Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Science Fiction Monthly/archive1

Science Fiction Monthly

 * Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:17, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

This article is about the first science fiction magazine I ever saw; you can blame Science Fiction Monthly for many of my previous magazine FAC submissions. It was an experiment in that it was focused on reprinting SF artwork, and the fiction was expected to be secondary. Many a teenager's bedroom was papered with the poster art from SF Monthly. It failed after a little over two years, so there's not a whole lot to say about it, but what there is, I believe, is here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:17, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Image review
 * Suggest adding alt text
 * Suggest expanding the purpose of use parameters in the FURs. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:40, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Done; thanks for the review. The FUR for the infobox image seems hardest to get right, but the copyrightable part of that is so small that I'm hoping it's OK with a weaker FUR. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 01:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Ian
Recusing coord duties to review.... Another nice succinct article -- I have at least one of these mags somewhere in my collection! Pretty well ready to support but early days, let's see if much changes over the course of the nom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Copyedited as usual so let me know any concerns.
 * Structure per usual, no probs.
 * Comprehensiveness-wise, seems fair for such a short-lived mag -- I don't have my copies of Trillion Year Spree and Holdstock's Encyclopedia available right now but I assume there was nothing new there? Interesting there seems to be no entry in SFE...
 * Thanks! There is an entry in SFE, here, but it's easy to miss as three magazines used the title and this was the third to do so, so it's down the page. I ended up not using it as a source as Ashley covers all the same material in more detail.  I had checked the Holdstock Encyclopedia, but your comment for some reason made me remember that there's a chapter about sf art there, so I checked that too and found a quote I could use from Hardy. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 22:15, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yay, I knew there was something in there -- Hardy was right too -- tks for adding...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

New query based on an addition from the new source, Hansen: ...UK Easter convention in April 1974 and the British Science Fiction Association receiving increased membership. -- does the source seem to support "reporting" instead of "receiving", as the former just reads better to me? I'd also be interested to know how it was gauged that the new fans were the product of exposure to the magazine -- did they have a "how did you hear about us?" questionnaire or something...? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I probably won’t be able to look at this enough to reply fully for a day or two, but as I recall there’s quite bit of discussion about this — there was no questionnaire, but since Hansen is using as sources contemporary fanzines and interviews with those involved with the BSFA and the Eastercon he has a lot to draw from. I think the summary is that there was definitely increased membership, but it was at one time thought to be so much increased that it was disruptive to the BSFA in particular, straining their resources.  That was later found to be an exaggeration by further investigation, but there was enough additional membership to be noticeable, and for Hansen to note that there was a tranche of active fans that all came in around that time and were hence associated with SFM, even though some of them did not enter fandom because of SFM. When I have a moment I’ll reread and see what the best phrasing is.  Maybe “increasing their membership” would be simpler than “reporting increased membership”. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 16:42, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , I've made it "both increasing their membership" which I think is safest. Hansen says "received a flood of membership applications" without attributing a source, and then a few pages later gives a more detailed history specifically with regard to the BSFA, including long quotes from e.g. the Membership Secretary of the BSFA at the time, and his successor.  I think the details might be of interest in an article about the BSFA but the conclusion is "there was a bulge in enquiries", and the membership increase was not very remarkable, and what we have seems enough to cover that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Tks for investigating further Mike; I confess though that I'm still not sure how any of the increased membership was directly attributable to SFM -- did I miss something? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was just citing his conclusions, thinking that perhaps the details he gives were tangential, but you're right that the mechanism should be clearer so I've expanded the explanation. It depended on a news item in the first issue so I've moved it to the discussion of that issue, earlier in the section. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:23, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Tks Mike, that's great -- happy to support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:07, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Source review Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No issues re. reliability.
 * Formatting-wise, could we have an OCLC of Who's Hugh if there's no ISBN?
 * Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:15, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , just a heads up since you're the source reviewer that I added Rob Hansen's Then as another source; Ansible Editions is a small press but I think this is reliable. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:47, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Tks Mike, at any rate, having done a little research, the author seems to be the leading light in his field -- so SR still okay. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild
Recusing to review.


