Amazing Stories

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This article is about the magazine. For the television show, see Amazing Stories (TV series)

Amazing Stories magazine, sometimes retitled Amazing Science Fiction, was first published in April 1926 in New York City, thereby becoming the first magazine devoted exclusively to publishing stories in the genre presently known as science fiction (SF). It is regarded as the world's first science fiction magazine. After the April 2005 issue, the magazine went on "hiatus" and as of March 2006, the magazine's current publisher announced that it would no longer be published.

Created by Hugo Gernsback, with many of its covers by the legendary Frank R. Paul, it featured a much-imitated logo of the magazine name in ever-shrinking letters. Amazing Stories was filled with stories of "scientific romance". Gernsback coined the portmanteau word "scientifiction" (abbreviated "STF") as a name for the genre which, over the years, became science fiction.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Publishing history 2.1 The early years 2.2 1940s 2.3 1950s 2.4 1960s 3 Contents and reception 4 The Gernsback Amazing 5 After Gernsback 6 Publication details 6.1 Similarly named publications 6.2 Editors 7 Media crossovers 8 July, 1926 issue 9 Other Notable Issues 10 Notes 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Origins

By the end of the nineteenth century, scientific fiction stories were appearing with some regularity in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories naturally lent itself to tales of invention, in the tradition of Jules Verne.^[1] Magazines such as Munsey's Magazine and The Argosy, launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried at least a few science fiction stories each year. Some of the slick magazines also carried scientific stories, but by the early years of the twentieth century science fiction was appearing more often in the pulp magazines than in the slicks.^[2]

In 1908, Hugo Gernsback brought out the first issue of Modern Electrics, a magazine aimed at the scientific hobbyist. It was an immediate success, and Gernsback began to include articles on imaginative uses of science, such as "Wireless on Saturn", which appeared in the December 1908 issue.^[3] In April 1911 Gernsback began the serialization of his science fiction novel, Ralph 124C 41+; but in 1913 he sold his interest in the magazine to his partner, and launched a new magazine, Electrical Experimenter, which soon began to publish scientific fiction. In 1920 Gernsback retitled the magazine Science and Invention, and through the early 1920s he published much scientific fiction in its pages, along with non-fiction scientific articles.^[4]

Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics in 1921, changing its name to The Experimenter in 1924.^[5] It was also in about 1924 that Gernsback sent a letter to 25,000 people to gauge interest in the possibility of a magazine devoted to scientific fiction; in his words: "The response was such that the idea was given up for two years."^[6] However, in 1926 he decided to go ahead, and ceased publication of The Experimenter to make room in his publishing schedule for a new magazine. The editor of The Experimenter, T. O'Conor Sloane, thus became the editor of the new magazine, which was titled Amazing Stories; the first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926.^[7]

[edit] Publishing history

[edit] The early years

The editorial work was largely done by Sloane, but Gernsback retained final say over the fiction content. Two consultants were hired to help identify fiction to reprint: Conrad A. Brandt, and Wilbur C. Whitehead. Gernsback also hired Frank R. Paul as artist; Paul had worked with Gernsback as early as 1914, and had done many illustrations for the fiction in The Electrical Experimenter, though no covers. The magazine was issued in bedsheet format: (11 in x 8.5 in), the same size as the technical magazines.^[8] Amazing was an immediate success, and soon reached a very respectable circulation of 100,000. Gernsback soon realized that there was an enthusiastic readership for "scientifiction" (the term "science fiction" had not yet been coined), and in 1927 he issued an Amazing Stories Annual. This sold out and in January 1928 Gernsback launched a quarterly magazine titled Amazing Stories Quarterly as a regular companion to Amazing; it continued on a fairly regular schedule for 22 issues.^[9][10]

