The remaining pulps would survive until 1954/55 and would have something new to contribute to the development of science fiction, especially Thrilling Wonder and Startling Stories. As such they are considered in the second volume of this history. A few magazines would flirt with pulp formats throughout the fifties, but the last regular sf pulp magazine was Science Fiction Quarterly which folded in 1957.

The passing of the pulps and the dawn of the nuclear age is an appropriate moment to pause in our history of the science-fiction magazines. After the war, and particularly from 1950 with the appearance of the Magazine of Fantasy (called Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the second issue) and Galaxy, science fiction matured and gathered a veneer of respectability that, at least for a period, allowed it to reach out and be part of a wider, interested audience. As we shall see that respectability did not last long, and it required another revolution in the mid-sixties to again place science fiction on the map. But, for the moment, it was holding its own.

So, what had the science-fiction pulp magazine contributed to science fiction? There is no doubt that in the 25 years from 1926 to 1950 science-fiction editors left their mark on the development of sf in a far stronger way than if the sf magazine had not come into existence, though not always for the better. It is impossible to know whether science fiction would have become a sustainable genre on its own without the hand of Hugo Gernsback, though it is more than likely that, even had Gernsback not established Amazing Stories in 1926, someone else would have started a science-fiction publication at some time. In establishing Amazing Stories Gernsback gave sf an identity and one which writers could therefore develop and with which readers could identify.

Gernsback's role though was clear. He wanted sf to be educational. As a consequence it did not need to be particularly cosmic in scale. In fact the narrower the focus the better. Gernsback wanted fiction that instructed and inspired. The inspiration was intended to make the reader creative or inventive.