Amazing Stories was an American
science fiction magazineA science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....
launched in April 1926 by
Hugo GernsbackHugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Before
Amazing, science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but
Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of
pulp fictionPulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
.
Amazing was published, with some interruptions, for almost eighty years. The title first changed hands in 1929, when Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy and lost control of the magazine.
Amazing became unprofitable during the 1930s and in 1938 was purchased by Ziff-Davis, who hired
Raymond A. PalmerRaymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications...
as editor. Palmer made the magazine successful though it was not regarded as a quality magazine within the science fiction community. In the late 1940s
Amazing began to print stories about the Shaver Mystery, a lurid mythos which explained accidents and disaster as the work of robots named "deros"; the stories were presented as fact, and led to dramatically increased circulation but also widespread ridicule. Palmer was replaced by
Howard BrowneHoward Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
in 1949, who briefly entertained plans of taking
Amazing upmarket. These plans came to nothing, though
Amazing did switch to a
digest formatDigest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
in 1953, shortly before the end of the pulp-magazine era. A brief period under the editorship of
Paul W. FairmanPaul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
was followed, at the end of 1958, by the leadership of Cele Goldsmith. Despite her lack of experience she was able to bring new life to the magazine, and her years are regarded as one of
Amazings most creative eras. She was unable to arrest the declining circulation, though, and the magazine was sold to Sol Cohen's Universal Publishing Company in 1965.
Under Cohen Amazing
was filled almost entirely with reprinted stories. Cohen did not pay a reprint fee to the authors of these stories, and this brought him into conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America. The conflict cost Amazing
two successive editors (Harry HarrisonHarry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
and Barry N. MalzbergBarry Nathaniel Malzberg is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.-Overview:Initially in his post-graduate work Malzberg sought to establish himself as a playwright as well as a prose-fiction writer. His first two published novels were issed by Olympia Press...
) in a short period at the end of the 1960s. Ted WhiteTed White is a Hugo Award-winning American writer, known as a science fiction author and editor and fan, as well as a music critic...
took over as editor after Malzberg, eliminated the reprints and made the magazine a respected name again: Amazing
was nominated for the prestigious Hugo awardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
three times during his tenure. White left at the end of the 1970s. The 1980s saw Amazing pass into the hands of
TSRBlume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
in 1983 and
Wizards of the CoastWizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
(who purchased TSR in 1997), who made intermittent attempts over the next twenty years to create a successful modern incarnation of the magazine. A last attempt was made by
Paizo PublishingPaizo Publishing is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that specializes in game aids and adventures for "the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game" and its flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder...
at the end of 2004, but publication was suspended after the March 2005 issue and never resumed.
Gernsback's initial editorial approach was to blend instruction with entertainment; he believed science fiction could educate readers. His audience rapidly showed a preference for implausible adventures, however, and the movement away from Gernsback's idealism accelerated when the magazine changed hands in 1929. Despite this, Gernsback had an enormous impact on the field: the creation of a specialist magazine for science fiction spawned an entire genre publishing industry. The letter columns in Amazing
, where fans could make contact with each other, led to the formation of science fiction fandom, which in turn had a strong influence on the development of the field. Writers whose first story was published in the magazine include Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, Howard FastHoward Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.-Early life:Fast was born in New York City...
, Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
, Roger ZelaznyRoger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
, and Thomas M. DischThomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
. Overall, though, Amazing itself was rarely an influential magazine within the genre. Some critics have commented that by "ghettoizing" science fiction, Gernsback in fact did harm to its literary growth, but this viewpoint has been countered by the argument that science fiction needed an independent market in which to develop if it were to reach its potential.
Origins
By the end of the 19th century, stories centered on scientific inventions, and stories set in the future, were appearing regularly in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories lent itself to tales of invention in the tradition of
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
. Magazines such as
Munsey's MagazineMunsey's Weekly, later known as Munsey's Magazine was a thirty-six page quarto magazine founded by Frank A. Munsey in 1889. Munsey aimed at "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". John Kendrick Bangs was the editor. The...
and The ArgosyArgosy was an American pulp magazine, published by Frank Munsey. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.-Launch of Argosy:In late September 1882,...
, launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried a few science fiction stories each year. Some upmarket "slick" magazines such as McClure'sMcClure's or McClure's Magazine was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with creating muckraking journalism. Ida Tarbell's series in 1902 exposing the monopoly abuses of John D...
, which paid well and were aimed at a more literary audience, also carried scientific stories, but by the early years of the 20th century, science fiction (though it was not yet called that) was appearing more often in the pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s than in the slicks.
In 1908, Hugo Gernsback published the first issue of Modern ElectricsModern Electrics was a technical magazine for the amateur radio experimenter. It was created by Hugo Gernsback and began publication in April 1908. The magazine was initially intended to provide mail-order information for radio parts and to promote the amateur radio hobby, but it later became a...
