Re: Question about ISFDB statistic

On 4/13/2025 2:44 PM, William Hyde wrote:

Ahasuerus wrote:

On 4/13/2025 3:51 AM, Charles Packer wrote:

Why the wide swing in the number of titles in the ISFDB
by year of publication -- 50% jump -- from 1938 to 1939?
It's hard to believe that it reflects a step function in public
interest. The context is as follows:
>
year 1936 count 4738
1937  4628
1938  4117
1939  6245
1940  6685
1941  5746
1942  5513

>
There were only 3 stable science fiction monthlies between mid-1930 and mid-1938, i.e. during the depths of the Great Depression: *Amazing*, *Astounding* and *Wonder* (*Thrilling Wonder* after 1936.) Things began to improve in mid-1938 with the launch of *Marvel* and then the Golden Age really took off in 1939: *Unknown*, *Planet Stories*, *Captain Future*, *Startling Stories*, *Dynamic*, *Famous Fantastic Mysteries*, *Science Fiction*/*Future Fiction*, *Strange Stories*, *Uncanny Tales*, *Marvel Science Stories*, *Fantastic Adventures*, *Science Fiction Quarterly*, *Super Science Stories*, *Astonishing Stories*, *Cosmic Stories*, *Fantastic Novels*, *Stirring Science Stories*. Many of them died or had to scale back in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, but the ones that survived made a comeback after WWII.

 Clearly I should have read farther in the thread before replying.
 My hat's off to you.

<adds the hat to his collection of metaphorical hats>
As an aside, the sheer quantity of SF published during the Golden Age (1938/1939-1950) was a significant and often underestimated (see, e.g., https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/golden_age_of_sf) factor even though its quality outside of _Astounding_/_Unknown_ and, in the late 1940s, _Startling_/_Wonder_, was often abysmal. It helped future powerhouses like Bester and Pohl learn their craft.
I occasionally wonder if certain popular online niches like Web serials, "cultivation" novels and other translations, "isekai"/portal fantasy, "progression fantasy", etc may end up playing a similar role in the 21st century.