Infinity Science Fiction, June 1956

A spaceman in full pressure suit pilots a control console bristling with dials and switches, his fists clenched in apparent urgency or triumph. Through the helmet visor, a crowd swarms across an alien landscape. The cover announces Charles Beaumont and Chad Oliver's "The Guests of Chance" alongside stories by Sheckley, Sohl, Blish, and Phillips.

Infinity occupied the tail end of pulp magazine's golden age, when painted covers sold adventure at thirty-five cents a copy. Though comic books had inherited pulp's genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror—magazines persisted through the 1950s, targeting readers who preferred longer-form narrative and sophisticated design. This cover, with its technical precision and high-stakes scenario, epitomizes pulp sf's promise: adventure among alien worlds, piloted by resourceful humans commanding incomprehensible machinery.