing to 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's editorial policy
did not favor. It lasted for ten bimonthly
issues, with the final one appearing in January
1955. After it failed, Gold opened Galaxy
to more fantasy, publishing writers such as
Cordwainer Smith.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's contributors routinely dominated
the Hugo ballots, but neither the magazine
nor the fiction it published won many awards,
despite what sf historians Marshall Tymn and
Mike Ashley describe as its "deserved reputation
for excellence". After several years of being
shut out of the Hugos, Galaxy published two
works in 1958 that won the honor: Fritz Leiber's
novel The Big Time and Avram Davidson's short
story "Or All the Seas with Oysters".
=== 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's sister
magazine, and in theory the junior of the
two publications.The quality of fiction in
Galaxy had dipped towards the end of Gold's
editorship, and Pohl worked hard to restore
the magazine's high standards. Gold's difficult
editorial personality had driven away some
of his contributors, but Pohl, who had worked
as an agent in the 1950s, was a central figure
in the sf community and was able to attract
submissions from the star writers of his day.
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.The difference
between Pohl's approach and Gold's was apparent
in the editorials Pohl wrote, which were informal,
entertaining, and rooted in his deep familiarity
with the genre. With Pohl at the helm, Galaxy
moved back toward the knowledgeable science
fiction fan, and away from the mainstream
market that Gold had targeted. Pohl said that
he tried to "cover the full spectrum of science
fiction", however, unlike Gold's "specialist
magazine" of the 1950s; his Galaxy published
both Sheckley's "Mindswap" and Herbert's "Do
I Wake or Dream?" when Gold would not have
purchased the latter, Pohl said.
=== 1970s ===
Ejler Jakobsson's tenure began with a large
backlog of stories that Pohl had acquired,
but within a year or two substantial changes
were apparent. In the early 1970s, Jakobsson
attempted to update Galaxy's image, adding
a comic strip, "Sunpot", by Vaughn Bodé,
for example. Theodore Sturgeon took over from
Budrys as the regular book reviewer in January
1972 and held the post until mid-1975. Jakobsson
did not manage to give Galaxy a new and distinctive
character: "Sunpot" lasted only four issues,
Sturgeon's reviews were undistinguished, and
many of the new authors he published have
been, in the words of Mike Ashley, "mercifully
unknown ever since". The paper quality and
printing quality also dropped, and early cover
designs were very weak. Jakobsson initially
printed guest editorials rather than writing
his own; when he took over the editorial page
his work was unremarkable. He managed to attract
some of the new writers who were becoming
well known in the sf scene, including George
R.R. Martin, Joe Haldeman, and Joanna Russ.
Three novels published in Jakobsson's Galaxy
won awards: Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves
and Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama
each won both the Hugo and Nebula awards,
in 1972 and 1973 respectively, and Robert
Silverberg's A Time of Changes won the Nebula
in 1971. Sturgeon's short story "Slow Sculpture"
won both the Hugo and the Nebula in 1970.A
letter column was added at the end of 1971;
this was the first time Galaxy had published
reader's letters. Galaxy's long-time science
columnist, Willy Ley, died in 1969, and was
replaced by Donald Menzel. He was replaced
in turn by Jerry Pournelle in April 1974.Jakobsson's
successor, James Baen, was able to publish
some high-quality fiction, including material
by Roger Zelazny, John Varley, Larry Niven,
and Pohl, whose novel, Gateway, won both the
Hugo and Nebula awards. Baen raised the level
of the magazine substantially, and Ashley
refers to his editorship as Galaxy's "Indian
summer". Under Baen the review columnist was
Spider Robinson, who won a Locus Award in
1977, primarily for his work in Galaxy. Baen
also published a series of essays by authors
discussing their own work. Apart from Gateway,
Baen published only one award-winning story:
Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Day Before the Revolution",
which appeared in August 1974 and won the
Nebula.Baen's successors, Pierce, Stine, and
Kemske, were unable to maintain his standard.
Pohl remained loyal to the magazine, but the
serialization of his novel Jem exemplified
Galaxy's growing problems. Due to the magazine's
increasingly erratic schedule, the serialization
stretched from the last issue of 1978 into
1980, well after it had appeared in book form.