, 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" (December 1908). In April 1911, Gernsback began the serialization of his science fiction novel, Ralph 124C 41+Ralph 124C 41+, by Hugo Gernsback, is an early science fiction novel, written as a twelve-part serial in Modern Electrics magazine beginning in April 1911. It was later compiled into a novel/book form in 1925. While one of the most influential science fiction stories of all time, modern critics...
, but in 1913 he sold his interest in the magazine to his partner and launched a new magazine, Electrical ExperimenterThe Electrical Experimenter was a technical science magazine that was published monthly. It was first published in May 1913, as the successor to Modern Electrics, a combination of a magazine and mail-order catalog that had been published by Hugo Gernsback starting in 1908...
, 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.
Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics
in 1921. In 1924, he changed its name to The Experimenter
, and 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." 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 SloaneThomas O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. was the editor of Amazing Stories from 1929 through 1938. In that year, publisher Ziff-Davis moved production of the magazine to Chicago and named Raymond A. Palmer as Sloane's successor....
, became the editor of Amazing Stories. The first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926.
Early years
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| 1926 |
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| 1927 |
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| 1928 |
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| 1929 |
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| 1930 |
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| 1931 |
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| 1932 |
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| 1933 |
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| 1934 |
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| 1935 |
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| 1936 |
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| 1937 |
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| 1938 |
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| 1939 |
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Issues of Amazing to 1939, identifying volume and issue numbers, and indicating
editors: Gernsback (yellow), Lynch (red), Sloane (blue), and Palmer (purple) |
The editorial work was largely done by Sloane, but Gernsback retained final say over the fiction content. Two consultants, Conrad A. Brandt and Wilbur C. Whitehead, were hired to help find fiction to reprint.
Frank R. PaulFrank Rudolph Paul was an illustrator of US pulp magazines in the science fiction field. He was born in Vienna, Austria and died at his home in Teaneck, New Jersey....
, who had worked with Gernsback as early as 1914, became the cover artist; Paul had produced many illustrations for the fiction in The Electrical Experimenter
. Amazing
was issued in the large bedsheetThe bedsheet format was the size of many magazines published in the United States in the first third of the 20th century. Magazines in bedsheet format were roughly the size of Life but with square spines...
format, 8.5 × 11.75 in (216 × 298 mm), the same size as the technical magazines. It was an immediate success and soon reached a very respectable circulation of 100,000. Gernsback saw there was an enthusiastic readership for "scientifiction" (the term "science fiction" had not yet been coined), and in 1927 he issued Amazing Stories Annual
. The annual sold out, and in January 1928, Gernsback launched a quarterly magazine, Amazing Stories Quarterly
, as a regular companion to Amazing. It continued on a fairly regular schedule for 22 issues.
Gernsback was slow to pay his authors and creditors; the extent of his investments limited his liquidity. On 20 February 1929 his printer and paper supplier opened bankruptcy proceedings against him. It has been suggested that
Bernarr MacfaddenBernarr Macfadden was an influential American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories...
, another magazine publisher, maneuvered to force the bankruptcy because Gernsback would not sell his titles to Macfadden, but this is unproven. Experimenter Publishing was declared bankrupt in days; Amazing
survived with its existing staff, but Hugo and his brother, Sidney, were forced out as directors. 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, and in August 1931, Amazing
was acquired by Teck Publications, a subsidiary of Bernarr Macfadden's Macfadden Publishing. Macfadden's deep pockets helped insulate Amazing
from the financial strain caused by the Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. The schedule of Amazing Stories Quarterly
began to slip, but Amazing
did not miss an issue in the early 1930s. However, it became unprofitable to publish over the next few years. Circulation dropped to little more than 25,000 in 1934, and in October 1935 it switched to a bimonthly schedule.
By 1938, with Amazing
's circulation down to only 15,000, Teck Publications was having financial problems. In January 1938 Ziff-Davis took over the magazine; the April issue was assembled by Sloane but published by Ziff-Davis.
Bernard DavisBernard George Davis was an American publishing executive. He and William B. Ziff, Sr. founded Ziff Davis Inc. in 1927. In 1957, he sold his ownership share of Ziff-Davis to William Ziff, Jr., and left to found Davis Publishing. -Further reading:"Ziff Davis Corporate Timeline." Ziff Davis. 7 Nov...
, who ran Ziff-Davis's editorial department, attempted to hire
Roger Sherman HoarRoger Sherman Hoar was a state senator and assistant Attorney General, state of Massachusetts. He also wrote science fiction under the pseudonym of "Ralph Milne Farley".-Family:...
as editor; Hoar turned down the job but suggested
Raymond A. PalmerRaymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications...
, an active local science fiction fan. Palmer was hired that February, taking over editorial duties with the June 1938 issue. Ziff-Davis launched
Fantastic AdventuresFantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
, a fantasy companion to Amazing
, in May 1939, also under Palmer's editorship. Palmer quickly managed to improve Amazing's circulation, and in November 1938, the magazine 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.
