Fear
Entry updated 4 December 2017. Tagged: Publication.
1. Fear! US Digest-size magazine. Publisher: Great American Publications, Incorporated. Editor: Joseph L Marx. Two bimonthly issues, May and July 1960.
This short-lived attempt to revive the Weird Tales style of magazine was competent enough, but launched at a poor time for US fiction magazines in general, when readership across the board was evaporating. Some notable authors appeared, including John Jakes, David Mason, Arthur Porges and Bryce Walton; there were also some quality reprints such as Robert Hichens's "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" (October 1897 Pearson's Magazine as "The Man Who Was Beloved"; vt in Tongues of Conscience coll 1900). Unfortunately the title was aborted before could develop a following. It should not be confused with the much later UK magazine Fear: see 2 below.
2. Fear. UK letter-size saddle-stapled magazine, 34 issues 1988 to 1991. Publisher: Newsfield Publications. Publication schedule was generally monthly for most of the magazine's run. Editor: John Gilbert.
This publication – subtitled "Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction" – was primarily concerned with Horror but always included some sf and coverage of sf Cinema. An especially interesting department was a first-sale section which published the first story sold by Peter F Hamilton: "Deathday" (February 1991), though a subsequent Hamilton sale had appeared elsewhere in 1990. Other authors of Fear stories included John Brunner, Adrian Cole, Storm Constantine, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Gallagher, Simon Ings, James Lovegrove, Brian Lumley, Kim Newman, Darrell Schweitzer, Brian Stableford, Jeff VanderMeer – his professional debut with "So the Dead Walk Slowly" (November 1989) – and Ian Watson. The literary section of Fear was popular enough to spin off a late-1990 fiction companion titled Frighteners, which was to lead to the parent magazine's downfall. The first issue of Frighteners (July 1991) featured "Eric the Pie" by horror author Graham Masterton (1946- ), an especially graphic tale involving cannibalism which so upset the distributor W H Allen that the issue was immediately banned from sale. Though two further issues of Frighteners appeared, the financial losses resulting from this debacle led to Fear suspending publication shortly afterwards. Editor Gilbert plans to revive Fear as an E-Zine in late 2015. [GSt/DRL]
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