In November 1977, Paul Walker took over the
book column from Spider Robinson, and Jerry
Pournelle left the science column at the end
of 1978. The artwork quality dropped to an
amateurish level, and despite the appearance
of a few successful stories and novels, such
as C. J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun: Kesrith,
the overall quality was dramatically worse
than it had been under Baen. Galaxy's deterioration
was largely due to the financial troubles
of the publisher, Arnold Abramson, who reduced
the pay rate (at a time of high inflation)
to a penny a word. Even that low rate did
not guarantee timely disbursement, and many
writers stopped submitting because of Galaxy's
reputation for paying slowly, if at all. Costs
were increasing for paper, postage, and production,
and the paperback anthology market was booming,
adding to the competition that Galaxy faced.
Floyd Kemske's only issue never received newsstand
distribution, doomed by the financial troubles
of the magazine's publisher, Vincent McCaffrey.
=== Cover layout and artwork ===
Galaxy had a characteristic cover style in
the 1950s with an inverted white "L" shape
(Greek gamma) framing the cover art; this
style was copied by several magazines, including
Authentic Science Fiction and Startling Stories.
When Astounding followed suit in late 1951,
Gold commented sarcastically in an editorial
that Galaxy "would like to know when we may
have it [the format] back again". The first
variation came with the September 1956 issue,
which widened the left hand strip of white
to allow room to print story titles and author
names. The December 1961 issue was the first
to eliminate the strip on the left, and until
July 1969 the magazine varied between this
layout, the inverted "L", and a version with
no white at all, first used on the August
1965 issue. Another change visible in that
issue is the reversal of the title coloring
to white lettering on a block of red; this
was used from August 1963 to December 1965.
In August 1969 the title was enlarged to fill
the width of the magazine; this issue had
the white inverted "L", but it was the last
one to do so till 1980. After August 1969
the cover paintings spanned the entire cover,
though with some minor variations in layout
such as can be seen in the October 1976 issue.
Then in September 1978 (undated on the cover,
but numbered vol. 39 no. 7) the original typeface
for "Galaxy" was abandoned for the last few
issues. The final issue, edited by Kemske,
returned to the previous layout and typeface,
although with a magazine twice the size of
the original digest. When E. J. Gold revived
Galaxy in 1994, he restored the inverted "L"
and employed a predominantly black-and-white
look for the eight issues he published.Notable
artists who contributed regularly to Galaxy
included Ed Emshwiller, who won several Hugo
Awards for his work, Hugo nominee Wallace
Wood, and Jack Gaughan, who won three Hugos
in the late 1960s, partly for his work in
Galaxy. Gaughan was commissioned by Pohl to
provide the cover and interior art for Jack
Vance's The Dragon Masters in 1962; the resulting
illustrations made Gaughan immediately famous
in the science fiction field. In the 1950s
and 1960s, Galaxy retained the original artwork
sent in by its artists, though Emshwiller,
much of whose best color work appeared there,
was able to negotiate an exception to this
rule, retaining the art for his portfolios.
In 1972 much of this artwork—including both
interior and cover illustrations—was sold
off by Robert Guinn, who had kept it when
he sold Galaxy to UPD in 1969.
=== Influence on the field ===
Isaac Asimov, in his memoirs, recalled being
deeply impressed by the first issue of Galaxy,
and that many fans, including himself, believed
that the magazine became the field's leader
almost immediately. In critic John Clute's
assessment, Galaxy indeed swiftly supplanted
Astounding and remained the leading magazine
in the field until Pohl resigned as editor
in 1969. Science fiction historian and critic
Mike Ashley regarded Galaxy's success as the
main reason for the subsequent boom in science
fiction magazines, commenting that it "revolutionized
the field overnight". Under Gold Galaxy provided
a market for social science fiction stories
that might not have been accepted by Astounding
and Fantasy & Science Fiction, the other leading
magazines.Pohl stated in 1965 that almost
every major science fiction writer whose career
began after 1950 primarily wrote for Galaxy,
and that others closely imitated Gold's magazine.
He described Galaxy as where "the stunning
new kinds of science fiction ... flowered,
and changed everything in science fiction".