Gernsback was slow to pay his authors and other creditors; he was solvent overall but the extent of his investments limited his liquidity. On 20 February 1929 his printer and paper supplier opened bankruptcy proceedings against him. Experimenter Publishing was declared bankrupt in days, but because the assets left the magazine solvent, Amazing survived with its existing staff. Hugo and his brother, Sidney, were forced out as directors, and Arthur H. Lynch took over as editor-in-chief, though Sloane continued to have effective control of the magazine's contents. The receivers, Irving Trust, soon sold the magazine to B.A. Mackinnon,^[11][12] and in August 1931 Amazing was acquired by Teck Publications, a subsidiary of Bernarr Macfadden's Macfadden Publishing.^[13] Macfadden's deep pockets helped insulate Amazing from the financial strain caused by the Great Depression;^[14] Amazing Stories Quarterly's schedule began to stutter, but Amazing did not miss an issue in the early thirties.^[10] It became unprofitable to run over the next few years, however, and in October 1935 it went to a bimonthly schedule, and by 1938, with circulation down to only 15,000, Teck Publications was having financial problems. In January 1938 Ziff-Davis took over the magazine:^[15] the April issue was assembled by Sloane but published by Ziff-Davis. B. G. Davis ran Ziff-Davis's editorial department. Davis attempted to hire Roger Sherman Hoar as editor; Hoar turned down the job but suggested Raymond A. Palmer, an active local science fiction fan, and Palmer was duly hired that February, taking over editorial duties with the June 1938 issue.^[16] Palmer quickly managed to improve circulation, and in November 1938 Amazing went monthly again, though this did not last throughout Palmer's tenure: between 1944 and 1946 the magazine was bimonthly and then quarterly for a while before returning to a longer-lasting monthly schedule.^[10][17]

[edit] 1940s

In September 1943 Richard Shaver, an Amazing reader, began to correspond with Palmer, who soon asked him to write stories for the magazine. Shaver responded with a story called "I Remember Lemuria", published in the March 1945 issue, which was presented by Palmer as a mixture of truth and fiction. The story, about prehistoric civilizations, dramatically boosted Amazing's circulation, and Palmer ran a new Shaver story in every issue, culminating in the June 1947 special issue devoted entirely to the Shaver Mystery, as it was called.^[18] Amazing soon drew ridicule for these stories. A derisive article by William S. Baring-Gould in Harper's in September 1946 prompted William Ziff to tell Palmer to limit the amount of Shaver-related material in the magazine; Palmer complied, but his interest (and possibly belief) in this sort of material was now significant, and he soon began to plan to leave Ziff-Davis. In 1947 he formed Clark Publications, launching Fate the following year, and in 1949 he resigned from Ziff-Davis to edit this and other magazines.^[19]

Howard Browne, who had been on a leave of absence to write fiction, took over as editor, and began by throwing away 300,000 words of inventory that Palmer had acquired before he left.^[20] Browne had ambitions of moving Amazing upmarket, and his argument was strengthened by Street & Smith, one of the longest established and most respected publishers, who shut down all of their pulp magazines in the summer of 1949. The pulps were dying, largely as a result of the success of the pocketbook, and Street & Smith decided to concentrate on their slick magazines. Some pulps struggled on for a few more years, but Browne was able to persuade Ziff and Davis that the future was in the slicks, and they raised his fiction budget from one cent to a ceiling of five cents a word. Browne managed to get promises of new stories from many name authors, including Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon, and produced a dummy issue in April 1950. The plan of launching the new incarnation of Amazing in April 1951 (the 25th anniversary of the first issue) was cut short by the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950; budgets were being cut in the wake of the economic impact of the war, and Ziff-Davis never revived the idea.^[21]

[edit] 1950s

Browne's interest in Amazing declined when the project to turn it into a slick magazine was derailed, and although he stayed involved with Fantastic Adventures, Amazing's stable-mate at Ziff-Davis, he left the editing work on Amazing to William Hamling and Lila Shaffer. In December 1950, when Ziff-Davis moved their offices from Chicago to New York, Hamling stayed behind in Chicago and Browne became more involved with the magazine once again.^[22] In 1952, Browne persuaded Ziff-Davis to try a high-quality digest fantasy magazine. The result was Fantastic, which appeared in the summer of that year, focusing on fantasy rather than science fiction, and which was so successful that it persuaded Ziff-Davis to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest in early 1953 (while also switching to a bimonthly schedule). Circulation fell, however, perhaps because the existing readership were not interested in Browne's approach to the magazine. This led to budget cuts, which limited the story quality in both Amazing and Fantastic. Fantastic began to print science fiction as well as fantasy, and circulation increased as a result, but Browne, who was not a science fiction aficionado, once again lost interest in the magazines.^[23]

