Tor debuted in the science fiction field in the March 1981 issue of Locus: The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field, with a full-page advertisement of Poul Anderson's The Psychotechnic League, lavishly illustrated by Vincent DiFate.
Some of the early books included movie tie-ins and cartoon books for Dell and Simon & Schuster, as well as packaging books for Pocket/Wallaby (featuring such authors as Andre Norton, Roger Zelazny, and Alfred Bester). Tor (an old Anglo Saxon word meaning "summit" or "peak") designed a logo of a mountain in a circle, signed a distribution agreement, printed a group of books, sold them, and the company was launched early in 1981. McDougal, who previously worked as editor-in-chief of Ace, served as the nonfiction editor for TDA from her home in North Carolina. He became TDA's SF editor and continued to edit the Destinies series freelance. Baen's career had previously led him to be the editor of Galaxy magazine (1974-77) before he went to Ace in August 1977 as a senior editor, eventually getting promoted to vice-president in 1980.
James Patrick "Jim" Baen and Harriet McDougal were the first two employees of TDA, leaving Ace Books to go with Doherty. As one of its first business ventures, TDA created a new imprint in 1980 named Tor Books. After leaving Ace, with the help of some investors, including Pinnacle Books and Dell Distributing (who would produce and distribute TDA's early titles) and silent partner Richard Gallen (one of the most successful packagers in publishing history, with his own line, Dell Emerald Books), Doherty formed a corporation in New York with the legal name of Tom Doherty Associates Inc., whose business it was to publish books. In 1980, Tom Doherty, then the publisher of Ace Books-a venerable paperback publishing company that had more recently been bought and continued as an imprint under Grosset & Dunlap-decided to set up his own publishing company.
Tor Books has won virtually every major award in the SF and fantasy fields and its parent has been the winner of the Locus award for best publisher for the past 11 consecutive years. (TDA), better known by its imprint of Tor Books, is one of the leading publishers of science fiction (SF), fantasy, and horror.
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