The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

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F&SF April 1971, special Poul Anderson issue. Cover by Frank Kelly Freas.

August 2005 issue retrieved from F&SF's homepage

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (often given as just Fantasy and Science Fiction or F&SF) is a digest size American fantasy fiction and science fiction magazine. It was first published in 1949 as The Magazine of Fantasy with Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas as its editors, adding and Science Fiction from its second issue on. It was initially quarterly, then bi-monthly; monthly for decades, it now publishes 11 issues per year (including an extended "anniversary double issue" every October). As of 2006 it continues to publish literary science fiction, fantasy and horror stories.

Editors have included Robert P. Mills, Avram Davidson, Edward L. Ferman (initially ghost-editing for his father Joseph W. Ferman), Kristine Kathryn Rusch and current editor Gordon Van Gelder. All of its editors have maintained a high literary standard.

There have been more than a dozen highly collectible "special author" issues over the years, beginning with Theodore Sturgeon in September 1962. Other authors featured have included Ray Bradbury (May 1963), Isaac Asimov (October 1966), Fritz Leiber (July 1969), Poul Anderson (April 1971), James Blish (April 1972), Frederik Pohl (September 1973), Robert Silverberg (April 1974), Damon Knight (November 1976), Harlan Ellison (July 1977), Stephen King (December 1990), Lucius Shepard (March 2001), Kate Wilhelm (September 2001), and Barry N. Malzberg (June 2003).

Isaac Asimov also wrote a science column for the magazine that ran for 399 monthly issues without a break. Among numerous other longstanding columnists have been Anthony Boucher, Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, Avram Davidson, Judith Merril, James Blish, Joanna Russ, Algis Budrys, John Clute, Orson Scott Card, Charles de Lint, Elizabeth Hand, Michelle West and others on books, Charles Beaumont, Baird Searles, Harlan Ellison, Kathi Maio, and Lucius Shepard on film and related media (and, briefly, William Morrison on live theater), and, along with and since Asimov's pop-science essay series, Theodore L. Thomas, Gregory Benford, and Pat Murphy have contributed science columns. Robert Bloch wrote a notable series of essays on fandom in the 1950s; more recently, Charles Platt has published some interviews and essays on the fantastic aspects of the larger culture, and various writers have highlighted literary oddities in the back-page "Curiosities" column. Gahan Wilson contributed a cartoon to every issue for more than fifteen years; later, S. Harris and others have been frequent contributors. Humorous "Competitions" have also been popular; some of the results were collected in the anthology Oi, Robot by Ferman.

A number of Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Anthologies have been published, initially on a roughly annual basis but then more irregularly; more recently, a number have been theme anthologies, edited by Van Gelder, though Ferman co-edited a Best Horror Stories from Fantasy and Science Fiction during his tenure as editor.

Notable works that first appeared in the magazine include:

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut
"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson
"Born of Man and Woman" by Richard Matheson
"Jeffty is Five" and "The Deathbird" by Harlan Ellison; Ellison was also film columnist and contributed many more of his best stories to the magazine.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King; the short stories that comprise the first volume, beginning with "The Gunslinger" (October, 1978)
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes; the novelet version; later adapted for the stage and for the films Charly, the first film with Cliff Robertson
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.; the novelets that were incorporated into the novel.
On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch, the first fantasy or sf magazine serial to be nominated for the American Book Award; also, Disch's The Brave Little Toaster, which became a Hyperion Pictures animated film