Super Science Stories
Encyclopedia
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
science fiction magazine
Science fiction magazine
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....
published by Popular Publications
Popular Publications
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles...
from 1940 and 1943, and again from 1949 to 1951. Popular launched it under their "Fictioneers" imprint, which they used for magazines paying writers less than one cent per word. Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
was hired in late 1939, at 19 years old, to edit the magazine; he also edited Astonishing Stories
Astonishing Stories
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a...
, a companion science fiction publication. Pohl left in mid-1941, and Super Science Stories was given to Alden H. Norton to edit; a few months later Norton rehired Pohl as an assistant. Popular gave Pohl a very low budget, therefore most manuscripts submitted to Super Science Stories had already been rejected by the higher-paying magazines. This made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but Pohl was able to acquire stories for the early issues from the Futurians
Futurians
The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937-1945.-Origins of the group:As described...
, a group of young science fiction fans and aspiring writers.
Super Science Stories was an initial success, and within a year Popular increased Pohl's budget slightly, allowing him to pay a bonus rate on occasion. Pohl wrote many stories himself, to fill the magazine and to augment his salary. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Super Science Stories. The final issue of the first run was dated May of that year. In 1949 the title was revived with Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
as editor; this version, which included many reprinted stories, lasted almost three years, with the last issue dated August 1951. A Canadian reprint edition of the first run included material from both Super Science Stories and Astonishing Stories; it was unusual in that it printed some original fiction rather than just reprints. There were also Canadian and British reprint editions of the second incarnation of the magazine.
The magazine was never regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but has received qualified praise from science fiction critics and historians. Science fiction historian Raymond Thompson describes it as "one of the most interesting magazines to appear during the 1940s", despite the variable quality of the stories. Critics Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
and Peter Nicholls
Peter Nicholls (writer)
Peter Nicholls is an Australian literary scholar and critic. He is the creator and a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ....
comment that the magazine "had a greater importance to the history of sf than the quality of its stories would suggest; it was an important training ground".
Publication history
Although science fiction (sf) had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing StoriesAmazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
, a pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
published by Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
. By the end of the 1930s the field was booming, and several new sf magazines were launched in 1939. Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, a science fiction fan and aspiring writer, visited Robert Erisman, the editor of Marvel Science Stories and Dynamic Science Stories, to ask for a job. Erisman did not have an opening for him, but told Pohl that Popular Publications
Popular Publications
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles...
, a leading pulp publisher, was starting a new line of low-paying magazines and might be interested in adding a science fiction title. On October 25, 1939, Pohl visited Rogers Terrill at Popular, and was hired immediately, at the age of nineteen, on a salary of ten dollars per week. Pohl was given two magazines to edit: Super Science Stories and Astonishing Stories
Astonishing Stories
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a...
. Super Science Stories was intended to carry longer pieces, and Astonishing focused on shorter fiction; Super Science Stories was retitled Super Science Novels Magazine in March 1941, reflecting this policy, but after only three issues the title was changed back to Super Science Stories.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 2/1 | |||||||
| 1941 | 2/2 | 2/3 | 2/4 | 3/1 | 3/2 | |||||||
| 1942 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 4/1 | 4/2 | ||||||||
| 1943 | |bgcolor=#ffff99|4/3 | 4/4 | | | |||||||||
| Issues of the first run of Super Science Stories, showing volume/issue number. The colors identify the editors for each issue: Frederik Pohl until August 1941, and Alden H. Norton for the remaining issues. |
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Harry Steeger
Henry "Harry" Steeger co-founded Popular Publications in 1930, one of the major publishers of pulp magazines, with Harold S. Goldsmith. Steeger handled editorial matters while Goldsmith took care of the business side. Both were veterans of the pulp magazine business. Steeger had edited war pulps at...
, one of the company owners, breaking down the budget for Astonishing for him: "Two hundred seventy-five dollars for stories. A hundred dollars for black and white art. Thirty dollars for a cover." For Super Science Stories, Steeger gave him an additional $50 as it was 16 pages longer, so his total budget was $455 per issue. Pohl could only offer half a cent per word for fiction, well below the rates offered by the leading magazines. Super Science Stories sold well, despite Pohl's limited resources: Popular was a major pulp publisher and had a strong distribution network, which helped circulation. Steeger soon increased Pohl's budget, to pay bonuses for popular stories. Pohl later commented that he was uncertain whether the additional funds really helped to bring in higher quality submissions, although at the time he assured Steeger it would improve the magazine. Some of the additional money went to Ray Cummings
Ray Cummings
Ray Cummings was an American author of science fiction, rated one of the "founding fathers of the science fiction pulp genre". He was born in New York and died in Mount Vernon, New York....
