Asimov's Science Fiction

In February 1976, Isaac Asimov visited the offices of Davis Publications in New York to drop off a story he was submitting to ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. and Davis asked Asimov if he could use his name as part of the magazine's title. Asimov was concerned about the potential impact on two of the major science fiction magazines of the day, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF), both of which were edited by friends of his, Ben Bova and Ed Ferman. Davis argued that a new magazine would be good for the field, and Bova and Ferman both told Asimov that they agreed with Davis. Asimov agreed to go ahead with the plan on condition that he did not act as editor. Davis initially committed to three quarterly issues, Davis moved all four of his fiction magazines to a four-weekly schedule in 1981, meaning there were thirteen issues per year. The change took effect at ''Asimov's'' with the January issue, which was dated January 19, 1981. This led to newsstand vendors removing the magazine more quickly, since the date implied that it was a weekly magazine. The cover date was changed back to the current month starting with the April 1982 issue, but the new schedule remained in place, with "Mid-December" issues for more than a decade thereafter. Davis launched two more magazines in 1981: Crime Digest and Science Fiction Digest; these carried book excerpts and publishing news. Scithers had been announced as the editor of Science Fiction Digest, but when it was launched Shawna McCarthy was given the editorial role. This may have been because Scithers was based in Philadelphia, with a local team of first readers to help read the incoming manuscripts, and Davis wanted an editor who was in the New York office five days a week. According to Asimov, Scithers and Davis never got along very well. Scithers's refusal to move to New York made matters worse, and there were other sources of tension: Davis appointed Carol Gross as executive director in charge of marketing and production, and Gross instigated a redesign of the magazine and took control of the art department away from Scithers. In December 1981, Scithers was fired. Scithers's replacement was Kathleen Moloney, who was hired away from Bantam where she had been a book editor. At first Moloney edited the stories heavily without consulting the authors until the galley proofs were printed, against McCarthy's advice. After pushback from the authors, Moloney turned over manuscript editing to McCarthy. Moloney was hired away by Times Books later that year, and replaced by McCarthy, who was told that Asimov had insisted that she become the next editor if the magazine wanted to keep his name. Her first issue was dated January 1983. She was succeeded in May 1985 by Gardner Dozois, though he was not credited on the masthead until January 1986. Circulation had declined from its first-year peak to about 80,000 by the time Dozois became editor. The 1987 recession caused Davis Publications financial problems, and Davis decided to sell all four fiction magazines. While he searched for a buyer, changes were made to increase profitability: two issues per year were doubled in size and increased in price. The magazines were bought in January 1992 by Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, and became part of Dell Magazines. The title was shortened that November to ''Asimov's Science Fiction''. The schedule returned to monthly and the October and November issues were combined, so that only eleven rather than thirteen issues appeared per year. The page count was cut, and prices increased. In June 1998 the size was increased from a standard digest size of to to match other Penny Press magazines, which made printing and binding more efficient. The page count dropped at the same time, but the changes were announced as an increase in total text of 10%, with no change in price. However, a year later the price rose again. Circulation dropped over 30% over the first four years of Penny Press's ownership, from about 46,000 to under 32,000, probably partly because of these changes. Most of the decline was in subscription sales, though profitability was helped by subscribers who came through the magazine's website, which had been started in 1998, instead of through a third party that took a commission from the subscription price. Dozois gave up the editorship in 2004, and was succeeded by Sheila Williams, whose first issue was dated December of that year. The number of issues per year was reduced to ten starting in 2004, with the April and May issues combined into a double-sized issue. From January 2017, the schedule was changed to six bimonthly double-sized issues per year. == Contents and reception ==

