and starting two magazines: Universe Science Fiction and Science Stories. Universe's first issue appeared in June 1953, while Other Worlds was still being published. It was financed by Palmer's partner, and intended as a bimonthly, though in fact the first four issues were on a quarterly schedule. It was edited by Palmer and Mahaffey, who used the collective pseudonym "George Bell" for the first two issues. Science Stories followed in October, also edited by Palmer and Mahaffey as "George Bell", and published by Bell Publications; this was effectively the same magazine as Other Worlds Science Stories, with "Other Worlds" dropped from the title. In the second issue of Science Stories, Palmer explained the reason for the new magazine: "For a variety of reasons—and let's be honest, most of them were financial—we had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision to discontinue Other Worlds and replace it with the magazine you are now reading. We phoned the typesetter, halted work on the August OW, and lifted the editorial and stories we needed for Science Stories No. 1 from OW material on hand". Subscribers to Other Worlds were given the option to continue their subscription with whichever of the two magazines they preferred. When the anonymous businessman lost interest in the project Palmer bought him out, financed by the sale of his half share in Clark Publications, which had published Other Worlds and Fate. He founded Palmer Publications and took over the new magazines with Universe's third issue and Science Stories' second issue, and abandoned the pseudonym. He launched Mystic Magazine, which, like Fate, published occult material, both fact and fiction. Science Stories failed to sell well, and ceased to appear after the April 1954 issue, but Universe continued, going bimonthly after the March 1954 issue. A total of ten issues appeared under the title Universe Science Fiction, and with the May 1955 issue the title Other Worlds Science Fiction reappeared. The new version of Other Worlds initially carried both Universe's numbering and the issue numbering from the original run of Other Worlds. Palmer closed the offices in Evanston, Illinois, and edited the magazine from his home in Wisconsin; Mahaffey continued to work on the magazine by mail from Cincinnati. From November 1955 the format changed to pulp size: this was against the prevailing market winds, as almost all the pulps had died out by this time. In 1956 an unexpected tax bill forced