1. Seminal USOriginal-Anthology series edited by DamonKnight. AlthoughOrbit was not the first such series, having been preceded byStar Science Fiction Stories in the USA andNew Writings in SF in the UK, it was its extraordinary early success that precipitated the boom in such series in the early 1970s. It had a more literary orientation than the sf magazines, and perhaps for this reason was especially popular with the active members of the newly formedScience Fiction Writers of America. For whatever cause, stories fromOrbit dominated theNebula awards in their early years, although none has ever won aHugo.Orbit 1 (anth1966) contained "The Secret Place" by RichardMcKenna, which won the short-story Nebula.Orbit 3 (anth1968) featured two Nebula-winning stories: "Mother to the World" by RichardWilson and "The Planners" by KateWilhelm.Orbit 4 (anth1968) contained another winner in "Passengers" by RobertSilverberg. That was the lastOrbit story to win an award, although the year of pervasive dominance was 1970, when between themOrbit 6 (anth1970) andOrbit 7 (anth1970) provided one of the five novellas on the final Nebula ballot, three of the six novelettes, and six of the seven short stories.

Three writers in particular became associated withOrbit, and remained its most regular contributors: R ALafferty, KateWilhelm and GeneWolfe; in the run of 21 volumes, Lafferty and Wilhelm had 19 stories each, and Wolfe 18.Orbit lost its dominance once the flood of competitors appeared, and with #14 had to change publishers (becoming confined to a hardcover edition in the process) in order to survive. Notable stories in later volumes include Wolfe's "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" inOrbit 10 (anth1972), Ursula KLe Guin's "The Stars Below" inOrbit 14 (anth1974) – which also contained Joan DVinge's debut story "Tin Soldier" – and Wilhelm's "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" inOrbit 15 (anth1974).Orbit was especially notable for stories that seemed at the time odd andsui generis, quite unlike the usual run ofGenre SF and fantasy, but with hindsight were early signs of a general sophistication of genre sf in the 1970s, in which this series at first played a vital role; later numbers became rather insipid and Knight recognized that towards the end his selections had become extreme. Other volumes in the series areOrbit 2 (anth1967),Orbit 5 (anth1969),Orbit 8 (anth1970),Orbit 9 (anth1971),Orbit 11 (anth1972),Orbit 12 (anth1973),Orbit 13 (anth1974),Orbit 16 (anth1975),Orbit 17 (anth1975),Orbit 18 (anth1976),Orbit 19 (anth1977),Orbit 20 (anth1978) andOrbit 21 (anth1980).The Best From Orbit (anth1977) is culled from the first ten volumes. [MJE/PN]

2. US graphic/comic-strip magazine published by Eclipse Books, Forestville, California under license to Davis Publications; editor, Lititia Glozer; three standard-size issues, undated, 1990. The contents comprised existing sf stories adapted into comic-strip form, mostly fromAsimov's magazine, though two earlier stories by IsaacAsimov himself were also chosen: "Marooned Off Vesta" (March 1939Amazing Stories; #2 1990) and "The Last Question" (November 1956Science Fiction Quarterly; #3 1990). Other stories adapted include "Fermi and Frost" (January 1985Asimov's; 1990 #1), adapted by Brent Anderson, "Silent Night" (December 1987Asimov's; 1990 #2) by BenBova, illustrated by Rafael Kayanan; and "The End of Life As We Know It" (January 1985Asimov's; 1990 #3) by LuciusShepard, illustrated by Tom Yeates. Some of the concepts in the stories were not easy to visualize and required substantial text, which may have contributed to why the series was cancelled. [MA]

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