, a long-established sf writer who came to see Pohl in person to submit his work. Cummings refused to sell for less than one cent a word; Pohl had some extra money available when Cummings first visited him, and though he disliked Cummings' work was never able to bring himself to reject Cummings submissions, or even to tell him that he could not really afford to pay the rate Cummings was asking. Pohl comments in his memoirs that "for months he [Cummings] would turn up regularly as clockwork and sell me a new story; I hated them all, and bought them all."
By reducing the space he needed to fill with fiction Pohl managed to stretch his budget. A long letter column took up several pages but required no payment, and neither did running advertisements for Popular's other magazines. Some authors sent inaccurate word counts with the stories they submitted, and savings were made by paying them on the basis of whichever word count was less—the author's or one done by Popular's staff. The result was a saving of forty to fifty dollars per issue. Snipped elements of black and white illustrations were also reused to fill space, as multiple uses of the same artwork did not require additional payments to the artist.
Towards the end of 1940 Popular doubled Pohl's salary to twenty dollars per week. In June 1941 Pohl visited Steeger to ask for a further raise, intending to resign and work as a free-lance writer if he was unsuccessful. Steeger was unreceptive, and Pohl commented later "I have never been sure whether I quit or got fired". Instead of replacing Pohl, Popular assigned editor-in-chief Alden H. Norton to add the magazines to his responsibilities. The arrangement lasted for seven months, after which Norton asked Pohl to return as his assistant. Norton offered Pohl thirty-five dollars a week as an associate editor, substantially more than the twenty dollars a week he had received as editor, and Pohl readily accepted.
Pohl was not eligible to be drafted for military service as he was married, but by the end of 1942 his marriage was over and he decided to enlist. As voluntary enlistment was suspended he was unable to immediately join the army, but eventually was inducted on April 1, 1943. Paper was difficult to obtain because of the war, and Popular decided to close the magazine down; the final issue, dated April 1943, was assembled with the assistance of Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | 5/1 | 5/2 | 5/3 | 5/4 | 6/1 | |||||||
| 1950 | 6/2 | 6/3 | 6/4 | 7/1 | 7/2 | 7/3 | ||||||
| 1951 | 7/4 | 8/1 | 8/2 | 8/3 | ||||||||
| Issues of the second run of Super Science Stories, showing volume/issue number. Ejler Jakobsson was editor throughout. |
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Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
, who was working for Popular at the time, also worked on the magazine as assistant editor, although he was not credited. The relaunched magazine survived for almost three years, but the market for pulps was weak, and when Knight left in 1950 to edit Worlds Beyond
Worlds Beyond (magazine)
Worlds Beyond was an American digest magazine of science fiction and fantasy fiction in 1950 and 1951. The magazine only issued three monthly issues, from December 1950 to February 1951, but is notable for having printed stories by Cyril M...
Jakobsson was unable to sustain support for it within Popular. It ceased publication with the August 1951 issue.
Contents and reception
Because of the low rates of pay, the stories submitted to Super Science Stories in its first year had generally already been rejected elsewhere. However, Pohl was a member of the FuturiansFuturians
The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937-1945.-Origins of the group:As described...
, a group of science fiction fans that included Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, C.M. Kornbluth, Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson (author)
Richard Wilson was a Nebula Award winning American science fiction writer and fan. He was a member of the Futurians, and was married at one time to Leslie Perri....
and Donald Wollheim; the Futurians were eager to become professional writers and were eager to submit stories to Pohl. The Futurians were prolific; in Pohl's first year as an editor he bought a total of fifteen stories from them for the two magazines. Pohl contributed material himself, usually in collaboration with one or more of the Futurians. Particularly after his marriage to Doris Baumgardt in August 1940, Pohl realized that his salary covered their apartment rent with almost no money left over, and began to augment his income by selling to himself as well as to other magazines. The first story Pohl ever published that was not a collaboration was "The Dweller in the Ice", which appeared in the January 1941 Super Science Stories. All of the stories Pohl bought from himself were published under pseudonyms, though in fact Pohl used pseudonyms for everything he wrote until the 1950s.
The first issue, dated March 1940, contained "Emergency Refueling", James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
's first published story, two stories by John Russell Fearn
John Russell Fearn
John Russell Fearn was a British author and one of the first British writers to appear in American pulp science fiction magazines.-Career:...