In 1956 Browne left Ziff-Davis. The new editor was Paul W. Fairman, who took over with the September 1956 issue.^[24][25] Early in Fairman's tenure, Bernard Davis decided to try issuing a companion series of novels, titled Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novels. Readers' letters in Amazing had indicated a desire for novels, which Amazing did not have room to run. The novel series did not last: only one, Henry Slesar's 20 Million Miles to Earth, appeared. However, in response to readers' interest in longer fiction, Ziff-Davis expanded Amazing by 16 pages, starting with the March 1958 issue, and the magazine began to run complete novels.^[26]

Fairman left to edit Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine at the end of 1958, and his place was taken by Cele Goldsmith. Goldsmith had been hired in 1955 as a secretary, and became assistant editor to help cope with the additional work created when Ziff-Davis launched two short-lived magazines in 1956, Dream World and Pen Pals. When Fairman left a consultant, Norman Lobsenz, was hired to work with Goldsmith, as Ziff-Davis weren't sure she was capable of taking on the editorial duties, but she performed well, and Lobsenz's involvement soon became minimal.^[27]

[edit] 1960s

Goldsmith was an innovative editor who is well regarded by science fiction historians,^[28] but circulation lagged during her tenure. By 1964 Fantastic's circulation was down to 27,000, with Amazing doing little better. The following March both magazines were sold to Ultimate Publishing Company, run by Sol Cohen and Arthur Bernhard.Goldsmith was given the choice of going with the magazines or staying with Ziff-Davis; she stayed, and Cohen hired Joseph Wrzos to edit the magazines, starting with the August and September 1965 issues of Amazing and Fantastic, respectively. Wrzos used the name "Joseph Ross" on the mastheads to avoid mis-spellings.^[29] Both magazines immediately moved to a bi-monthly schedule.^[30][31]

Cohen had acquired reprint rights to the magazines' back issues, although Wrzos did get Cohen to agree to print one new story every issue. Cohen was also producing reprint magazines such as Great Science Fiction and Science Fiction Classics, but no payment was made to authors for any of these reprints. This brought Cohen into conflict with the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), a professional writers' organization formed in 1965. Soon SFWA called for a boycott of Ultimate's magazines until Cohen agreed to make payments. Cohen agreed to pay a flat fee for all stories, and then in August 1967 agreed to a graduated rate, depending on the length of the story.^[32] Harry Harrison had acted as an intermediary in Cohen's negotiations with SFWA, and when Wrzos left in 1967, Cohen asked Harrison to take over. SF Impulse, which Harrison had been editing, had folded in February 1967, so Harrison was available. He secured Cohen's agreement that the policy of printing almost nothing but reprinted stories would be phased out by the end of the year, and took over as editor with the September 1967 issue.^[33]

By February 1968 Harrison decided to leave, as Cohen was showing no signs of abandoning the reprints. He resigned, and suggested to Cohen that Barry Malzberg might be interested in taking over. Malzberg took over in April 1968. Cohen knew Malzberg from his work at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and thought that he might be more amenable than Harrison to continuing the reprint policy. In the event Malzberg immediately came into conflict with Cohen over the issue, and then threatened to resign in October 1968 over a disagreement about artwork Malzberg had commissioned for a cover. Cohen contacted Robert Silverberg, the then-current president of SFWA, and told him (falsely) that Malzberg had actually resigned. Silverberg recommended Ted White as a replacement. Cohen secured White's agreement and then fired Malzberg; White assumed control with the May 1969 issue.^[34]

[edit] Contents and reception

Gernsback's editorial in the first issue asserted that "Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are also always instructive".^[35] He had always believed that "scientifiction", as he called these stories, had educational power, but he now understood that the fiction had to entertain as well as instruct.^[36]

The first issue of Amazing contained only reprints, beginning with a serialization of Off on a Comet, by Jules Verne. In keeping with Gernsback's new approach, this was one of Verne's least scientifically plausible novels. Also included were H. G. Wells's "The New Accelerator", and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"; Gernsback put the names of all three authors on the cover. He also reprinted three more recent stories. Two came from his own magazine, Science and Invention; these were "The Man from the Atom" by G. Peyton Wertenbacker and "The Thing from—'Outside'" by George Allan England. The third was Austin Hall's "The Man Who Saved the Earth", which had appeared in All-Story Weekly.^[37]

