"Белгісіз әлемі: Америкалық фантастикалық журнал"

American pulp fantasy fiction magazine

Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknowns first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic. Campbell required his authors to avoid simplistic horror fiction and insisted that the fantasy elements in a story be developed logically: for example, Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think describes a world in which there is a scientific explanation for the existence of werewolves. Similarly, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea series, about a modern American who finds himself in the worlds of various mythologies, depicts a system of magic based on mathematical logic. Other notable works included several novels by L. Ron Hubbard and short stories such as Manly Wade Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" and Fritz Leiber's "Two Sought Adventure", the first in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Unknown was forced to a bimonthly schedule in 1941 by poor sales and canceled in 1943 when wartime paper shortages became so acute that Campbell had to choose between turning Astounding into a bimonthly or ending Unknown. The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre.

+ Issues of Unknown, showing volume/issue number. Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 1939 1/1 1/2 1/3 1/4 1/5 1/6 2/1 2/2 2/3 2/4 1940 2/5 2/6 3/1 3/2 3/3 3/4 3/5 3/6 4/1 4/2 4/3 4/4 1941 4/5 4/6 5/1 5/2 5/3 5/4 1942 5/5 5/6 6/1 6/2 6/3 6/4 1943 6/5 6/6 7/1 7/2 7/3 John W. Campbell was editor throughout. In May 1923, the first issue of Weird Tales appeared, from Rural Publications in Chicago. Weird Tales was a pulp magazine that specialized in fantasy stories and material that no other magazine would accept. It was not initially successful, but by the 1930s had established itself and was regularly publishing science fiction (SF) as well as fantasy. Weird Tales was the first magazine to focus solely on fantasy, and it remained the pre eminent magazine in this field for over a decade. but the company's bankruptcy in 1933 led to the acquisition of the magazine by Street & Smith. The title was shortened to Astounding Stories, and it became the leading magazine in the science fiction field over the next few years under the editorship of F. Orlin Tremaine. At the end of 1937, John W. Campbell took over as editor. In December 1940, the subtitle Fantasy Fiction was added, and in October 1941, the main title was changed to Unknown Worlds; When wartime paper shortages became severe in late 1943, Campbell chose to keep Astounding monthly and cancel Unknown, rather than switch the former to a bimonthly schedule as well. The last issue was dated October 1943. Campbell asked Russell for revisions to the story to emphasize the fantastic elements but still demanded that Russell work out the logical implications of his premises. This became a defining characteristic of the fiction published in Unknown; in Ashley's words, Campbell "brought the science fiction rationale to fantasy". refn|In the letter, to early contributor L. Ron Hubbard, Campbell asks Hubbard for a story with an Arabian Nights theme and comments that "Death Sentence" by Robert Moore Williams and "Dark Vision" by Frank Belknap Long are next in quality, while "Who Wants Power?" by Mona Farnsworth and "Closed Doors" by A. MacFadyen Jr. were merely "filling space acceptably". The title of one of these, "The Mathematics of Magic", is, according to SF critic John Clute, "perfectly expressive of the terms under which magic found easy mention in Unknown". Other Astounding writers who wrote for Unknown included Robert A. Heinlein, whose "The Devil Makes the Law" (reprinted as "Magic, Inc.") depicts a world where magic is a part of everyday life. A. E. van Vogt, a frequent Astounding contributor, appeared in the final issue with "The Book of Ptath" (later expanded into a novel). It eventually appeared in the anthology The Unknown Five. Asimov records that during the war, he read only these two magazines. refn|Asimov regarded Unknown as his favorite magazine and always kept up to date reading it, while he might be several issues behind on reading Astounding. Leiber also contributed "Smoke Ghost" in October 1941, described by Ashley as "arguably the first seriously modern ghost story". Other notable stories that appeared in Unknown include Jack Williamson's "Darker Than You Think" (December 1940), which provides a scientific basis for a race of werewolves living undetected alongside human beings. Expanded into a novel in 1948, it remains Williamson's best known fantasy, and SF historian Malcolm Edwards comments that the two protagonists' relationship is "depicted with a tortured (and still haunting) erotic frankness unusual in genre literature of the 1940s". In addition to the Harold Shea pieces, de Camp published several other well received stories, including "The Wheels of If" (October 1940) and "Lest Darkness Fall" (December 1939), an alternate history story about a time traveler who attempts to save the Roman Empire from the coming Dark Ages; Edwards and Clute comment that the story is "the most accomplished early excursion into history in magazine SF, and is regarded as a classic". Also highly regarded is Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" (December 1940), a story about Poe. The cover art came almost entirely from artists who did not contribute to many science fiction or fantasy magazines: six of the sixteen paintings were by H. W. Scott; Manuel Islip, Modest Stein, Graves Gladney, and Edd Cartier provided the others. Cartier was the only one of these who regularly contributed to SF and fantasy periodicals; he painted four of Unknowns last six covers before the change to a text heavy design.

Unknown was, along with Weird Tales, an important early influence on the fantasy genre. Clareson also suggests that Unknown influenced the science fiction that appeared in Astounding after Unknown folded. According to this view, stories such as Clifford Simak's City series would not have appeared without the destruction of genre boundaries that Campbell oversaw. Clareson further proposes that Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, two of the most important and successful science fiction and fantasy magazines, were direct descendants of Unknown. Despite its lack of commercial success, Unknown is the most lamented of all science fiction and fantasy magazines; Lester del Rey describes it as having gained "a devotion from its readers that no other magazine can match". Edwards comments that Unknown "appeared during Campbell's peak years as an editor; its reputation may stand as high as it does partly because it died while still at its best". The price began at 20 cents and rose to 25 cents with the change to bedsheet size; it remained at 25 cents when the size changed back to pulp. It had 164 pages when pulp sized and 130 pages while it was bedsheet sized. It began as a monthly and switched to bimonthly from December 1940 on. Street & Smith printed 300,000 copies, against the advice of John Campbell, but although it sold better than the original, too many copies were returned for the publisher to be willing to revive the magazine. Three anthologies of stories from Unknown were published in the early 1960s. The Unknown Five includes four stories reprinted from Unknown and the first print appearance of "Author! Author! ", by Isaac Asimov, which was sold to Unknown shortly before Street & Smith shut it down. Two additional Unknown anthologies were published in the late 1980s. Year Editor Title Publisher Length and price 1948 John W. Campbell, Jr. From Unknown Worlds Street & Smith: New York 130 pp. ; 25¢ 1963 D. R. Bensen The Unknown Pyramid: New York 192 pp. ; 50¢ 1963 George Hay Hell Hath Fury Neville Spearman: London 240 pp. ; 15/ 1964 D. R. Bensen The Unknown Five Pyramid: New York 190 pp. ; 50¢ 1988 Stanley Schmidt Unknown Baen Books: New York 304 pp. ; $3.50 1989 Stanley Schmidt, Martin H. Greenberg Unknown Worlds: Tales from Beyond Galahad Books: New York 517 pp. ; $9.98