Scithers (1977–1982) Asimov and Scithers agreed at the launch of the magazine on their goals for the magazine. In an editorial in the first issue, Asimov said "we will lean toward hard science fiction, and toward the reasonably straightforward in the way of style... We will have humorous stories and we will have an occasional unclassifiable story". ''Asimov's'' soon became known for humorous stories. The only touch of humor in the first issue was Clarke's story, "Quarantine", which was a very short story originally written to fit on a postcard, but more quickly appeared. Two stories by Asimov based on puns appeared in the second issue, and the third issue saw the re-appearance of Reginald Bretnor's "Feghoot" series of punning stories that had appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Venture Science Fiction decades earlier. More "spoofs or parodies and occasional limericks" appeared which "threatened to overshadow the more serious fiction", according to science fiction historian Mike Ashley. ''Asimov's'' readership included many who were new to the field, and many more who had given up on the other major science fiction magazines. This combination was a good fit for Scithers's approach: traditional stories, without sex or profanity: "nothing too challenging or revolutionary", in Ashley's words. Brown was replaced by Baird Searles in May 1979. Other stories from McCarthy's first year in charge included Dozois's "The Peacemaker", in the August 1983 issue, which won the Nebula Award. Dozois (1986–2004) When Dozois took over the editorship of ''Asimov's'', McCarthy's work had changed the image of the magazine, and Dozois worked to solidify the impression that, in Ashley's words, "''Asimov's'' was where the 'cutting edge' work in the field was appearing, so that authors would be eager to appear there". Dozois's tenure began as cyberpunk (a subgenre of science fiction focused on the consequences of virtual reality and computer technology) was becoming more popular, and cyberpunk fiction soon appeared: in January 1986, Dozois serialized William Gibson's Count Zero, the sequel to Gibson's debut novel, Neuromancer, and he also printed Pat Cadigan's "Pretty Boy Crossover". ''Asimov's'' did not focus solely on cyberpunk, though; Dozois printed a wide variety of speculative fiction. Stories from Dozois's first year include Lucius Shepard's "R&R", which won the Nebula; Orson Scott Card's "Hatrack River", which won the World Fantasy Award; and Kate Wilhelm's "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky", which won a Nebula. Pat Murphy and Kim Stanley Robinson began selling regularly to Dozois; Murphy's "Rachel in Love", in the April 1987 issue, about a teenage girl's personality in a chimpanzee's body, won a Nebula and a Locus Award, and Robinson's "The Blind Geometer", in the August issue, also won a Nebula. Paul DiFilippo and Peter Heck took over the book reviews from Baird Searles in 1994, and Spinrad began contributing critical essays. A column on role-playing games, by Matthew Costello, began in 1996 and lasted for four years. Dozois's editorship was well regarded in the field. Dozois won the Hugo Award for best professional editor every year from 1988 to 2004 with only two exceptions, in 1994 and 2002, Williams (2004 – present) In Williams' first editorial, in the January 2005 issue, she made it clear she did not plan to make dramatic changes to the approach established by McCarthy and Dozois. Williams reinstated the letter column, and began an intermittent non-fiction column, "Thought Experiments", starting with a reminiscence by Roger Ebert of his involvement in science fiction fandom. To mark the 30th anniversary of the magazine in 2007, she published a 30th Anniversary Anthology. She won the Hugo Award for short-form editor in 2011 and 2012. == Bibliographic details ==

The editorial succession at ''Asimov's'' is as follows: • George H. Scithers, Spring 1977 – February 15, 1982 • Dell Magazines (1992–1996) – owned by Dell Publishing • Dell Magazines (1996–2025) – owned by Penny Publications in Connecticut. • 1 Paragraph, Inc. (2025–present) – Also owns ''Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' Anthologies A series of five anthologies was issued under the series title ''Asimov's Choice, selected from the 1977 and 1978 issues. All were edited by Scithers: the titles were Astronauts & Androids, Black Holes & Bug-Eyed Monsters, Comets & Computers, Dark Stars & Dragons, and Extraterrestrial & Eclipses''. Martin Gardner's puzzles from the first few years of the magazine were collected in three volumes: Science Fiction Puzzle Tales, ''Puzzles from Other Worlds: Fantastical Brainteasers from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and Riddles of the Sphinx and Other Mathematical Puzzle Tales''. Some of Spinrad's critical essays for ''Asimov's, along with a couple of essays from other sources, were collected in Science Fiction in the Real World'' (1990). Overseas editions There have been multiple overseas editions of ''Asimov's''. There have been no German magazine versions of ''Asimov's'', but a series of anthologies from the magazine began in 1978. == Notes ==