In his opinion, Gold's innovation was to ask
writers to consider not just new technology,
but the subsequent impact of that technology
on society. He adds, "What Galaxy brought
to magazine science fiction was a kind of
sophisticated intellectual subtlety. ... After
Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naive."
Science fiction author Brian Stableford argues
that Galaxy quickly usurped Astounding's position
as "pioneer of hardcore sf's progress" because
it "embraced and gleefully pursued a new series
of challenges to moral orthodoxy."SF historian
David Kyle ascribes Galaxy's influence specifically
to Gold, saying that "of all the editors in
and out of the post-war scene, the most influential
beyond any doubt was H. L. Gold" and that
the new direction he set led, "inevitably",
to the New Wave, the celebrated science fiction
literary movement of the 1960s. Kyle's assessment
of Gold is echoed by writer Barry N. Malzberg,
who calls Gold "perhaps the greatest editor
in the history of all fields for the first
half of his tenure". SF authors and historians
Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove summarize
Galaxy's history by saying that it lasted
for "thirty mainly glorious years": it "brought
into the sunlight a number of excellent satirists,
comedians and ironists" and, through the influence
of its reduced focus on technology, played
an important role in attracting women to write
science fiction.
== Publication details ==
=== 
Editors ===
The list below, and the charts above, follow
the mastheads in the magazines. Because of
Gold's poor health, Pohl was acting as editor
for some time before he officially took over
the role at the end of 1961.
H. L. Gold (October 1950 – October 1961)
Frederik Pohl (December 1961 – May 1969)
Ejler Jakobsson (July 1969 – May 1974)
James Baen (June 1974 – October 1977)
John J. Pierce (November 1977 – March–April
1979)
Hank Stine (June–July 1979 – September–October
1979)
Floyd Kemske (Summer 1980)
=== Overseas editions ===
Galaxy had multiple foreign editions. This
was in part because the original publisher,
World Editions, had a European base, which
Gold had planned to take advantage of when
the magazine launched. Overseas editions included:
Argentina. Two magazines, Más Allá (June
1953 – June 1957) and Géminis (July 1965
– August 1965), reprinted stories primarily
from Galaxy, though they also published some
original material and some stories reprinted
from other sources.
Finland. Aikamme tieteislukemisto (August
1958 – December 1958) was a Finnish edition
of Galaxy, edited by Mary A. Wuorio and published
by Viikkosanomat Oy.
France. There were two separate French editions
of Galaxy, both titled Galaxie. The first
ran from November 1953 to April 1959 (a total
of 65 issues), and was published by Editions
OPTA, Paris. The first 11 issues were edited
by Irina Orloff, the next 16 by Jacqueline
Boissy, and the remainder by Jeannine Courtillet.
The stories were badly translated, and printed
in shortened form. Poor sales led to the cancellation
of this version. The second version ran for
158 issues, from May 1964 to August–September
1977, and was also published by Editions OPTA.
The editor was Alain Dorémieux for the first
67 issues, and Michel Demuth thereafter. This
version, which contained original French stories
as well as translated material from Galaxy,
was much more successful and for a time outsold
Fiction, the leading French science fiction
magazine. From November 1974, more French
authors were included, but publication ceased
three years later when sales fell.
Germany. Fifteen issues of a German version,
titled Galaxis, was released from March 1958
to May 1959 by Moewig Verlag, Munich. The
editor was Lothar Heinecke. Fourteen numbered
paperbacks titled Galaxy appeared between
1965 and 1970, published by Heyne Verlag,
Munich. The editor was Walter Ernsting, with
Thomas Schlück as co-editor for the last
five issues. The contents were reprints from
the American edition.
Italy. An Italian reprint edition titled Galaxy
ran from June 1958 to May 1964; there were
70 physical issues, with two issues containing
double numbers, so that the last issue was
numbered 72. The publisher was Editrice Due
Mondi, Milan, for the first ten issues; the
remaining issues were published by Casa Editrice
La Tribuna, Piacenza. The editors were R.
Valente (issues 1–26/27), Mario Vitali (28/29–39),
and Lella Pollini Rambelli (40–72). The
magazine included some stories by Italian
authors in addition to translated material.
