Series:Science Fiction Chronicle

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This is an ISFDB Bibliographic Comments page for the Science Fiction Chronicle series. This page may be used for a list of the titles in the series, bibliographic comments or extended notes about the series, or discussion on how to organize and/or record the works in the series. The link above leads to the ISFDB series record for Science Fiction Chronicle. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page.

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Science Fiction Chronicle was founded in 1978 as a department of Porter's magazine Algol, and became a separate publication in October 1979. It was a general Newszine about sf, whose coverage was not as broad as that of its competitor, the West Coast magazine Locus. It contained fan material, a film column by Ed Naha (until September 1990, giving way to "SF Cinema" by Jeff Rovin) and the "London Report" by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher (replaced in the twenty-first century by "UK Report" from first Tanya Brown and then Paul Kincaid), all of which covered ground rather different from Locus's.

Science Fiction Chronicle was published and edited from New York by Andrew Porter, monthly (latterly bimonthly), letter size, 206 issues to 2000 (#206 being dated June/July 2000). Further issues to #267 (September 2006) were published by DNA Publications, edited first by Porter and then (from #229, October 2002) by John R Douglas and (from #257, April 2005) Ian Randal Strock.

Something of an East Coast institution, Science Fiction Chronicle offered an alternative voice for the sf community. In its one-man-band editorial performance it long showed astonishing stamina in its producer, Porter, who received a Special Award at the World Convention in 1991 for his "years of continuing excellence" in editing Science Fiction Chronicle, in the pages of which he subsequently apologized for his less than graceful acceptance of the award, which he regarded as "a consolation prize". No such response was necessary in 1993 and 1994, for Science Fiction Chronicle did indeed win the Hugo award in the semiprozine category in both those years, bringing to an end Locus's astonishing run of nine years' domination of the award ever since that category was first established.

Warren Lapine's DNA Publications bought Science Fiction Chronicle in 2000, the first issue under new ownership being #207 dated August/September 2000. Porter was initially retained as news editor but was replaced by John R Douglas in 2002; Ian Randal Strock took over in 2005. Porter's editorial in #214 (July 2001) claimed that circulation had now exceeded 10,000, making the magazine ineligible for the Semiprozine Hugo. DNA had returned Science Fiction Chronicle to monthly publication soon after acquiring it, but the schedule slipped again in late 2005, and #267 (September 2006) seems to have been the final issue.

From #228 (September 2002) the magazine was renamed as simply Chronicle, supposedly to avoid confusion with the San Francisco Chronicle; the words "Science Fiction" reappeared in the title in #265 (December 2005/January 2006). Another DNA experiment was the merging of Science Fiction Chronicle with Absolute Magnitude for #266 (February/March 2006); the following issue included fiction from DNA's Dreams of Decadence.

Taken almost verbatim from SFE The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Editing Notes

Not all of the issues have been entered yet. The purpose of this area is to record how some of us decided what and how to enter the content of this magazine.

Actual discussions are on-going in the talk page. Earlier entries recorded here have been moved there.

Current topics of discussion include (this may not be kept up to date):

1 Magazine title
2 Multiple entries for a year in the series view
3 Naming in the issue grid
4 Bi-monthly publication naming - using - or /
5 Which features should be included in a Series?
6 Using the issue number or date in feature titles
7 List of features
  • Publication Title
The naming convention is "Science Fiction Chronicle, #nnn month yyyy" for monthly issues, where nnn is the Issue (or Whole) number. The Issue (or Whole) number is sometimes on the cover, but can be found with the publication information (page 3). Where the cover or publication has more than one month, the publication information is used as the source. Sometimes the cover has two months but the publication page has only one. In this case only one month would be used. The convention will be to use a hyphen (-) as a separator, with no blanks (e.g. July-August).

more to come ...

Common Features

These have been documented as both Feature (Science Fiction Chronicle #nn) and Feature (Science Fiction Chronicle, month yyyy). No standard established yet.

  • Authors & Editors
  • Conventions
  • Ed Naha's Nahalywood
  • Events
  • Fandom
  • Headlines
  • Market Report
  • Newsnotes
  • Publishers
  • Publishing Newsnotes
  • Random Factors: Letters
  • S.F. Cinema
  • The London Report
  • The Twilltone Forest
  • Month Releases - e.g. April Releases,

Commonly used entry:

  • Letter (used to record letters, but also is a heading for Random Factors:

Essay Series

Well, the magazine name is in the series name. This is one of those times where there's an individual title for each editorial, and that's the reason for the disambiguated (month year) add-on - there's no need for it here, as I see it. If they were just named the generic "Editorial" or some-such, then I would use the disambiguation. Doug / Vornoff 19:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
That's the same way Locus does it - using the actual name of the obituary piece, which mostly is the name of the deceased, sometimes with dates. I don't really see any reason to change this. Doug / Vornoff 19:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
  • The London Report - does not include 'Science Fiction Chronicle' in the series name. The entries reflect the actual column name and include the name and issue. E.g. The London Report (Science Fiction Chronicle #94)
I have no problem with adding "(Science Fiction Chronicle)" to the series name. If that column (as sometimes does) appears in another publication, that could be given the series name London Report (Other Publication) and those two series could be given a parent series. There are some series that could benefit from that right now, I think. For example, Pohlemic, in a single series, appears in at least 3 magazines, including Science Fiction Chronicle, but you can't tell from the series. In this case you'd have to change the series name for each one to reflect the magazine and put them all in a parent series. Is this how you all see it? Doug / Vornoff 19:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Ed Naha's Nahalywood - does not include 'Science Fiction Chronicle' in the series name. The entries reflect the actual column name and include the name and issue. E.g. Ed Naha's Nahalywood (Science Fiction Chronicle #82)
Same situation here as immediately above. Doug / Vornoff 19:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Publisher and Editor

From March 1990 (or earlier) until 2001, Andrew Porter was listed as Editor and Publisher. The TOC credits read "Science Fiction Chronicle including Starship/Algol is (usually) published monthly at P.O. Box 022730". The additional publications vary between issues.

Issue #214 (July 2001) had "Publisher: Warren Lapine, News Editor: Andrew I. Porter" and the editorial is signed Andrew I. Porter. But in it he claims "I'm not really the editor of SFC any more: Warren Lapine is.". The TOC credit page states "Science Fiction Chronicle is published monthly by DNA Publications, Inc." Same credits for issue #215 (August 2001). #216 (September 2001) is unknown. #217 (October 2001) has "Publisher and Editor in Chief: Warren Lapine, News Editor: Andrew I. Porter" with Andrew still signing the editorials. This continues until #227 (August 2002).

In Issue #229 (October 2002), the magazine title changes to Chronicle and the news editor changes to John R. Douglas who signs the editorials. In his first editorial, he states "I'm the new News Editor for Chronicle-SF, Fantasy and Horror's Monthly Trade Journal. Andy Porter has left, the name of the magazine has changed slightly - but the news goes on and DNA Publications and I plan to keep delivering ...". The TOC credit remains unchanged.

When asked about credit as editor during this period, Andrew Porter stated, in part, that Warren Lapine "bought SFC from me in 2000, and I was editor until 2002, when he fired me ... and named John Douglas editor."

It is interesting to note that the TOC credits continue to refer to Science Fiction Chronicle as being published by DNA Publications, in spite of the name change (at least until #243 (January 2004)).

Based on this information, during this period, the editor is listed as Andrew I. Porter and the publisher as DNA Publications.

Issues

The issues have not been tabulated yet.

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