Series:Science Fiction Chronicle

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. For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates.

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 discuss completing the entry. Answers, opinions and conclusions can be entered here. There are some inconsistencies and possible errors in the currently entered issues.

• There are multiple entries for the same year in the series view (1984 has 2 – one empty; 1993 has 7 – one for each week). I expect some kind of merge needs to be done. The total number of issues is the same for following the grid and series views (54). There doesn’t seem to be series entries for 2000 and beyond. I expect we should have entries for up to 2006.

• There is one issue that covers two months that cross a year boundary (Dec 95/Jan 96). The grid seems to put multiple-month records in the first month. Does the grid do that automatically or is there something special that needs to be done or is it based on the date entered for the publication? Ditto for the serial summary.

• Most issues in the grid show issue number and month. There are exceptions, starting in 1997, whence all but one do not include the number. The exceptions are all unverified, so finding the number may be difficult.

• One of the bimonthly publications uses " - " (Science Fiction Chronicle, #198 July-August 1998) and another uses "/" |(Science Fiction Chronicle, #189 May/June 1996). The one's I have use the "/" notation.

• The Obituaries and Editorials are part of separate series, but none of the other regular features use this approach. Is it because there are different names for these, while the other features go by the same name each issue? Would the Releases feature go here (April Releases, September Releases, …)? These two series use a different approach Editorial (Science Fiction Chronicle) and Science Fiction Chronicle Obituary, as opposed to Obituary (Science Fiction Chronicle). The only other obituaries are from Locus and Analog and they follow this naming.

• Most of the features in the issue use “(Science Fiction Chronicle #nnn)” in their name. There are some issues that follow this rule and some that don’t. Two verifications have a mixture within the issues (#134 and #143). This means that if you list all titles for a feature (e.g. “Authors & Editors (Science Fiction Chronicle”), you get a mixture of naming types. Both (and a combination) have been used in various magazines at ISFDB.

• Of the features, not all names have been used consistently. Some exceptions (some are possibly typo’s, but some may reflect changes in titles between issues). There are also variations within a publication between the name in the table of contents and at the head of the article.
  • Authors & Editors (27) vs. Authors and Editors (1)
  • British Market Report (1) vs. British Market Reports (1) vs. The British Report (4) vs. The London Report (35)
  • Ed Naha’s Hallywood (1) vs. Ed Naha’s Nahalywood (21) vs. Nahalywood (2)
  • Jeff Rovin’s S.F. Cinema (2) vs. S.F. Cinema (10) [Kay Anderson’s Continuum (3) never appears without the nane {Continuum}, nor does Marvin Kaye’s Nth Dimension (1) or Don D’Ammassa’s Critical Mass (3)]
  • London Report (5) vs. London Report: Or, Beer and Loafing in Los Angeles (1)
  • Newsnotes (4) vs. Newsnotes and Events (8) vs. Notes (1) vs. Small Press Notes (3).
  • Publishers (19) vs. Publisher’s Notes (1) vs. Publishing Newsnotes (26)
  • The Twiltone Forest: Fanzine/Small Press Reviews (1) vs. The Twiltone Forest: Fanzines & Small Press (5) vs. The Twiltone Forest: Fanzines & the Small Press (1) vs. The Twiltone Forest: Fanzines/Small Press Stuff (2) vs. The Twiltone Forest: Small Press & Fanzines (3) [likely should be The Twiltone Forest].

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

• Editorial (Science Fiction Chronicle)
• Science Fiction Chronicle Obituary

Issues

The issues have not been tabulated yet.