 * "They decided to produce a magazine to make the magazine available in poster form". Is the second use of "magazine" a typo?
 * D'oh. Yes, fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Lead: "The high production costs associated with colour reproduction"; body: "The magazine was expensive to produce".
 * I switched this so the additional detail is in the body, not the lead. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "A series of interviews with authors, each accompanied by one of their stories, included profiles of Samuel Delany, Harlan Ellison, J.G. Ballard, and Harry Harrison." Is this actually a sentence? Even if so, could it be rephrased a little more felicitously?
 * "Aune Butt and Penny Grant, who acquired non-fiction and fiction" is slightly contradicted by "Fiction was initially the responsibility of Aune Butt and Penny Grant". Did they still work for the magazine (in what role) after Davis took over as fiction editor?
 * Tweaked; is that more readable? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Mike, was this meant for my point 3? (In which case it's fine.) You don't seem to have tweaked anything in response to my point 4. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:39, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was; I guess I was under-caffeinated when I was replying to FAC issues this morning. I've now added "initially" to that mention of Butt & Grant -- the sources don't say whether they were still involved.  Since they were listed as editorial assistants, I would guess they were -- they were staff at NEL and when Davis took over the fiction it didn't mean other work (such as getting non-fiction material or managing advertising) ceased. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 13:27, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You still have "initially, Aune Butt and Penny Grant, who acquired non-fiction and fiction. From the eighth issue, Julie Davis took over Butt and Grant's editorial duties" which seems to clearly imply that Davis took over both the fiction and the non-fiction roles; and "Fiction was initially the responsibility of Aune Butt and Penny Grant, who were listed on the masthead as editorial assistants; Julie Davis took over as fiction editor with the eighth issue" which suggests that Butt and Grant only ever dealt with fiction and strongly implies that this was all Davis took over. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have a fresh cup of coffee next to the keyboard now, so let's see if I can deal with this. I recently added the SFE3 entry to the sources; they give the sequence of editors as Hornsey and then Davis with the eighth issue, but Ashley's Gateways to Forever which is the more specialized work says Hornsey was overall editorial director, and that what Davis took over was all the textual material from Butt & Grant.  Butt continued to work on the magazine for a few more months -- see here which goes up to December 1974.  I describe Butt & Grant's roles as "listed on the masthead as editorial assistants"; I took that from the individual issues but I'm going to cut it as I no longer have those issues and would really have to cite them directly.  Ashley has an appendix in which he lists everyone who took an editorial role in any magazine in the time period covered by Gateways to Forever; he lists Butt simply as "editor" in that appendix and does not list Grant at all.  In the body text he says "At the outset, Aune Butt and Penny Grant had responsibility for acquiring the textual material, but this passed to Julie Davis from the eighth issue".  (I think the reason I incorrectly listed Davis as only taking over fiction is that elsewhere there's a comment that the fiction improved when Davis took over.)  I'm going to treat his explicit discussion in the text as more authoritative than the index listing that omits Grant.  I've also added colour to the table, and a caption that gives the editorial sequence; I had skipped doing this but I think it's clear enough in the sources so long as I give the art director separate billing in the publishing section (since art was arguably as important than the textual material).  How does that look? Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:12, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 20:13, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Vanamonde
A pleasure to review your work, feel free to contest any copyedits I've made. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:31, 12 October 2022 (UTC) That's all I have, I'm impressed you've managed something at least somewhat substantive given the dearth of material. It does raise my usual philosophical quandary of whether "comprehensive" means a minimal level of detail, or of including all the detail there is (where length isn't a constraint); given that the community has tended toward the latter definition, though, it's the one I will stick to here. I did a sweep for sources, and aside from the ones mentioned above found nothing else, so I can support on a wider range of criteria than usual. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:31, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There's only two uses of the acronym sf; I wonder if it could be omitted altogether.
 * Yes, done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "They decided to produce a magazine to make the magazine available in poster form" I don't follow; is the second "magazine" a typo? or is it supposed to be "magazine art"?
 * It was a typo; now "artwork". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "the artwork depicted was not limited to works published by NEL" should it be "limited to works created for fiction published by NEL"? Or perhaps "limited to works previously published by NEL", since presumably they are all being published by NEL in this magazine?
 * I made it "works originally published by NEL". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I assume you're aware of the SFE article on the same subject, the vast majority of which is covered here, but there seem to be a detail or two worth adding (unless you left them out on purpose?). Story quality, anthology, and attracting younger readers are the three obvious ones I'm seeing.
 * For some reason I thought I'd already incorporated everything relevant from that, but you're quite right; when I looked I saw I had not. I even told Ian, just above, that I'd looked at it and not included anything, so I'm glad you raised the point again. Now added. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was rather excited when I found this, and then realized it's published by Lulu, and is quite unusable...noting in case someone else finds it.
 * That's a reprint; I have the original which was published by Ansible Editions, and I think is citable. I've had a quick look in it and am not yet seeing anything worth adding -- fan reactions maybe.  I'll post here again when I've gone through the index.  Thanks for mentioning it -- it didn't occur to me as a possible source. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's nice, I didn't realize it was a reprint. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've added a couple of snippets from Hansen. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:46, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Ashley says the cover was always also included as a double-page spread, is that worth mentioning?
 * I didn't interpret his comment that way; it was done that way for the first issue certainly, but I took his next comment ("main selling point") to be about the artwork generally. I could check via ISFDB and see if it's true that it was always a double page spread, but then I couldn't cite ISFDB for that as it's user-edited. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Happy to support. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment - my only query is the colours on the little grid. Is that intended to represent the change in, erm, "person responsible for acquisition of fiction and non-fiction" (did they not have a more concise job title?)........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's not a great phrase. Normally I would say "the editor" but because this magazine focused so much on artwork, and also because Butt & Page were listed as "editorial assistants", I don't think that's accurate -- one thinks of "the editor" as the person with overall control of the magazine.  Here that's Patricia Hornsey, the editorial director, but it's clear from the sources she selected neither the art nor the fiction/non-fiction.  The art editor, Osborne, was arguably at least as important as whoever selected the fiction and non-fiction, so I can't use any term that implies these guys had final say on the artwork.  The source says Butt & Grant were responsible for the "textual" material, which I don't think is any better.  This was the best phrasing I could come up with. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:30, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So is that what the colour means? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes — sorry, meant to say so in my previous comment. I’ve updated the caption to be clear about it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 20:49, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:35, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Support from BennyOnTheLoose