In the June 1926 issue Gernsback announced a competition to write a short story around a cover drawn by Paul, with a first prize of $250. The competition drew over 360 entries, seven of which were eventually printed in Amazing. The winner was Cyril G. Wates, who sold three more stories to Gernsback in the late 1920s. Two other entrants were more successful: one was Clare Winger Harris, whose story, "The Fate of the Poseidonia", took third place in the competition, and was published in the June 1927 issue as by "Mrs. F.C. Harris". The other notable entrant was A. Hyatt Verrill, with "The Voice from the Inner World", which appeared in July 1927.^[38][39]

[edit] The Gernsback Amazing

Gernsback attempted to create a premium product, and had visions of a world made anew by science. Pulp magazines were about 180 x 250 mm, with ragged (uncut) edges; 'Amazing Stories' was larger, 200 x 280 mm, the so-called bedsheet format, with neatly trimmed edges and a slightly higher cover price.

Gernsback frequently reprinted those writers he considered the fathers of science ficton: H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe. There were frequent reprints, as it took a few years to build up a level of available new writers for more original material.

Modern science fiction fandom dates its birth to these two magazines. Amazing printed reader comments in a letter column which included the full addresses of its correspondents, which allowed fans of the genre to begin contacting each other in person and via the mails, while Wonder Stories began chartering local fan clubs under the umbrella of the Science Fiction League.

[edit] After Gernsback

Amazing altered its format to the more traditional pulp size with rough-cut pages and for some years it followed a less serious bent under editor Raymond A. Palmer, achieving commercial success but critical derision for its "Shaver Mystery" stories of creatures allegedly inside the Earth which were presented as fact rather than as SF.^[40] At Ziff Davis, Amazing soon gained a companion title, Fantastic Adventures, also edited by Palmer, which quickly became a more fantasy-oriented magazine. Fantastic Adventures was published until 1954, two years after Amazing changed from pulp to digest format, and Fantastic Adventures was merged with the more successful digest Fantastic, which had been founded in 1952. Both digest magazines attempted a more sophisticated or at least "slick" approach during these years, but were soon back to publishing space opera, under editor Howard Browne and his successor, Paul W. Fairman.

In 1959, Cele Goldsmith became editor, and began to publish some of the better new writers, including Ward Moore and Ursula K. Le Guin. She was the first to publish Roger Zelazny, Thomas M. Disch, Keith Laumer and others in a professional magazine.

Amazing continued publication more or less continuously from 1926 until the 1990s under various editors, publishers and formats, after Fantastic had been merged with it in 1980. During its final decade it was published erratically, and eventually Wizards of the Coast cancelled a version published by Pierce Watters.

In 2004 it was relaunched by Paizo Publishing, but after the April 2005 issue, the magazine went on "hiatus". In March 2006, Paizo announced that it would no longer publish Amazing. ^[41]

[edit] Publication details

[edit] Similarly named publications

In its early actual pulp years, there were companion titles including Amazing Stories Quarterly and Fantastic Adventures Quarterly. At the time, "returns" were complete copies of the magazines, so they were stripped of their original covers and three consecutive issues would be bound together under one new cover and offered for sale again.

The title Amazing has also been used for unconnected publications including the British science fiction magazine Amazing Science Stories (1951).

[edit] Editors

• Hugo Gernsback (April 1926-April 1929)
• Arthur Lynch (May 1929-October 1929)
• T. O'Conor Sloane (November 1929-May 1939)
• Raymond A. Palmer (June 1939-December 1939)
• Bernard G. Davis (January 1940-May 1946)
• Raymond A. Palmer (June 1946-December 1949)
• Howard Browne (January 1950-August 1956)
• Paul W. Fairman (September 1956-December 1958)
• Cele Goldsmith Lalli (January 1959-June 1965)
• Joseph Wrzos (August 1965-October 1967)
• Harry Harrison (December 1967-September 1968)
• Barry N. Malzberg (November 1968-January 1969)
• Ted White (March 1969-February 1979)
• Elinor Mavor (May 1979-August 1981 under the pseudonym Omar Gohagen, November 1981-September 1982 under her own name)
• George H. Scithers (November 1982-July 1986)
• Patrick Lucien Price (September 1986-March1991)
• Kim Mohan (May 1991-1995 and 1998-2000)
• David Gross (May 2004-October 2004)
• Jeff Berkwits (October 2004-March 2005)

