The magazine was the idea of Joel Davis of Davis Publications, who recruited the well-respected Isaac Asimov as editorial director, and George H. Scithers as editor. It was initially a quarterly magazine, first issue Spring 1977, then it changed to bimonthly in 1978, and monthly in 1979.
The magazine was sold to Bantam Doubleday Dell in October 1992 (a few months after Isaac's death), who changed the name to the less cumbersome "Asimov's Science Fiction".