1940s
| | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 1940 |
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| 1941 |
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| 1942 |
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| 1943 |
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| 1946 |
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| 1947 |
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| 1948 |
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| 1949 |
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Issues of Amazing in the 1940s, with the volume/issue number identified. Ray Palmer
was editor throughout the 1940s so only a single color is used. |
In September 1943
Richard ShaverRichard Sharpe Shaver was an American writer and artist.He achieved notoriety in the years following World War II as the author of controversial stories which were printed in science fiction magazines , in which he claimed that he had personal experience of a sinister, ancient...
, 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 Amazings circulation, and Palmer ran a new Shaver story in every issue, culminating in a special issue in June 1947 devoted entirely to the Shaver Mystery, as it was called.
Amazing soon drew ridicule for these stories. A derisive article by
William S. Baring-GouldWilliam Stuart Baring-Gould was a noted Sherlock Holmes scholar, best known as the author of the influential 1962 fictional biography, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A life of the world's first consulting detective.-Biography:...
in the September 1946 issue of
Harper's 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 planning 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 that and other magazines.
Howard Browne, who had been on a leave of absence from Ziff-Davis to write fiction, took over as editor and began by throwing away 300,000 words of inventory that Palmer had acquired before he left. Browne had ambitions of moving
Amazing upmarket, and his argument was strengthened by
Street & SmithStreet & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc. was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as pulp fiction and dime novels. They also published comic books and sporting yearbooks...
, 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
pocketbooksPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
, 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 per word. Browne managed to get promises of new stories from many well-known authors, including
Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
and
Theodore SturgeonTheodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...
. He produced a dummy issue in April 1950, and planned to launch the new incarnation of
Amazing in April 1951, the 25th anniversary of the first issue. However, the economic impact of the
Korean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, which broke out in June 1950, led to budget cuts. The plans were cancelled, and Ziff-Davis never revived the idea.
1950s
| | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 1950 |
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| 1951 |
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| 1952 |
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| 1953 |
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| 1954 |
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| 1956 |
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| 1957 |
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| 1958 |
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| 1959 |
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Issues of Amazing in the 1950s, identifying volume and issue numbers, and
indicating editors: Browne (green), Fairman (dark yellow), and Goldsmith (orange) |
Browne's interest in
Amazing declined when the project to turn it into a slick magazine was derailed. Although he stayed involved with
Fantastic AdventuresFantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
, another Ziff-Davis magazine, he left the editing work on
Amazing to
William HamlingWilliam "Bill" Hamling was a British Labour Party politician.Hamling was educated at Liverpool University and was a signals officer in the Royal Marines during World War II....
and Lila Shaffer. In December 1950, when Ziff-Davis moved their offices from Chicago to New York, Hamling stayed behind in Chicago, and Browne revived his involvement with the magazine.
In 1952, Browne convinced Ziff-Davis to try a high-quality digest fantasy magazine.
FantasticFantastic was an American digest-size fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by Ziff-Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories. Early sales were good, and Ziff-Davis quickly decided to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest, and to cease...
, which appeared in the summer of that year, focused on
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
rather than science fiction and 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, and subsequent budget cuts limited the story quality in both
Amazing and
Fantastic.
Fantastic began to print science fiction as well as fantasy. Circulation increased as a result, but Browne, who was not a science fiction aficionado, once again lost interest in the magazines.
Paul W. FairmanPaul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
replaced Browne as editor in September 1956. 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 SlesarHenry Slesar was an American author, playwright, and copywriter. He was also known as O.H. Leslie and Jay Street.-Early life:...
'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.
Fairman left to edit
Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
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,
Dream World and
Pen Pals, in 1956. Ziff-Davis were not confident of Goldsmith's abilities as an editor, so when Fairman left, a consultant, Norman Lobsenz, was hired to work with her. She performed well, however, and Lobsenz's involvement soon became minimal.
1960s
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| 1960 |
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Issues of Amazing in the 1960s, identifying volume and issue numbers, and indicating
editors: Goldsmith (Lalli) (orange), Wrzos (purple), Harrison (green), Malzberg
(yellow), and White (blue) |
Goldsmith is well regarded by science fiction historians for her innovation, and the impact she had on the early careers of writers such as
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
and
Roger ZelaznyRoger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
, but circulation lagged during her tenure. By 1964
Fantastics 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 CohenSol Cohen was an American publisher who worked mostly in the science fiction field.Cohen started his long association with Avon Publications in 1947, working as an editor for their comics division from 1947–1956. During this same period, from 1947–1949, Cohen was the circulation director and...
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 mastheadThe masthead is a list, published in a newspaper or magazine, of its staff. In some publications it names only the most senior individuals; in others, it may name many or all...
s to avoid mis-spellings. Both magazines immediately moved to a bi-monthly schedule.
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 this was changed to a graduated rate, depending on the length of the story.
