Steve Davidson

Steven John Davidson was born on 18 December 1958. As a teenager and young adult in the New York area he was an enthusiastic science fiction fan, corresponding with magazines from at least 1978 and attending conventions. Friends later recalled him catching a bat in his hat at Iguanacon II, a story that became part of his early fannish lore.

Before publishing, he built a parallel reputation in competitive paintball, where he was ranked among the top 100 players of all time. After retiring from active competition he devoted his energy to science fiction editing and to preserving the history of the genre's earliest magazine.

In 2012 Davidson acquired the Amazing Stories trademark, then largely unused, and restarted the title as a website blog of news, reviews and commentary. He reconstituted Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing Company and gradually expanded into ebook and webzine issues.

A 2018 Kickstarter campaign raised more than 30,000 dollars and returned Amazing Stories to print, with Ira Nayman as editor. Print issues appeared from Fall 2018 through Summer 2020 before financial problems forced a pause in the paper edition. Davidson also edited the Best of Amazing Stories anthology series with Jean Marie Stine, reprinting classic material from the magazine's first years, and explored book imprints and new anthologies under the Amazing name.

He argued publicly for cooperation among short fiction magazines and for treating a magazine as a full experience of fiction, art, design and editorial voice. Authors including Allen Steele said Davidson's support rescued projects such as the Captain Future novellas when other publishers withdrew.

Davidson was the brother of Andy Davidson. In 2021, with help from genealogical research shared publicly by Nicholas Whyte, he was able to locate members of his biological family in New Jersey after learning that his birth parents had died, a search that friends said brought him a measure of closure.

Colleagues and fellow fans described him as a delighted fanboy over Amazing, hard-working, dedicated to the field and an advocate for social justice. He remained active in online science fiction communities and at conventions until late in life.

Steve Davidson died on 4 November 2026 at the age of 67. Amazing Stories and the fan newszine File 770 published tributes the same day. No cause of death was stated in the public announcements. The magazine said it would continue under new publisher Kermit Woodall, who pledged to carry forward Davidson's commitment to imaginative fiction, writers and artists, and the historic Amazing Stories name.

Davidson's lasting achievement was returning Amazing Stories, the magazine that helped define science fiction as a genre in 1926, to active publication in the twenty-first century. Through the website, print revival, anthologies and Experimenter Publishing he kept the title alive as both a historical landmark and a platform for new work.

Tributes from writers, editors and fans stressed his enthusiasm, practical support for short fiction and willingness to take risks on pulp traditions such as Captain Future. As Amazing Stories entered its second century under new leadership, colleagues framed its continued life as the tribute he would have wanted.