(one under the pseudonym "Thornton Ayre"), fiction by Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to...
, Ross Rocklynne
Ross Rocklynne
Ross Rocklynne was the pen name used by Ross Louis Rocklin, an American science fiction author active in the Golden Age of Science Fiction....
, Raymond Gallun, Harl Vincent
Harl Vincent
Harl Vincent was the publication name of Harold Vincent Schoepflin, an American mechanical engineer and science fiction author. He was published regularly in science fiction "pulp" magazines.-Life and work:...
and Dean O'Brien; and a poem by Kornbluth, "The Song of the Rocket", under the pseudonym "Gabriel Barclay". Blish's most notable contribution to the magazine was "Sunken Universe", which appeared in the May 1942 issue under the pseudonym "Arthur Merlyn". This later formed part of "Surface Tension", one of Blish's most popular stories. Other writers whose first story appeared in Super Science Stories include Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, Chad Oliver
Chad Oliver
Symmes Chadwick Oliver was an American science fiction and Western writer and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin...
, and Wilson Tucker
Wilson Tucker
Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker was an American mystery, action adventure, and science fiction writer, who wrote professionally as Wilson Tucker....
. Bradbury's first sale, "Pendulum", was bought by Norton, and appeared in the November 1941 issue; Tucker's writing career began with "Interstellar Way Station" in May 1941, and Oliver's "The Land of Lost Content" appeared in the November 1950 Super Science Stories. Asimov appeared four times in Super Science Stories, starting with "Robbie", his first robot story
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...
, under the title "Strange Playfellow".
Although most stories submitted to Super Science Stories were rejects from the better-paying markets such as Astounding Science Fiction, Pohl recalled in his memoirs that John W. Campbell
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
, the editor of Astounding, would occasionally pass on a good story by a prolific author because he felt readers did not want to see the same authors in every issue. As a result Pohl was able to print L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
's Genus Homo, in the March 1941 Super Science Stories, and Robert Heinlein's "Let There Be Light
Let There Be Light (short story)
“Let There Be Light” a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, originally published in Super Science Stories magazine in May 1940 under the pseudonym Lyle Monroe...
" and "Lost Legacy
Lost Legacy
Lost Legacy is a novella by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was collected in the book Assignment in Eternity ....
" in the May 1940 and November 1941 issues: these were stories which, in Pohl's opinion, "would have looked good anywhere". Pohl also suggested that Campbell rejected some of Heinlein's stories because they contained mild references to sex. A couple of readers did complain, with one disgusted letter writer commenting "If you are going to continue to print such pseudosophisticated, pre-prep-school tripe as "Let There Be Light", you should change the name of the mag to Naughty Future Funnies".
The second run of Super Science Stories included some fiction that had first appeared in the Canadian reprint edition, which outlasted the U.S. original and printed eleven stories that had been acquired but not printed by the time Popular shut Super Science Stories and Astonishing down in early 1943. These included "The Black Sun Rises" by Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
, "And Then – the Silence", by Ray Bradbury, and "The Bounding Crown" by James Blish. From mid-1950 a reprint feature was established. This led to some reader complaints, with one correspondent pointing out that it was particularly galling to discover that Blish's "Sunken Universe", reprinted in the November 1950 issue, was a better story than the original material in the magazine. The magazine also reprinted stories from Famous Fantastic Mysteries
Famous Fantastic Mysteries
Famous Fantastic Mysteries was a fantasy fiction magazine offering reprints of science-fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades. It ran from 1939 to 1953 for a total of 81 issues....
, which Popular had acquired from Munsey Publishing in 1941.
Some of the original stories were well-received: for example, Ray Bradbury's "The Impossible", which appeared in the November 1949 issue, and was later included in Bradbury's book The Martian Chronicles, is described by sf historian Raymond Thompson as a "haunting ... comment on man's attempts to realize his conflicting hopes and dreams". Thompson also comments positively on Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
's early story "Terminal Quest", in Super Science Storiess final issue, dated August 1951; and on Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
's "Exile of the Eons" in the March 1950 issue. John D. MacDonald
John D. MacDonald
John Dann MacDonald was an American crime and suspense novelist and short story writer.MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many of them set in his adopted home of Florida...
also contributed good material.
The book reviews in Super Science Stories were of a higher standard than elsewhere in the field, and historian Paul Carter regards Astonishing and Super Science Stories as the place where "book reviewing for the first time began to merit the term 'literary criticism, adding that "it was in those magazines that the custom began of paying attention to science fiction on the stage and screen also". The artwork was initially amateurish, and although it improved over the years, even the better artists such as Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques...
and Lawrence Stevens continued to produce cliched depictions of half-dressed women threatened by robots or aliens. H.R. van Dongen, later a prolific cover artist for Astounding, made his first science fiction art sale to Super Science Stories for the cover of the September 1950 issue.