Harry HarrisonHarry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
had acted as an intermediary in Cohen's negotiations with SFWA, and when Wrzos left in 1967, Cohen asked Harrison to take over.
SF ImpulseScience Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell,...
, 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.
By February 1968 Harrison decided to leave, as Cohen was showing no signs of abandoning the reprints. He resigned, and suggested Barry Malzberg to Cohen as a possible successor. 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. Malzberg took over in April 1968, but immediately came into conflict with Cohen over the reprints, and then threatened to resign in October 1968 over a disagreement about artwork Malzberg had commissioned for a cover. Cohen contacted
Robert SilverbergRobert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
, then the 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.
1970s
| | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 1970 |
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Issues of Amazing in the 1970s, identifying volume and issue numbers, and
indicating editors: White (blue) and Mavor (pink). The apparently erroneous
volume numbering for the November 1979 issue is in fact shown correctly. |
When White took over as editor, Amazings circulation was about 38,500, only about 4% of which were subscribers (as opposed to newsstand sales). This was a very low ebb for subscriptions;
Analog, by comparison, sold about 35% of its circulation through subscriptions. Cohen's wife mailed out the subscription copies from home, and Cohen had never tried to increase the subscriber base as this would have increased the burden on his wife. White worked hard to increase the circulation despite Cohen's lack of support, but met with limited success. One of his first changes was to reduce the
typefaceIn typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
to increase the amount of fiction in the magazine. To pay for this he increased the price of both
Fantastic and
Amazing to 60 cents, but this had a strong negative effect on circulation, which fell about 10% from 1969 to 1970.
In 1972, White changed the title to
Amazing Science Fiction, distancing the magazine slightly from some of the pulp connotations of "Amazing Stories". White worked at a low wage, and his friends often read manuscripts for free, but despite his efforts the circulation continued to fall. From near 40,000 when White joined the magazine, the circulation fell to about 23,000 in October 1975. White was unwilling to continue with the very limited financial backing that Cohen provided, and he resigned in 1975. Cohen was able to convince White to remain; White promised to stay for one more year, but in the event remained as editor until late 1978.
Amazing raised its price from 75 cents to $1.00 with the November 1975 issue. The schedule switched to quarterly beginning with the March 1976 issue; as a result, the 50th anniversary issue had a cover date of June 1976. In 1977, Cohen announced that
Amazing and
Fantastic had lost $15,000, though
Amazings circulation (at nearly 26,000) was as good as it had been for several years. Cohen looked for a new publisher to buy the magazines, but in September of the following year sold his half-share in the company to his partner, Arthur Bernhard. White had occasionally suggested to Cohen that Amazing would benefit from a redesign and investment; he made the same suggestions to Bernhard in early October. According to White, Bernhard not only said no, but told him he would not receive a salary until the next issue was turned in. White resigned, and returned all manuscripts in his possession to their authors, even those which had been copy-edited and were ready for publication. White claimed that he had been instructed to do this by Bernhard, though Bernhard denied it.
1980s to 2000s
| | | Spring | Summer | Fall | Winter |
| | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 1980 |
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| 1992 |
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| 1993 |
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Issues of Amazing from the 1980s onwards, identifying volume and issue numbers,
and indicating editors: Mavor (pink), Scithers (green), Price (orange), Mohan (purple),
Gross (olive), and Berkwits (yellow). The odd volume numbering in 1983 is correctly
shown. Issue 71/5 was labelled "Special Edition" and was not dated with a month or
season. |
Elinor MavorElinor Mavor was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from early 1979 until late 1982. She had done illustrations and production work for several magazines, working for Arthur Bernhard. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade magazine...
took over as editor in early 1979. She had worked for Bernhard as an illustrator and in the production department of several of his magazines, though not for Amazing
. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare
, a restaurant trade magazine. Mavor had read a good deal of science fiction but knew nothing about the world of science fiction magazines when she took over. She was not confident that a woman would be accepted as the editor of a science fiction magazine, so she initially used the pseudonym "Omar Gohagen" for both Amazing
and Fantastic
, dropping it late in 1980. Circulation continued to fall, and Bernhard refused to consider Mavor's request to undertake a subscription drive, which might have helped. Instead, in late 1980, Bernhard decided to merge the two magazines. Fantastics last independent issue was October 1980; thereafter the combined magazine returned to a bimonthly schedule. At the same time the title was changed to
Amazing Science Fiction Stories. Bernhard cut Mavor's salary after the merger, as she was editing only one magazine. Despite this, she stayed with
Amazing, but was unable to prevent circulation from dropping again, down to only 11,000 newsstand sales in 1982.
Shortly after the merger, Bernhard decided to retire, and approached Edward Ferman, the editor of
Fantasy and Science Fiction, and
Joel DavisJoel Clark Davis is a former Major League Baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox from 1985-1988. He is a left-handed batter and is a right-handed thrower. He was drafted in 1983 in the first round and was picked number 13th.After a major surgery on his right shoulder, Joel had to quit baseball...
