Introduction

The Adventure, War & Espionage Fiction Magazine Index (or Adventure Fiction Index in short) is an attempt to provide an index to adventure fiction magazines in the same style as the classic Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index compiled by Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento, and the recent Crime, Mystery, & Detective Fiction Magazine Index compiled by Phil Stephensen-Payne, Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento. It was originally planned to be available both in CD-ROM format from Locus Press and as a series of luxury hardback volumes from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, but will instead be published as part of the FictionMags Index.

The index is based (with permission) on two classic indexes in this field (both now long out of print):

1. Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction: A Checklist of Fiction in U.S. Pulp Magazines, 1915-1974 compiled by Michael L. Cook and Stephen T. Miller
2. The Pulp Magazine Index: First Series, Second Series, Third Series & Fourth Series compiled by Leonard A. Robbins

While Robbins, Cook & Miller managed to identify and locate a huge number of magazine issues, they were only too aware themselves of some of the shortcomings and omissions in their indexes. From the beginning, a key focus of the current index has therefore been to:

• Locate and index as many as possible of the issues omitted from the previous indexes (see here for details of what is still missing);
• Identify the contents of issues that were announced as forthcoming, but never actually appeared;
• Locate and index as many as possible of the magazines that Mike Cook was sure existed but was unable to locate (and to lay to rest some of the rumours about magazines that really didn't exist);
• Extend the coverage to include magazines and magazine issues published since the previous indexes were written;
• Extend the coverage to include as many magazines as possible published (in the English language) outside the USA, which had generally been omitted from earlier indexes–these are discussed in more detail here.

As well as expanding the “width” of the index, an attempt has also been made, where possible, to expand the “depth” of the index. The previous indexes listed only the fiction content of the magazines and then gave only the author name and story title. The current index attempts also to:

• Identify, roughly, the size of each of the pieces of fiction (see the Item Types section for more detail on this);
• Identify non-fiction in each magazine (sometimes just major pieces; sometimes minor pieces as well);
• Identify the number of pages in each issue and the start page for each item included;
• Identify cover artists for each magazine, where credited, and (in a small number of cases) interior illustrators for the individual pieces;
• Identify any series of stories that featured the same character(s) or setting;
• Identify which author names are pseudonyms and, where possible, who the real author(s) was (see the Notes for a further discussion of this);
• Identify which stories are original and which are reprints including, where possible, identifying the first appearance of all such stories.

All of these areas presented problems of their own – some of which are discussed in more detail here – and are often “best guesses”, but hopefully this is more useful than not making the attempt.

As can be imagined with a project of this magnitude, the compilers would welcome any offers of assistance from anyone who has access to some of these magazines and is prepared to help out.

In particular:

1. The core of the index has been compiled from OCR scans of the two original indexes, rather than from the magazines themselves, and as such inevitably reproduce some of the mistakes inherent in those indexes (as well as undoubtedly introducing some new ones). We would love to hear from anyone who has a collection (whether large or small) of crime fiction magazines and would be prepared to compare the relevant sections of the index against their collections.

2. There are still a number of small gaps in earlier magazines (see here for a full list), but we would particularly love to hear from anyone who has any copies of a handful of magazines for which there are significant gaps:
   • Five-Cent Adventures
   • Five-Cent Flying Stories
   • Flight
   • George Bruce's Sky Fighters
   • Movie Thrillers
   • Prize Air Pilot Stories
   • Spicy Movie Tales
   • Thrilling Stories
   • Thrills
   • World War Stories

3. Although the index contains many issues of magazines published outside the US, the coverage of these is still woefully incomplete and we would love to hear from anybody who has adventure fiction magazines published in the UK (particularly reprint editions of US pulps), Australia, Canada, South Africa or New Zealand (or, indeed, any other country publishing adventure fiction magazines in the English language).

A list of all the magazines that are included in the index can be found here while a detailed list of the magazines and issues for which contents information is still needed can be found here.

If you think you can help with any of the above, or would just like more detail on the project, then please – all contributions are welcome, no matter how small!

Tiziano Agnelli	Alistair Durie	Steve Holland	Curt Phillips
Mike Ashley	Stefan Dziemianowicz	Richard Kahl	Rob Preston
Alan Azem	John Eggeling	Bruce Kiefer	Frank M. Robinson
Kimberley Becker	Larry Estep	Dennis Lien	David Saunders
Victor Berch	Richard Fidczuk	John Locke	Virgil Utter
Richard Bleiler	Douglas Greene	Neil Mechem	Morgan Wallace
Tony Davis	Monte Herridge	Kelly Mordaunt
Jane Naisbitt, Military History Research Centre, Canadian War Museum
Wendy G. Robicheau, Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University