Sf historian Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley (writer)
Michael Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.He edits the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, each arranged around a particular theme in mystery, fantasy, or science fiction...
regards Super Science Stories as marginally better than its companion magazine, Astonishing, adding "both are a testament to what a good editor can do with a poor budget". According to sf critics Brian Stableford and Peter Nicholls, the magazine "had a greater importance to the history of sf than the quality of its stories would suggest; it was an important training ground".
Bibliographic details
The first run of Super Science Stories was edited by Frederik Pohl from March 1940 through August 1941 (nine issues), and then by Alden H. Norton from November 1941 through May 1943 (seven issues). Ejler Jakobsson was the editor throughout the second run, from January 1949 to August 1951. The publisher was Popular Publications for both versions, although the first was issued under Popular's Fictioneers imprint. It was pulp-sized throughout both runs. At launch the magazine had 128 pages and was priced at 15 cents; the price increased to 20 cents when it went to 144 pages in March 1941, and again to 25 cents for the May 1943 issue, which had 128 pages again. The second run was priced at 25 cents throughout and had 112 pages. The title was Super Science Stories for both runs except for three issues from March to August 1941, which were titled Super Science Novels Magazine. The volume numbering was completely regular, with seven volumes of four numbers and a final volume of three numbers. It was bimonthly for the first eight issues, from March 1940 to May 1941, and then went to a regular quarterly schedule.Canadian and British editions
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | |||||||||
| 1943 | 1/4 | 1/5 | 1/6 | 1/7 | 1/8 | 1/9 | ||||||
| 1944 | 1/10 | 1/11 | 1/12 | 1/13 | 1/14 | 1/15 | ||||||
| 1945 | |bgcolor=#ffff99|1/16 | 1/17 | 1/18 | 1/19 | 1/20 | 1/21 | ||||||
| Issues of the Canadian edition of Super Science Stories, showing volume/issue number. Alden H. Norton was editor throughout. |
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Each issue of the Canadian edition corresponded to one issue of either Astonishing or Super Science: for example, the first two Canadian issues drew their contents from the February 1942 Super Science Stories and the June 1942 Astonishing, respectively. This pattern continued for ten issues. The next issue, dated April 1944, contained several reprints from the US editions, but also included two original stories that had not appeared anywhere before—these had been acquired for the US magazine and remained in inventory. A total of eleven of these original stories appeared in the Canadian Super Science Stories. Later issues of the magazine also saw many reprints from Famous Fantastic Mysteries; in tacit acknowledgement of the new source of material, the title was changed to Super Science and Fantastic Stories from the December 1944 issue. The artwork was mostly taken from Popular's US magazines but some new art appeared, probably by Canadian artists. There was no other Canadian presence: the letters page, for example, contained letters from the US edition.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | 1 | |||||||||||
| 1950 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||||||||
| 1951 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||||
| 1952 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |||||||
| 1953 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |||||||||
| Issues of the two British editions of Super Science Stories, showing volume/issue number |
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£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
. The second reprint edition was published by Pemberton's; these were 64 pages and again were undated and were priced at 1/-.
The British issues are abridged versions of US issues from both the first and second series. The titles corresponded to the titles on the US magazine from which the stories were taken, so all were titled Super Science Stories except for the April 1953 issue, which was titled Super Science Novels Magazine.
| Number | British release date | Corresponding U.S. issue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (unnumbered) | October 1949 | January 1949 |
| 2 (unnumbered) | February 1950 | November 1949 |
| 3 (unnumbered) | June 1950 | January 1950 |
| 1 | September 1950 | April 1949 |
| 2 | January 1951 | September 1950 |
| 3 | April 1951 | November 1950 |
| 4 | June 1951 | January 1951 |
| 5 | August 1951 | April 1951 |
| 6 | November 1951 | June 1951 |
| 7 | March 1952 | August 1951 |
| 8 | June 1952 | May 1943 |
| 9 | July 1952 | February 1943 |
| 10 | September 1952 | August 1942 |
| 11 | November 1952 | November 1942 |
| 12 | February 1953 | May 1942 |
| 13 | April 1953 | May 1941 |
| 14 | June 1953 | November 1941 |
External links
- Super Science Stories, images of all covers of Super Science Stories