, at Ziff-Davis, among others, about a possible sale of
Amazing. Jonathan Post, of Emerald City Publishing, believed he had concluded a deal with Bernhard, and began to advertise for submissions, but the negotiations failed. Bernhard also approached
George H. ScithersGeorge H. Scithers was a science fiction fan, author, and Hugo Award winning editor.A long-time member of the World Science Fiction Society, he published a fanzine starting in the '50s, wrote short stories, and moved on to edit several prominent science fiction magazines, as well as a number of...
, who declined, but was able to put Bernhard in touch with
Gary GygaxErnest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
of
TSRBlume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
. On 27 May 1982 the sale was finalized, and TSR acquired the trademarks and copyrights of
Amazing Stories. Scithers was taken on by TSR as editor beginning with the November 1982 issue. He was replaced by
Patrick Lucien PricePatrick Lucien Price is a game designer and editor who worked on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from TSR.-Early life and education:Pat Price was born in Whiting, Indiana. Price earned a B.A...
in September 1986, and then by
Kim MohanKim Mohan is an American author and editor.-Biography:Kim Mohan was born in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Williams Bay, Wisconsin when he was five. He became an avid science-fiction and fantasy reader and occasional wargamer, and graduated third in his high school class...
in May 1991. TSR ceased publication of
Amazing with the Winter 1995 issue, but shortly after they were acquired by
Wizards of the CoastWizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
in 1997, the magazine was relaunched, again with Mohan as editor. This version only lasted for ten issues, though it did include a special celebratory 600th issue in early 2000. The science fiction trade journal
LocusLocus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
commented in an early review that distribution of the magazine seemed to be weak. It proved unable to survive: the last issue of this version was dated Summer 2000. The title was then acquired by
Paizo PublishingPaizo Publishing is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that specializes in game aids and adventures for "the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game" and its flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder...
, who launched a new monthly version in September 2004. The February 2005 issue was the last one printed; a March 2005 issue was released in PDF format, and in March 2006 Paizo announced that it would no longer publish
Amazing. In September, 2011, the trademark for
Amazing Stories was acquired by Steve Davidson, and he announced plans to publish an online magazine version. Davidson has created an editorial advisory board which includes four former
Amazing Stories editors.
Gernsback's Amazing
Gernsback's editorial in the first issue asserted that "Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are also always instructive". 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 to instruct. His continued belief in the instructional value of science fiction was not in keeping with the general attitude of the public towards pulp magazines, which was that they were "trash".
The first issue of
Amazing contained only reprints, beginning with a serialization of
Off on a Comet, by
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
. In keeping with Gernsback's new approach, this was one of Verne's least scientifically plausible novels. Also included were
H. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's "The New Accelerator", and
Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's "
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. An example of a tale of suspense and horror, it is also, to a certain degree, a hoax as it was published without claiming...
"; 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 EnglandGeorge Allan England was an American writer and explorer, best known for his speculative and science fiction. He attended Harvard University and later in life unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Maine. England was a socialist and many of his works have socialist themes.-Life:England was born in...
. The third was
Austin HallAustin Hall was an American short story writer and novelist. He began writing when, while working as a cowboy, he was asked to write a story. He wrote westerns, science fiction and fantasy for pulp magazines.-Works by Austin Hall:...
's "The Man Who Saved the Earth", which had appeared in
All-Story Weekly.
In the June 1926 issue Gernsback announced a competition to write a short story around a cover drawn by illustrator Frank R. 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. WatesCyril G. Wates was born in Brixton, England and immigrated to Edmonton, Canada in 1909 where he worked for City of Edmonton Municipal Telephone System as an engineer. He joined the Alpine Club of Canada in 1916 and would go on to climb more than fifty peaks. He was the first to ascend Mt...
, who sold three more stories to Gernsback in the late 1920s. Two other entrants went on to become successful writers: one was
Clare Winger HarrisClare Winger Harris was an early science fiction writer whose short stories were published during the 1920s. She is credited as the first woman to publish stories under her own name in science fiction magazines...
, 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.
A letter column, titled "Discussions", soon appeared, and became a regular feature with the January 1927 issue. Many science fiction readers were isolated in small communities, knowing nobody else who liked the same fiction. Gernsback's habit of publishing the full address of all his correspondents meant that the letter column allowed fans to correspond with each other directly.
Science fiction fandomScience fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
traces its beginnings to the letter column in
Amazing and its competitors, and one historian of the field, author
Lester del ReyLester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...
, has commented that the introduction of this letter column "may have been one of the most important events in the history of science fiction".
For the first year,
Amazing contained primarily reprinted material. It was proving difficult to attract new, high-quality material, and Gernsback's slowness at paying his authors did not help. Writers such as
H.P. LovecraftHoward Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
,
H.G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
, and
Murray LeinsterMurray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history...
all avoided
Amazing because Gernsback took so long to pay for the stories he printed. The slow payments were probably known to many of the other active pulp writers, which would have further limited the volume of submissions. New writers did appear, but the quality of their stories was often weak.
