Authentic Science Fiction - Contents and Reception

Contents and Reception

For the first twenty-five issues, Authentic ran a full novel in every issue, but no other fiction, though there were various non-fiction departments such as "Projectiles" (readers' letters), an editorial, book reviews, fanzine reviews, and science related articles, quizzes, and news columns. In issue 26, dated October 1952, the first installment of Frontier Legion, a serial by Sydney J. Bounds, appeared. With issue 29, the full length novel, Immortal's Playthings by William F. Temple, was accompanied by a short story, Ray Bradbury's "Welcome, Brothers!" as well as part four of Frontier Legion. The serial was stretched out over six issues by printing scarcely more than a dozen pages in each installment; it finally completed in issue 31.

With issue 36 (August 1953), the cover text changed from advertising a "Full-length Novel" to "Full-length Story"; the "featured story", as it was called in the contents page, was still the longest piece of fiction in the issue, but was no longer necessarily even close to novel length. Issue 41, for example, ran Richard deMille's "The Phoenix Nest" as the lead story, with fewer than forty pages of text. Finally, in issue 60 (August 1955), the word "feature" was removed from the contents page, and with it the last vestige of the origin of the magazine as a series of novels.

The early novels published by Hamilton were of generally poor quality. Michael Ashley, a historian of sf, described the first issue, Lee Stanton's Mushroom Men of Mars as "of abysmal quality", and the third, Roy Sheldon's Gold Men of Aureus as "atrocious". However, Campbell contributed some better work, beginning with Phantom Moon, under the house name Roy Sheldon, which appeared in issue 6, dated 15 March 1951; his first novel under his own name was World in a Test Tube, which appeared in issue 8, dated 15 April 1951. He continued to write for the magazine after he became editor—his work has been described as "enjoyable", though "not especially sophisticated". Tubb was also a regular contributor, often under house names, which according to Landsborough were used by Hamilton to prevent authors gaining name recognition under a pseudonym and then taking that name to another publisher.

Regulars in the magazine included Sydney J. Bounds, William F. Temple, Bryan Berry, and Ken Bulmer. At the start of 1953, Authentic began to include material that had been previously published in the US; this practice ceased later that year, but began again in 1956, and led to the reprinting of material by well-known names such as Isaac Asimov, whose 1951 story "Ideals Die Hard" was reprinted in issue 78, dated March 1957. Other well-known names that appeared in Authentic included Brian Aldiss and John Brunner. Campbell had encouraged science articles during his tenure, but under Tubb's editorship these were gradually eliminated.

Perhaps the most notable story Authentic published was Charles L. Harness's "The Rose", which appeared in the March 1953 issue. Other than this, Authentic published little of note: the Nicholls/Clute Encyclopedia of SF commented that it "seldom published stories of the first rank", specifically excepting Harness's "The Rose". David Kyle, in his Pictorial History of Science Fiction, states that Campbell improved the magazine, making it "remarkably good", and sf expert Donald Tuck's opinion was that it eventually achieved "a good standard", but in Michael Ashley's opinion, the magazine "sadly lacked originality", and ran fiction that was "stereotyped and forced, frequently because Campbell had to rely on the same small band of regulars to supply the bulk of the fiction".

The cover artwork was initially poor: the very first issue has been described as "British pulp at its most infantile", but the covers began to improve from mid-1953. Josh Kirby, now well known for his Discworld art, contributed seven covers, beginning with issue 61 in September 1955. There were also many covers on astronomical themes: these were clearly influenced by the US artist Chesley Bonestell, and were fairly successful.