Fantasy Magazine

Entry updated 4 August 2025. Tagged: Fan, Publication.

1. A variant title (December 1933 to January 1937) of the celebrated Fanzine or Amateur Magazine (which see) Science Fiction Digest, founded 1932, of which Julius Schwartz was one of the editors. This in turn had incorporated The Time Traveller, often regarded as the first true fanzine (January 1932 #1), which Schwartz had published with Mort Weisinger. Fantasy Magazine published original fiction, factual articles, reviews, gossip and biographical pieces. As Associate Editor of the Digest, Ray Palmer was involved in conceiving, and wrote the preliminary outline for, "Cosmos" (July 1933-December 1934/January 1935), a Round-Robin Space Opera, a novel whose overall effect was shambolic, but which conspicuously joined a range of talents in a self-aware sf enterprise, four years after the invention of the term, a significant symbolic event in the shaping of the genre, initiated by fans (some on the verge of becoming professionals) and executed mostly by authors who had been or were fans. Contributing authors with entries in this encyclopedia include Eando Binder, Arthur J Burks, John W Campbell Jr, Lloyd A Eshbach, Ralph Milne Farley, Francis Flagg, J Harvey Haggard, Edmond Hamilton, David H Keller, Otis Adelbert Kline, A Merritt, P Schuyler Miller, Ray Palmer, E Hoffman Price, E E Smith; within an extensive contextualizing frame, the tale was eventually reproduced as The Ultimate Cosmos (2025), edited by David Ritter et al. The September 1935 issue continued the publication of fiction with stories. One was sf: "The Challenge from Beyond" by Murray Leinster, E E Smith, Harl Vincent, Donald Wandrei and Stanley Weinbaum. The other, also entitled The Challenge from Beyond (September 1935; 1954 chap; exp as anth 1990), was a contribution to what would be known as the Cthulhu Mythos by Robert E Howard, Frank Belknap Long, H P Lovecraft, A Merritt and C L Moore. [BS/PN/JC]

further reading

Various authors. The Challenge from Beyond (Washington, District of Columbia: Pennsylvania Dutch Cheese Press/A Weltschmerz Production, 1954) [story: chap: for explanation and author credits for this multi-authored Cthulhu Mythos Round-Robin story see text above: pb/]
- The Illustrated Challenge from Beyond (West Warwick, Rhode Island: Necronomicon Press, 1978) [vt of the above: illus/pb/David Ireland]
- The Challenge from Beyond (West Warwick, Connecticut: Necronomicon Press, 1990) [anth: chap: dos: containing the above plus the sf Round-Robin story as described in text above: pb/Robert H Knox]
Various authors. The Ultimate Cosmos (no place given: First Fandom Experience, 2025) [first appeared July 1933-December 1934/January 1935 Science as "Cosmos": edited by David Ritter et al: for explanation and author credits see text above: pb/Clay Ferguson, Jr]

2. The title of the first issue, February 1953, of the magazine later entitled Fantasy Fiction.

3. US Semiprozine which began as a letter-size Print Magazine, quarterly #1 ([Winter] 2005) to #6 (Spring 2007), and then converted to a monthly Online Magazine from #7 (October 2007) to #57 (December 2011). Edited by Sean Wallace and published under his Prime Books imprint until December 2011; Paul G Tremblay was co-editor for issues #5 (Winter 2006/7) and #6 (Spring 2007), and Cat Rambo for the issues from November 2007 to February 2011. John Joseph Adams was sole editor from March 2011 and also took over as publisher from January 2012, when he merged Fantasy Magazine with Lightspeed. After the merger occasional guest-edited print issues of Fantasy Magazine were issued as companions to special issues of Lightspeed and Nightmare: Women Destroy Fantasy! (#58, October 2014) edited by Cat Rambo, Queers Destroy Fantasy! (#59, December 2015) edited by Christopher Barzak, and People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy! (#60, December 2016) edited by Daniel José Older.

Both the print and online issues have been beautifully illustrated and the cover of the Summer 2006 issue by Renee LeCompte won the Chesley Award in 2007 for best magazine illustration. The contents run the full range of Fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] although there is little evidence of Sword and Sorcery or much "in the tradition of Tolkien". The emphasis instead is on the modern attitude towards the fantastic from urban fantasy to Steampunk, from fairy tale to Magic Realism and from the ghost story to the surreal. Its strength of originality is due to its stable of young, new writers and its ability to sample from a wider market. Writers include, selecting from a long and enticing list, Peter S Beagle, Hal Duncan, Caitlín Kiernan, Jeffrey Ford, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link, Bruce McAllister, Holly Phillips, Tanith Lee, Tim Pratt, Cat Rambo, M Rickert, Patricia Russo, Ekaterina Sedia, Lavie Tidhar, Catherynne M Valente, Jeff VanderMeer and Erzebet YellowBoy. An anthology of all-new material, serving as a companion to the magazine, is Fantasy (anth 2007) edited by Sean Wallace and Paul G Tremblay. The magazine also began a podcast of individual stories from July 2008.

Fantasy Magazine was revived as a separate entity in November 2020, edited by Arley Sorg and Christie Yant. This incarnation ceased in October 2023. The title was again relaunched with a Summer 2025 issue edited by Shingai Njeri Kagunda and Arley Sorg. [MA]

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