Gernsback discovered that the audience he had attracted was less interested in scientific invention stories than in fantastical adventures.
A. MerrittAbraham Grace Merritt — known by his byline, A. Merritt — was an American editor and author of works of fantastic fiction.-Life:...
's
The Moon PoolThe Moon Pool is a fantasy novel by Abraham Merritt . It originally appeared as two short stories in All-Story Weekly: "The Moon Pool" and its sequel, "Conquest of the Moon Pool" . These were then reworked into a novel released in 1919. The protagonist, Dr...
, which began serialization in May 1927, was an early success; there was little or no scientific basis to the story, but it was very popular with
Amazings readers. The covers, all of which were painted by Paul, were garish and juvenile, leading some readers to complain. Raymond Palmer, later to become an editor of the magazine, wrote that a friend of his was forced to stop buying Amazing "by reason of his parents' dislike of the cover illustrations". Gernsback experimented with a more sober cover for the September 1928 issue, but it sold poorly, and so the lurid covers continued. The combination of poor quality fiction with garish artwork has led some critics to comment that Gernsback created a "ghetto" for science fiction, though it has also been argued that the creation of a specialized market allowed science fiction to develop and mature as a genre.
Among the regular writers for Amazing
by the end of the 1920s were several who were influential and popular at the time, such as David H. KellerDavid H. Keller was a writer for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century who wrote science fiction, fantasy and horror. He was the first psychiatrist to write for the genre, and was most often published as David H...
and Stanton Coblentz, and some who would continue to be successful for much longer, most notably Edward E. Smith and Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. Smith's The Skylark of SpaceThe Skylark of Space by Edward E. "Doc" Smith was written between 1915 and 1921 while Smith was working on his doctorate. Though the original idea for the novel was Smith's, he co-wrote the first part of the novel with Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of his college classmate and later neighbor Carl Garby...
, which had been written between 1915 and 1920, was a seminal space operaSpace opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
which found no ready market when Argosy
stopped printing science fiction. When Smith saw a copy of the April 1927 issue of Amazing, he submitted it to Sloane, and it appeared in the August–October 1928 issues. It was such a success that Sloane requested a sequel before the second installment had been published. It was also in the August 1928 issue that "Armageddon – 2419 AD", by
Philip Francis NowlanPhilip Francis Nowlan was an American science fiction author, best known as the creator of Buck Rogers.-Career:...
, appeared; this was the first appearance of
Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
in print.
Sloane, Palmer, Browne and Fairman
Sloane took over full control of the content of Amazing
when Gernsback left in 1929. He was infamous for his slow response to manuscripts, and when Astounding Stories
was launched in January 1930, with better rates and faster editorial response, some of Sloane's writers quickly defected. Little of quality appeared in Amazing during Sloane's tenure, though
Howard FastHoward Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.-Early life:Fast was born in New York City...
's first story appeared in the October 1932 issue, and "The Lost Machine", an early story by
John WyndhamJohn Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
, appeared in April 1932, under Wyndham's real name of John Beynon Harris.
Raymond Palmer, who took over in 1938, was less interested in the educational possibilities of science fiction than Sloane had been. He wanted the magazine to provide escapist entertainment, and had no interest in scientific accuracy. His terse instructions—"Gimme Bang-Bang"—to one pulp writer sum up his approach. Palmer disposed of almost all of Sloane's accumulated inventory, instead acquiring stories from local Chicago writers he knew through his connections with science fiction fandom. He also added features such as a "Correspondence Corner" and a "Collectors' Corner" to appeal to fans, and introduced a "Meet the Authors" feature, though on at least one occasion the featured author was a pseudonym, and the biographical details were invented. An illustrated back cover was tried, and soon became standard. In 1939 Palmer acquired
Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's first sale, "Marooned off Vesta".
In the 1940s, several writers established themselves as a stable of reliable contributors to Amazing. These included
David Wright O'BrienDavid Wright O’Brien was an American fantasy and science fiction writer. A nephew of Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, he was 22 years old when his first story appeared in Amazing Stories in the February 1940 issue ....
and
William P. McGivernWilliam Peter McGivern was an American novelist and television scriptwriter. He published more than 20 novels, mostly mysteries and crime thrillers, some under the pseudonym Bill Peters...
, both of whom wrote an immense amount for Ziff-Davis, much of it under
house nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
s such as Alexander Blade.
John Russell FearnJohn Russell Fearn was a British author and one of the first British writers to appear in American pulp science fiction magazines.-Career:...
became a prolific contributor, using the pseudonyms "Thornton Ayre" and "Polton Cross". Palmer also encouraged long-time science fiction writers to return, publishing pulp authors such as
Ed Earl ReppEd Earl Repp was an American writer, screenwriter and novelist. His stories appeared in several of the early pulp magazines including Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories...
and
Eando BinderEando Binder is a pen-name used by two mid-20th-century science fiction authors, Earl Andrew Binder and his brother Otto Binder . The name is derived from their first initials ....
