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Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by World Editions and sold two years later to Robert Guinn, the magazine's printer. Its first editor, H. L. Gold, rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman" (later expanded as Fahrenheit 451), Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. Frederik Pohl, who had been doing most of the production work for some time, took over as editor officially in 1961. Until his departure in 1969, Galaxy had continued success, regularly publishing fiction by writers such as Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Silverberg. At its peak, Galaxy greatly influenced the science fiction field. Gold brought a "sophisticated intellectual subtlety" to magazine science fiction, according to Pohl. Historian David Kyle suggests that Gold's new direction led to the experimental New Wave, the defining science fiction literary movement of the 1960s. (Full article...)