B.G. Davis held the title of Editor at all Ziff-Davis magazines but had little daily involvement at Amazing. After Browne's departure, Norman Lobsenz was Editorial Director (writing editorials but not buying stories) until the magazine was sold to Sol Cohen (Ultimate Publishing Company).^[42] During Cohen's first years, the magazine was edited entirely by Joseph Wrzos, who signed himself "Joseph Ross." Cohen concentrated on acquiring artwork (both old and new) and on layouts and production. Elinor Mavor used the title Editorial & Art Director for a while before dropping "Omar Gohagen" completely. Pierce Watters was "Executive Editor" and superior to Mohan during Mohan's second term.

[edit] Media crossovers

Director Steven Spielberg licensed the title for use on an American television show called Amazing Stories that ran from 1985 to 1987. Spielberg named it after the magazine, which his father had read since he was a child.^{[citation needed]}

Between 1998 and 2000, Amazing Stories published the first (and, to date, only) officially licensed magazine short stories based upon the Star Trek franchise. In 2002, these stories were reissued by Pocket Books in the collection Star Trek: The Amazing Stories.

Amazing Stories also published several Babylon 5 stories written by J. Michael Straczynski.

A short story by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, "Birth of a Notion", tells how a time-travelling physicist briefly visits Hugo Gernsback and plants the idea for the title Amazing Stories.

[edit] July, 1926 issue

Amazing Stories, Volume 1, Number 4, gives a feeling of the original magazine. ^[43] The cover features a Frank R. Paul illustration of giant house fly, many times the size of a man. It is attacking a naval vessel, which is firing artillery at it. The lower-right corner boldly proclaims "Stories by H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Garrett P. Serviss". At the bottom of the cover is the legend "Experimenter Publishing Company, New York, publishers of Radio News — Science & Invention — Radio Review — Amazing Stories — Radio Internacional" [sic].

There were 96 pages, but the page numbering continued from the previous issue. The only non-fiction is a 1-page editorial in which Gernsback expands on the magazine's motto: Extravagant Fiction Today . . . Cold Fact Tomorrow.

The contents page lists:

• G. McLeod Windsor, Station X (part 1 of 3 parts)
• H. G. Wells, The Man Who Could Work Miracles
• Jacque Morgan, The Scientific Adventures of Mr. Fosdick: The Feline Light and Power Company Is Organised (a humorous piece about trying to generate usable static electricity from cats)
• Garrett P. Serviss, The Moon Metal
• Curt Siodmak, The Eggs From Lake Tanganyika
• Hugo Gernsback, The Magnetic Storm
• Edgar Allan Poe, The Sphinx
• Jules Verne, A Trip To The Centre of The Earth (last part of serial)
• Clement Fezandié, Doctor Hackensaw's Secrets: The Secret of the Invisible Girl

Each story has a full page illustration. There are a very few small advertisements (magic tricks, trusses, etc.) and classified advertisements (For sale: Rharostine "B" Eliminator, $15).

[edit] Other Notable Issues

The August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories has become a sought-after collectors item.^{[citation needed]} It is important in the history of the space opera subgenre because it includes Armageddon 2419 A.D. - the first appearance of Buck Rogers - and E.E. Smith's The Skylark of Space, considered one of the first space opera novels. Though Armageddon 2419 A.D. was not a space opera, the comic strip based on it certainly was.

The July 1940 issue of Amazing featured an illustration by Frank R. Paul on the back cover. It showed a model of an Earthling, as imagined by Martians, that included a small image of Earth as a cloudless blue planet. Forrest J Ackerman cites this as one of the earliest corrections to the popular pre-spaceflight image of Earth as a green world.^[44]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Checklist of issues (1926-2005).
• Frank R Paul Gallery - Amazing covers, especially 1926-1929
• Archive of Amazing Stories covers
• Index of Amazing Magazine issues and contents
• Cover art with artist's name and contents (1926-1967)

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