Authentic Science Fiction
December 1952 issue; cover by Vann
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| Editor | Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, E.C. Tubb |
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| Categories | Science fiction magazine |
| Frequency | Fortnightly for 8 issues, then monthly |
| First issue | January 1951 |
| Final issue — Number |
October 1957 85 |
| Company | Hamilton & Co. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Authentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues under three editors: Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, and E.C. Tubb. The magazine was published by Hamilton and Co., and began in 1951 as a series of novels appearing every two weeks; by the summer it became a monthly magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine.
Authentic published little in the way of important or ground-breaking fiction, though it did print Charles L. Harness's "The Rose", which later became well-regarded. The poor rates of pay—£1 per 1,000 words—prevented the magazine from attracting the best writers. During much of its life it competed against three other moderately successful British science fiction magazines, as well as the American science fiction magazine market. Hamilton folded the magazine in October 1957, because they needed cash to finance an investment in the UK rights to an American best-selling novel.
In 1950, science fiction (sf) magazines had been published successfully in North America for over twenty years, but little progress had been made in establishing British equivalents. The bulk of British sf was published as paperback books, rather than magazines; a situation opposite of that in the US. Several short-lived magazines had come and gone, both before and after the war. John Spencer launched four very poor quality juvenile magazines in 1950, which continued into the mid-1950s, while one magazine, New Worlds, had survived since 1946. Since 1939, Atlas, a British publisher, had been producing a reprint edition of Astounding Science Fiction, one of the most well-regarded American sf magazines. During the war the contents had often been cut severely, and the schedule had not been regular, but it was reputed to sell 40,000 copies a month. This was enough to attract the attention of Hamilton & Co., a British publisher looking for new markets.
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