Wednesday, October 1, 2025

SSW: June 1943: UNKNOWN WORLDS;; July 1943: WEIRD TALES, FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, SCIENCE FICTION (previously FUTURE FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION); September 1943: FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES--stories from 1943 US fantasy fiction magazines:

A snapshot/slice of a time long past...notable that the most famous story in this issue of Weird Tales would be the most famous and among the most influential stories to be published in any of the issues cited here, one which posits that "Jack the Ripper" has found a means of achieving literal immortality through his crimes. Got a top-line banner, though not the cover illustration (albeit, to be fair, the story is not so very much Newsstand Illustration-friendly for the times). 





The most famous story here, I'd say, is the Wellman. I've certainly seen it collected and anthologized the most. Though the Sturgeon is probably a not too distant second...

This issue can be read here.  ISFDB index here. (Bloch's light-hearted, pun-laden "Lefty Feep"-series story might well be the best-remembered story in this issue.)


This issue can be read here. ISFDB index here. The Catherine L. Moore story would be the best remembered of the new fiction in this issue...even if by default. Chambers has had a spike in interest in part from television taking elements from his fiction and/or name-checking it in such series as True Detective, From, and Good Omens, the last in its turn based on the novel by Terry Pratchett and Alan Moore which also pays homage to Chambers, and apparently also Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which I have yet to see.


This issue can be read here. ISFDB index here. The Bloch story is (just barely) the most widely-reprinted here.

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4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

The FANTASTIC ADVENTURES cover story is, as too often with that magazine in its lesser issues, more than a little misogyny-stroking fantasy...too much of the potential audience, then and still (though I think at least "John Norman"'s audience is dwindling, fwiw). But other issues of the magazine featured very good work indeed...

October 1, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Jerry House said...

In general, critical thinking had to cast aside with any issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. That beng said, I have always found Bloch's Lefty Feep stories to be like potato chips or popcorn -- you just can't stop with having just one.

October 1, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Todd Mason said...

Too often, but there was that run toward the end, such as the issue with THE DEAD DON'T DIE by Robert Bloch or the one with Fritz Leiber's YOU'RE ALL ALONE as lead novellas when Browne was editing that were generally good...Browne was being given leeway to try steps leading up to the new FANTASTIC as a near-slick magazine of fantasy, after an aborted attempt to do that with AMAZING first. Of course, Ziff-Davis wasn't too sure about the viability of such things, particularly after B. G. Davis quit to found Davis Publications, buying ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and gaining thus a real money-maker.

October 1, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Todd Mason said...

However, since it was created to publish the late work of Edgar Rice Burroughs and work by others in that vein, a fair amount of bubblegum was almost always available...

October 1, 2025 at 7:23 PM

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