Netherlands. Five issues, titled Galaxis,
appeared from October 1966 to February 1967,
from Vector, Dordrecht. The editor was Theo
Kemp. The translations were of poor quality.
Norway. The Norwegian magazine Tempo-Magasinet,
published by Greens Forlag, printed translations
from US science fiction, mostly from Galaxy.
It lasted for five issues, from November 1953
to March 1954. The editor was Arne Ernst.
Sweden. A Swedish edition, titled Galaxy,
appeared from September 1958 to June 1960
(19 issues); the publisher is unknown, though
it is known to be the same company that published
the Swedish edition of Mad. This version,
which included some original Swedish stories,
was edited by Henrik Rabe.
UK. Several British editions of Galaxy were
produced. From 1953 to 1962 Strato Publications
published 94 numbered issues. The early issues
were labeled vol. 3 no. 1 to no. 12. With
the 13th issue the "vol. 3" was dropped. Until
issue 72 (February 1959) they were shortened
versions of the US edition, with one or more
stories or features being cut. From no. 72
Strato reprinted the full US issue with a
different title page, and from issue 80 the
US edition was used with a variant cover.
In 1967 a British edition appeared from Gold
Star Publications; there were five bimonthly
issues, identical to the US edition dated
six months previously. The British issues
were dated January–February 1967 through
September–October 1967; the corresponding
US issues were June, August, October, and
December 1966, and February 1967. Universal-Tandem
Publishing Co Ltd published 25 issues of Galaxy
in the UK; the original US issues were May–June
1972 to January 1975. These were re-covered
for UK distribution. The numbering was erratic:
it ran 1–10, then 11, 11, 12, 12, 12, 14,
and finally 17–25.
=== Other bibliographic details ===
The following table shows which issues appeared
from which publisher.
The title changed multiple times, and was
frequently inconsistently given between the
cover, spine, indicia, and masthead.
Galaxy remained a digest-sized magazine from
the beginning until 1979; the very last issue
was published in pulp format, as were the
semi-professional issues produced by E. J.
Gold. The page count began at 160; it dropped
to 144 in January 1955, but went up to 192
in February 1959. In July 1969 the count went
back down to 160; it returned to 192 pages
with the August–September 1970 issue and
stayed there till May–June 1971, when it
dropped to 176. From June 1974 to June–July
1979 it was back at 160 pages, and then went
to 128 pages for the final digest issue, September–October
1979. The single 1980 issue was 72 pages long.
The eight issues published in the 1990s all
had 96 pages, except the first, January–February
1994, which had 56 pages. The initial price
was 25 cents. Price changes were as follows:
35 cents from May 1958; 50 cents from February
1959; 60 cents from December 1964; 75 cents
from August–September 1970; $1.00 from April
1975; 79 cents for the August 1975 issue;
95 cents from September 1975; $1.00 from May
1976; $1.25 from June 1977, and $1.50 for
the final professional issue in 1980.
=== Derivative anthologies ===
Several anthologies of stories from Galaxy
have been published. The following list does
not include reprint editions though in some
cases these varied in contents, as for example
with the UK editions of some of the early
volumes.
== Related publications ==
Two series of companion novels were issued
by the publishers. The first series, Galaxy
Science Fiction Novels, began in 1950 with
Eric Frank Russell's Sinister Barrier; seven
titles were released by World Editions, and
a further twenty-eight by Guinn's Galaxy Publishing
Corporation. The books were initially in digest
format but this was changed to a standard
paperback format for the last four titles.
In 1959 the line was sold to Beacon Books,
which produced another 11 volumes. Beacon
specialized in softcore pornography, and changed
the titles of most of the books they published
to be more suggestive. The last title, Sin
in Space (originally Outpost Mars), by Cyril
Judd (a pseudonym for Cyril Kornbluth and
Judith Merril) appeared in 1961. Two years
later a second series, Galaxy Magabooks, appeared;
each of these consisted of two short novels,
both by the same author, published in a single
volume. Only three were released; the last,
And My Fear Is Great/Baby Is Three by Theodore
Sturgeon, appeared in 1964.
== Notes
