10 Story Fantasy appeared in Spring 1951. It was edited by Donald A. Wollheim, an editor who experimented with Science Fiction and Fantasy in various formats. Before this one-shot magazine, he had tried Out of This World Adventures, a mix of Pulp and comic book. He also had the small magazine Avon Fantasy Reader running concurrently.
Wollheim’s use of the word “Fantasy” here is questionable by today’s definition of the word. In 1951, no one had yet experienced The Lord of the Rings (which DAW would publish in America in an unauthorized paperback in 1966– but that’s another story!) and many had forgotten Robert E. Howard. (DAW was republishing him in The Avon Fantasy Reader about this time.) Fantasy here simply means less rigorous Science Fiction with a smattering of Horror. No Sword & Sorcery here– sigh.
10 Story Fantasy is filled with wonderful surprises, starting with the cover. It was painted by James Bama, the Western painter who thrilled us with dozens of Doc Savage covers.
“Tyrant and Slave-Girl on Planet Venus” by John Wyndham (as John Beynon) is better known as No Place Like Earth rather than this really sleazy, Pulpy title. It appeared in England in New Worlds #9 (Spring 1951) around the same time. A survivor of the Earth’s destruction by disintegration faces a solitary life on Mars. When a spaceship from Venus appears, Bert goes to find out the fate of humanity. The sleaze of the cover is a far cry from Wyndham’s usual thinky drama.
“Haunted Atoms” by A. E. van Vogt has nuclear power plants becoming moving, hungry blobs.
“Cry Witch!” by Fritz Leiber is straight out of Weird Tales, with vampires and cocktail parties. I’ve written about it at length here.
“Friend to Man” by C. M. Kornbluth gives us space chills with this tale of an expeditionary crew that encounters the strange little mother…
“The Poisonous Soul” by Franklin Gregory has a zoo-keeper who can take out his enemies with visits from snakes. This seems like a leftover from a Ray Palmer Pulp.
“Sentinel of Eternity” by Arthur C. Clarke is perhaps his most famous short story better known as “The Sentinel”. Clarke retitled it for inclusion in Expedition to Earth (1953). The whole 2001: A Space Odyssey begins here with this tale. When Stanley Kubrick asked ACC for ideas for his movie, this little tale stuck in Clarke’s mind. Pyramids on the moon!
“The Other Side of the Wall” by August Derleth is the first story in the Tex Harrigan series of eighteen tales. We don’t usually think Fantasy with August Derleth but he did publish several anthologies of SF at Arkham House. He also wrote this series for Pulps like Orbit and this one.
“Private World” by Donald A. Wollheim (as by Martin Pearson) has Charles Budd cross dimensions to join in a war that just might be a game of chess.
“Uneasy Lies the Head” by Lester del Rey gives us a dictator who places his mind into a robot. His physician is out of a job, or is he?
“Seeds of Futurity” by Kris Neville has humanity striving for a new future…
“Getaway on Krishna” by L. Sprague de Camp is part of de Camp’s Viagens Interplanetarias series begun in 1949 in Astounding Science-Fiction. This tale has a race across an ice cap that will be won by a human with an advantage… where he was born.
“Who Builds Maos Traps?” by K. W. Bennett had me thinking it was an old-fashioned anti-Chinese story but it isn’t. Nothing to do with Chairman Mao. A newspaper receives a strange item: a trap with a strange creature inside…
“The Woodworker” by Gene A. Davidson makes me think f Weird Tales again. It’s probably that great Hannes Bok illo. Someone is creating stinging insects out of wood and unleashing them on the unsuspecting public. Might it be a wooden brain?
We all have our own views on this, but my view of fantasy is broad, perhaps like Wollheim’s. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be applied to stories of the supernatural taking place in our world (ghost stories, etc.), as well as self-contained secondary worlds (Lord of the Rings, sword and sorcery, etc.)