Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine
Entry updated 12 April 2018. Tagged: Publication.
1. US Digest-size magazine. 4 issues, irregular, September 1953 to July 1954, published by Star Publications; edited by L B Cole. This was an unremarkable magazine of moderate standard which published no memorable fiction; the actual editing was done by Laurence M Janifer at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. Meredith had arranged a packaging deal with a number of publishers to produce crime, mystery and sf magazines during the digest magazine boom of the early 1950s. Contents were assembled based more on budgets than any publishing policy. Star Publications, owned by Jerome Kramer, was really a comic-book publisher wishing to test the sf digest field and had only a small budget. The best stories were used up within the first two issues, which included work by Poul Anderson, Arthur C Clarke and Philip K Dick. Of interest in the second issue was "Visitor from Nowhere" (November 1953), an sf story by the mysterious writer of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), B Traven (?1882-1969). Other contributors during the magazine's brief existence included Algis Budrys, Gordon R Dickson and Jack Vance. [MJE/MA]
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2. US letter-size magazine. 4 issues, bimonthly, May to November 1977. Published by Baronet Publishing Co; edited by David G Hartwell with Jack Gaughan as art editor. This Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine contained a sophisticated mixture of sf and fantasy in an elegant format which included full-colour interior illustration. It serialized a short novel in Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser series, "Rime Isle" (May-July 1977); ran Michael Bishop's "The House of Compassionate Sharers" (May 1977); and featured a number of other major authors, including Brian W Aldiss, Gregory Benford, Harlan Ellison, Frederik Pohl, Norman Spinrad and Cherry Wilder; there was a book-review column by Robert Silverberg. Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine had one of the most promising launches of the decade but, undercapitalized and suffering distribution problems, it folded. [FHP/MJE/PN/MA]
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