. This policy did not always meet with approval from Amazings readers, who, despite a clear preference for action and adventure stories, could not stomach the work of some of the early pulp writers such as
Harry BatesHarry Bates was an American science fiction editor and writer. His 1940 short story "Farewell to the Master" was the basis of the well-known 1951 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.-Biography:Harry Bates was born Hiram Gilmore Bates III on October 9, 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
.
The first Shaver Mystery story, "I Remember Lemuria", by Richard S. Shaver, appeared in the March 1945 issue. Shaver claimed that all the world's accidents and disasters were caused by an ancient race of "detrimental robots" who lived in underground cities. This explanation for the world's ills, coming towards the end of World War II, struck a chord with Amazings readership. Palmer received over 2,500 letters, instead of the usual 40 or 50, and proceeded to print a Shaver story in every issue. The June 1947 issue was given over entirely to the Shaver Mystery. From March 1948 the Shaver Mystery was dropped as a regular feature of the magazine, at Ziff's insistence. Palmer left the following year, and Browne, his successor, "was determined to make sure that the lunatics were no longer in charge of the asylum", in the words of science fiction historian Mike Ashley.
Browne had acquired some good-quality material in the process of planning the launch of a new slick version of Amazing
, and when the plan was abandoned this material appeared in the continuing pulp version. This included "Operation RSVP" by H. Beam PiperHenry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper...
, and "Satisfaction Guaranteed", by Isaac Asimov. Despite the cancellation of the planned change to a slick format, news had reached the writing community of Amazings new approach, and Browne began to receive much better material than Palmer had been able to publish. The existing stable of
Amazing writers, such as
Rog PhillipsRoger Phillips Graham was an American science fiction writer who most often wrote under the name Rog Phillips, but also used other names. Although of his other pseudonyms only Craig Browning is notable in the genre. He is most associated with Amazing Stories and is best known for short fiction...
and Chester S. Geier, were replaced by writers such as
Fritz LeiberFritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
,
Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
, and
Clifford D. SimakClifford Donald Simak was an American science fiction writer. He was honored by fans with three Hugo awards and by colleagues with one Nebula award and was named the third Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1977.-Biography:Clifford Donald Simak was born in...
. Browne also discovered several writers who went on to success in the field, publishing first stories by Walter M. Miller,
Mack ReynoldsDallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in Galaxy Magazine and Worlds of If Magazine...
,
John JakesJohn William Jakes is an American writer, best known for American historical fiction.-Early life and education:...
, Milton Lesser and
Charles BeaumontCharles Beaumont was a prolific American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres. He is remembered as a writer of classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "Miniature", and "Printer's Devil", but also penned the...
, all within the space of nine months in late 1950 and early 1951. Browne was disappointed by the cancellation of the planned slick version, however, and to some extent reverted to Palmer's policy of publishing sensational fiction. In 1952, for example, he serialized the anonymous
Master of the Universe, which purported to be a history of the future from 1975 to 2575.
With the change to digest size in 1953, Browne once again attempted to use higher-quality fiction. The first digest issue, dated April–May 1953, included stories by
Ray BradburyRay Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
,
Robert HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
,
Richard MathesonRichard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
,
Theodore SturgeonTheodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...
, and
Murray LeinsterMurray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history...
. Further well-regarded stories appeared over the course of 1953, including
Arthur C. ClarkeSir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
's "
Encounter in the Dawn"Encounter in the Dawn" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke published in 1953 in the magazine Amazing Stories. It was originally collected in the anthology Expedition to Earth, and, in one edition of the book, is titled "Expedition to Earth". In a later collection the title "Encounter at...
", and
Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
's "Or Else". Subsequent budget cuts meant that Browne was unable to sustain this level. As in the 1940s,
Amazing gained a stable of writers who appeared frequently, though this time the quality of the writers was rather higher—it included
Harlan EllisonHarlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
,
Robert SilverbergRobert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
, and
Randall GarrettRandall Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s...
—and the regular writers were not appearing only in Ziff-Davis magazines. This remained the situation after Browne's departure in 1956 and through Paul Fairman's tenure.
Cele Goldsmith
Cele GoldsmithCele Goldsmith Lalli was an American editor. She was the editor of Amazing Stories from 1959 to 1965, Fantastic from 1958 to 1965, and later the Editor-in-Chief of Modern Bride magazine....
's tenure as editor began with the opportunity to showcase two very well-established writers: E.E. Smith and Isaac Asimov. Smith's
The Galaxy Primes began serialization in March 1959. Asimov's first published story, "
Marooned Off VestaMarooned Off Vesta is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was the third story written by Asimov, and the first to be published. Written in July 1938 when Asimov was 18, it was rejected by Astounding Science Fiction in August, then accepted in October by Amazing Stories, appearing in...
