era; Malcolm Edwards regards Startling as second only to Astounding, but Ashley considers Thrilling Wonder to be Astoundings closest challenger in the late 1940s. Merwin's discoveries included Jack Vance, whose first story, "The World Thinker", appeared in the Summer 1945 issue. He also regularly published work by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, who wrote both under Kuttner's name and as "Keith Hammond": in a four-year period from 1946 to 1949 the writing team of Kuttner and Moore had seven novels published in Startling, mostly science fantasy, a subgenre not common at that time. Notable novels that appeared in the late 1940s include Fredric Brown's What Mad Universe and Charles L. Harness's Flight Into Yesterday, later published in book form as The Paradox Men. Arthur C. Clarke's novel The City and the Stars first saw print in Startling in abbreviated form, in the November 1948 issue, under the title Against the Fall of Night. One novel that did not appear in Startling was Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky, which Merwin had commissioned from Asimov in the early summer of 1947. After the unusual step of allowing the editor to twice read the work-in-progress and receiving nothing but approval, Asimov delivered a completed draft in September. This time, Merwin asked for revisions: Leo Margulies, Merwin's boss, had decided that Startling needed to focus more on action and adventure in the style of Amazing, and less on cerebral stories in the style of Astounding. Asimov, "for the first and only time of [his] life...openly lost [his] temper with an editor", stalked out of the room with his manuscript and never submitted anything to Merwin again, though he later expressed a softening of feeling and admitted Merwin had been within his rights. Another title in the Standard Magazines stable was Captain Future, which had been launched a year after Startling, and featured the adventures of the superhero after whom the magazine was named. When it folded with its Spring 1944 issue, the series of novels was continued for some time in the pages of Startling; over the next six years ten more "Captain Future" novels appeared, with the last one, Birthplace of Creation, printed in the May 1951 issue. Merwin's successor, Mines, also published some excellent work, though increased competition in the early 1950s from Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction did lead to some dilution of quality, and Startlings