Enter a Big Archive of Wonderful Tales, the World’s First Science Fiction Journal, Launched in 1926

If you happen to haven’t heard of Hugo Gerns­again, you’ve certain­ly heard of the Hugo Award. Subsequent to the Neb­u­la, it’s probably the most pres­ti­gious of sci­ence fic­tion prizes, convey­ing togeth­er in its ranks of win­ners such ven­er­a­ble authors as Ursu­la Okay. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Hein­lein, Neil Gaiman, Isaac Asi­mov, and nearly each oth­er sci-fi and fan­ta­sy lumi­nary you might consider. It’s certainly match­ting that such an hon­or needs to be named for Gerns­again, the Lux­em­bour­gian-Amer­i­can inven­tor who, in April of 1926, started pub­lish­ing “the primary and longest-run­ning Eng­lish-lan­guage magazine­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed to what was then not fairly but known as ‘sci­ence fic­tion,’” notes Uni­ver­si­ty of Virginia’s Andrew Fer­gu­son at The Pulp Magazine­a­zines Venture. Amaz­ing Sto­ries professional­vid­ed an “exclu­sive out­let” for what Gerns­again first known as “sci­en­tific­tion,” a style he would “for wager­ter and for worse, outline for the mod­ern period.” You may learn and down­load hun­dreds of Amaz­ing Sto­ries points, from the primary yr of its pub­li­ca­tion to the final, on the Inter­web Archive.

Just like the exten­sive record of Hugo Award win­ners, the again cat­a­log of Amaz­ing Sto­ries encom­cross­es a number of genius­es: Le Guin, Asi­mov, H.G. Wells, Philip Okay. Dick, J.G. Bal­lard, and lots of hun­dreds of much less­er-known writ­ers. However the magazine­a­zine “was sluggish to devel­op,” writes Scott Van Wyns­berghe. Its lurid cov­ers lured some learn­ers in, however its “first two years have been dom­i­nat­ed by preprint­ed mate­r­i­al,” and Gerns­again devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for finan­cial dodgi­ness and for not pay­ing his writ­ers effectively or in any respect.

By 1929, he bought the magazine­a­zine and moved on to oth­er ven­tures, none of them par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful. Amaz­ing Sto­ries sol­diered on, underneath a collection of edi­tors and with broad­ly fluctuate­ing learn­er­ships till it last­ly suc­cumbed in 2005, after nearly eighty years of pub­li­ca­tion. However that’s no small feat in such an typically unpop­u­lar area, with a pub­li­ca­tion, writes Fer­gu­son, that was fairly often per­ceived as “gar­ish and non­lit­er­ary.”

In hind­sight, how­ev­er, we will see Amaz­ing Sto­ries as a sci-fi time cap­sule and nearly essen­tial fea­ture of the style’s his­to­ry, even when a few of its con­tent have a tendency­ed extra towards the younger grownup adven­ture sto­ry than seri­ous grownup fic­tion. Its flashy cov­ers set the bar for pulp magazine­a­zines and com­ic books, espe­cial­ly in its run as much as the fifties. After 1955, the yr of the primary Hugo Award, the magazine­a­zine reached its peak underneath the edi­tor­ship of Cele Gold­smith, who took over in 1959. Gone was a lot of the attention­pop­ping B‑film imagery of the ear­li­er cov­ers. Amaz­ing Sto­ries acquired a brand new lev­el of rel­a­tive pol­ish and sophis­ti­ca­tion, and pub­lished many extra “lit­er­ary” writ­ers, as within the 1959 subject above, which fea­tured a “E-book-Size Nov­el by Robert Bloch.”

This development con­tin­ued into the sev­en­ties, as you’ll be able to see within the subject above, with a “com­plete brief nov­el by Gor­don Eklund” (and ear­ly fic­tion by George R.R. Mar­tin). In 1982, Fer­gu­son writes, Amaz­ing Sto­ries was bought “to Gary Gygax of D&D fame, and would nev­er once more regain the promi­nence it had earlier than.” The magazine­a­zine massive­ly returned to its pulp roots, with cov­ers that resem­bled these of tremendous­mar­ket paper­backs. Nice writ­ers con­tin­ued to seem, how­ev­er. And the magazine­a­zine remained an impor­tant supply for brand spanking new sci­ence fiction—although a lot of it solely in hind­sight. As for Gerns­again, his rep­u­ta­tion waned con­sid­er­ably after his dying in 1967.

“With­in a decade,” writes Van Wyns­berghe, “sci­ence fic­tion pun­dits have been debat­ing whether or not or not he had cre­at­ed a ‘ghet­to’ for hack writ­ers.” In 1986, nov­el­ist Bri­an Ald­iss known as Gerns­again “one of many worst dis­as­ters ever to hit the sci­ence fic­tion area.” His 1911 nov­el, the ludi­crous­ly named Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Yr 2660 is con­sid­ered “one of many worst sci­ence fic­tion nov­els in his­to­ry,” writes Matthew Lasar. It might appear odd that the Oscar of the sci-fi world needs to be named for such a reviled fig­ure. And but, regardless of his professional­nounced lack of lit­er­ary abil­i­ty, Gerns­again was a imaginative and prescient­ary. As a futur­ist, he made some star­tling­ly accu­charge pre­dic­tions, together with some not-so-accu­charge ones. As for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to a brand new type of writ­ing, writes Lasar, “It was in Amaz­ing Sto­ries that Gerns­again first tried to nail down the sci­ence fic­tion concept.” As Ray Brad­bury sup­pos­ed­ly mentioned, “Gerns­again made us fall in love with the longer term.” Enter the Amaz­ing Sto­ries Inter­web Archive right here.

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2017.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ency­clo­pe­dia of Sci­ence Fic­tion: 17,500 Entries on All Issues Sci-Fi Are Now Free On-line

Down­load Problems with “Bizarre Tales” (1923–1954): The Pio­neer­ing Pulp Hor­ror Magazine­a­zine Fea­tures Orig­i­nal Sto­ries by Love­craft, Brad­bury & Many Extra

Dis­cov­er the First Hor­ror & Fan­ta­sy Magazine­a­zine, Der Orchideen­garten, and Its Weird Artwork­work (1919–1921)

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian primarily based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness