Death Ray (magazine)

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Death Ray
Issue one of Death Ray magazine, which went on sale 3 May 2007
Editor	Guy Haley
Categories	Science Fiction
Frequency	Every four weeks
First issue	May 2007
Company	Blackfish Publishing
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Website	www.blackfishpublishing.com
ISSN	1753-9692

For other uses, see Deathray (disambiguation).

Death Ray is a British magazine devoted to science fiction and fantasy in all its forms, especially media-related topics and novels, but not containing fiction. It is published every four weeks, with the first issue going on sale in May 2007. Typical issues are 132 pages, perfect bound, on glossy paper.

The magazine has been described by one source as wordier and offering greater depth^[1] than its main competitors, SFX and SciFiNow. At their launches in 2007 Death Ray and SciFiNow, launched April 2007, were the first magazines in recent years to challenge SFX's dominance of the science fiction magazine market in the UK ^[2] but neither has yet to approach SFX in terms of popularity or sales^{[citation needed]}. (A UK version of the American science fiction magazine Starlog was published for a couple years beginning in May 2000.)

Regular sections of the magazine include: Heat Ray, a news section; New Gods, featuring interviews with current 'hot properties' in science fiction; Deep Thought, with opinion and 'think piece' columns; and Dark Stars, the name of the reviews section, particularly notable for its extensive coverage of books^{[citation needed]}.

Death Ray was created by Matt Bielby, the ex-Future Publishing staff member who was editor on some of that company's biggest titles^[3] , including Total Film magazine and SFX magazine, the dominant SF title. Death Ray is currently the only magazine from Blackfish Publishing, Bielby's magazine company, based in Bath, UK.

Bielby has said^{[citation needed]} that the magazine's name is influenced by a combination of a) the name of the influential 1990s Californian music magazine Ray Gun, b) the name of the Martian 'heat-ray' weapon from HG Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898), c) the single issue story 'The Death Ray' from Daniel Clowes' Eightball comic book, d) an Australian comic book from WW2 called The Death Ray, and e) issue 64 of Marvel Comics' The Mighty Avengers, '…Like a Death Ray From the Sky!' (May 1969).