Worlds of If
May 1955 issue of If. The cover is by Kenneth S. Fagg, and is titled "Technocracy Versus the Humanities".
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| Editor | James L. Quinn |
|---|---|
| Former editors | Paul W. Fairman |
| Categories | Science fiction |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Circulation | 67,000 (1967) |
| Publisher | Quinn Publications (1952–1959) Galaxy Publishing (1959–1974) |
| Founder | James L. Quinn |
| Year founded | 1952 |
| First issue | March 1952 |
| Final issue | December 1974 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English |
If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn.
The magazine was moderately successful, though it was never considered to be in the first tier of science fiction magazines. It achieved its greatest success under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968. If published many award-winning stories over its 22 years, including Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream". The most prominent writer to make his first sale to If was Larry Niven, whose story "The Coldest Place" appeared in the December 1964 issue.
If was merged into Galaxy Science Fiction after the December 1974 issue, its 175th issue overall.
Although science fiction had been published in the United States before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback. By the end of the 1930s the field was undergoing its first boom, but World War II and its attendant paper shortages led to the demise of several titles. By the late 1940s the market began to recover again. From a low of eight active magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 in 1950, and a further 22 had commenced publication by 1954.If was launched in the middle of this second publishing boom.
If's origins can be traced to 1948 and 1949, when Raymond Palmer founded two magazines while working at Ziff-Davis in Chicago: Fate and Other Worlds. Fate published articles about occult and supernatural events, while Other Worlds was a science fiction magazine. The two were sufficiently successful to attract the notice of James L. Quinn, a New York publisher. When Ziff-Davis moved to New York City in late 1950, Paul W. Fairman, a prolific writer, went with them, and was soon in touch with Quinn, who decided to found a pair of magazines modelled after Palmer's. One was a non-fiction magazine entitled Strange; the other was If.
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