page_title: Infinity Science Fiction
section_title: Contents and reception
hierarchical_section_title: Infinity Science Fiction / Contents and reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of "Infinity Science Fiction"
context_page_description: Infinity Science Fiction was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Larry T. Shaw, and published by Royal Publications. The first issue, which appeared in November 1955, included Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", a story about a planet destroyed by a nova that turns out to have been the Star of Bethlehem; it won the Hugo Award for that year. Shaw obtained stories from some of the leading writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley, but the material was of variable quality. In 1958 Irwin Stein, the owner of Royal Publications, decided to shut down Infinity; the last issue was dated November 1958.
  The title was revived a decade later by Stein's publishing house, Lancer Books, as a paperback anthology series. Five volumes were published between 1970 and 1973, edited by Robert Hoskins; a sixth was prepared but withdrawn after Lancer ran into financial problems at the end of 1973.
context_section_description: Shaw knew the science fiction field well, and was friends with many established writers, so he was occasionally able to acquire good stories.  The first issue included "The Star", by Arthur C. Clarke, about a planet destroyed by a nova (an exploding star): the light from the nova was seen from Earth as the Star of Bethlehem.  A sequel, by Betsy Curtis, appeared in the June 1956 issue.  "The Star", which won the Hugo award for that year's best short story, had originally been submitted to The Observer in the UK for a short-story contest, but did not win any of the prizes.  It was rejected by several markets in the US before Shaw bought it; Clarke recorded that The Saturday Evening Post turned it down on the grounds that it was "blasphemous".
  Harlan Ellison's first science fiction sale, "Glowworm", appeared in the second issue, and Shaw was able to publish much early work by Robert Silverberg.  Notable stories included "Dio" by Damon Knight and "Who Can Replace a Man?" by Brian Aldiss.  Shaw was able to obtain material by established writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckley, Lester del Rey, Algis Budrys, and Jack Vance, though in the opinion of science fiction historian Joseph Marchesani these stories were in many cases not among the authors' best work.  Shaw was unhappy with the last two issues, for which Stein had taken over editorial duties, and Marchesani comments that the quality of those issues was "depressing to say the least".
  Knight provided a book review column, and a good deal of the material in his critical collection In Search of Wonder initially appeared in Infinity; Knight left to edit If in 1958, and Silverberg took over the book reviews for the last three issues.  Shaw also included a column titled "Fanfare" as a regular feature, which reprinted material from science fiction fanzines.  The artwork for the first issue's cover was provided by Robert Engle, but all the remaining covers were painted by Ed Emshwiller.
  The title page of the first anthology, Infinity One, said that it was "a magazine of speculative fiction in book form", but it did not include the nonfiction sections or review columns that appeared in most magazines, printing nothing but fiction and some brief introductory material.  Infinity One reprinted Clarke's "The Star", but that was the only reprint Hoskins used in the series.  The same volume included George Zebrowski's first story, "The Water Sculptor of Station 233".  Silverberg and Barry Malzberg had stories in each of the five volumes, and other contributors included established names such as Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, and Clifford D. Simak, along with newer writers such as Ed Bryant and Dean R. Koontz.
  Assessments of Infinity by science fiction historians vary.  Mike Ashley describes Infinity as "essentially an adventure magazine aiming at a juvenile readership", and Marchesani calls Shaw "an editor of the middle echelon". Malcolm Edwards considers it "one of the most interesting of the flood of new sf magazines in the early and mid-1950s". In Edwards' opinion it became "one of the leading sf magazines of its period". David Kyle describes it as "exceptional", and writer and critic Algis Budrys calls Infinity "Larry Shaw's short-lived but immortal magazine".  Edwards assesses the anthology series as "competent but not outstanding".
caption: Cover of the February 1957 issue, by Ed Emshwiller
exif: {}