 * Support - a well-written article that meets the criteria IMO. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 09:18, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

 * "One such double-page image was Bruce Pennington's depiction of the spaceship Discovery from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was also used as the cover art for the issue." This was, I take it, the cover of the British edition of the book? It's implied but not stated.
 * Good catch; I had forgotten what the cover of 2001 looked like. It was actually the cover of Lost Worlds of 2001; now corrected.  Ashley just says "2001", but fortunately the other source I used, Kyle, is specific about it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "an excerpt from a book by Isaac Asimov," Nonfiction I assume? He wasn't writing much fiction just then, as I recall, at least in books.
 * It was from Pirates of the Asteroids, one of the Lucky Starr books. Added. NEL were reprinting the series in the UK at the time. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Were the issues sold through newsagents or did subscribers receive copies through the post?
 * I got my own copies at the local newsagent. I would guess it was available by subscription too, but I can't be sure; Ashley doesn't mention it and I don't have copies to look through for subscription information, so I don't think I can mention it in the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's all I have.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:54, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Support All looks good.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:54, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Support from Ceranthor

 * "It was launched in response to demand from readers for posters of the cover art of New English Library's science fiction paperbacks, and was initially very successful, circulation reaching 150,000 by the third issue." - nitpick, but thoughts on adding "its" before circulation here?
 * Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "The magazine was expensive to produce, because of the costs associated with colour reproduction, so it required a higher circulation than a typical digest magazine, and NEL decided to cancel it and replace it with a lower-cost version.[1][3] " - thoughts on splitting into two sentences? I think this might be a run-on as is.
 * Done. After looking at the source again I've tweaked this a bit to be explicit about the differences between the magazines, rather than just mentioning cost. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "The new magazine, S.F. Digest, lasted only one issue before NEL's magazine department was cut in the course of a merger with Hodder & Stoughton.[3]" - any idea when? Timing would be a useful detail here
 * I'm glad you asked, because in trying to research the answer I found evidence that the source is wrong. As far as I can tell from other sources such as newspapers.com, the merger took place in 1981, far too late to be relevant.  I've cut the mention of Hodder & Stoughton.  I've also emailed the author of the source, whose work is usually very reliable, to ask if he recalls why he mentions the merger; if he gives me anything usable I'll re-add it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds good.  ceran  thor 19:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "The magazine was in tabloid format" - again, a nitpick, but thoughts on adding a verb here like "was published in"?
 * Done -- I think some of these wordings are just shorthand in the trade, which means it's a good idea to change them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "at 40 cm x 56 cm" - shouldn't this have a conversion as well?
 * Oops, yes. Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "The monthly schedule was completely regular." - meaning that it was published every month without fail? Seems like this could be said in a more straightforward way if so.
 * I'd like to leave this as is, unless we can come up with a better way to say it -- a great many magazines fail to keep to their announced schedule, and regularity is worth noting. And the table is in that section so the reader can see what the schedule actually was. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My only concern is that it's redundant in saying a monthly schedule that's regular, though I see your point. Absolutely not a major concern, so I'll defer to your judgment here.  ceran  thor 19:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "Each issue was tabloid-sized, and of 28 pages" - I'd cut the comma here and change of to "had"
 * Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Otherwise, nicely written, well-illustrated, and sources seem reliable. Support.  ceran  thor 18:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review; replies above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Responded to two, but nothing further from me.  ceran  thor 19:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Hog Farm Talk 02:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)