", had appeared in the March 1939 issue of
Amazing, and Goldsmith reprinted it in March 1959 along with a sequel and Asimov's comments on the story. She soon began to publish some of the better new writers.
Cordwainer SmithCordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
's "Golden the Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh!" appeared in April; and by the middle of the following year she had managed to attract stories from
Robert SheckleyRobert Sheckley was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical.Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and...
,
Alan E. NourseAlan Edward Nourse was an American science fiction author and physician. He wrote both juvenile and adult science fiction, as well as nonfiction works about medicine and science. His SF works generally focused on medicine and/or psionics.-Biography:Alan Nourse was born August 11, 1928 to...
,
Fritz LeiberFritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
,
Gordon R. DicksonGordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author.- Biography :Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1937...
,
Robert BlochRobert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, and
James BlishJames Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
. The changes she made were enough to bring Robert Heinlein back as a subscriber; Heinlein read a copy of the June 1961 issue which, he said, "caused me to think I had been missing something".
In September 1960
Amazing began to carry
Sam MoskowitzSam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...
's series of author profiles, which had begun in
Fantastic, the sister magazine. The following month the cover and logo were redesigned. In April 1961, the 35th anniversary of the first issue, Goldsmith ran several reprints, including stories by
Ray BradburyRay Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
and
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
. Goldsmith had little previous experience with science fiction, and bought what she liked, rather than trying to conform to a notion of what science fiction should be. The result was the debut of more significant writers in her magazines than anywhere else at that time. She published the first stories of
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
,
Roger ZelaznyRoger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
,
Piers AnthonyPiers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth.Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best...
and
Thomas M. DischThomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
, among many others. Award-winning stories published during Goldsmith's editorship include Zelazny's "He Who Shapes", a story about the use of dream therapy to cure phobias. It was serialized in the January and February 1965 issues, and won a
Nebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
, an annual award voted on by science fiction writers. Goldsmith often wrote long, helpful letters to her authors: Zelazny commented in a letter to her that "Most of anything I have learned was stimulated by those first sales, and then I learned, and possibly even learned more, from some of the later rejections". Disch and Le Guin have also acknowledged the influence Goldsmith had on their early careers.
The cover art for
Amazing had been largely supplied by Ed Valigursky during the late fifties, but during the early sixties a much wider variety of artists appeared, including
Alex SchomburgAlex Schomburg was a prolific American commercial and comic book artist and painter whose career lasted over 70 years.-Biography:...
, Leo Summers and
Ed Emshwiller Ed Emshwiller was a visual artist notable for illustrations of many science fiction magazine covers and for his pioneering experimental films...
. Frank Paul, who had painted all the covers for the first few years of
Amazing, contributed a wraparound cover for the April 1961 35th anniversary issue; this was his last cover art for a science fiction magazine.
Goldsmith's open-minded approach meant that
Amazing and
Fantastic published some writers who did not fit into the other magazines.
Philip K. DickPhilip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
's sales to magazines had dropped, but his work began to appear in
Amazing, and Goldsmith also regularly published
David R. BunchDavid Roosevelt Bunch was an American writer of short stories and poetry. He worked mainly in the genres of science fiction, satire, surrealism, and literary fiction. Although prolific and critically acclaimed, Bunch remained obscure throughout his career...
's stories of Moderan, a world whose inhabitants were part human and part metal. Bunch, whose stories were "bewildering, exotic word pictures" according to Mike Ashley, had been unable to sell regularly elsewhere.
Reprint era and Ted White
When Sol Cohen bought both
Amazing and
Fantastic in early 1965, he decided to maximize profits by filling the magazines almost entirely with reprints. Cohen had acquired second serial rights from Ziff-Davis to all stories that had been printed in both magazines, and also in the companion magazines such as
Fantastic Adventures. Joseph Wrzos, the new editor, persuaded Cohen that at least one new story should appear in each issue; there was sufficient inventory left over from Goldsmith's tenure for this to be done without acquiring new material. Readers initially approved of the policy, since it made available some well-loved stories from earlier decades that had not been reprinted elsewhere. Both of Wrzos's successors, Harry Harrison and Barry Malzberg, were unable to persuade Cohen to use more new fiction.
When Ted White took over, it was on condition that the reprints be phased out. This took some time: for a while both
Amazing and
Fantastic continued to include one reprint every issue. With the May 1972 issue, however, the transformation was complete, and all stories were new. In addition to eliminating the reprints, White introduced several new features such as a letter column, a fan column, and book reviews, as well as a series of science articles by
Gregory BenfordGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
. He also redesigned the look of the magazine, making it, in science fiction historian Mike Ashley's words, "far more modern and sophisticated".
White was willing to print a variety of fiction, with traditional stories side-by-side with more experimental material that was influenced by the British
New WaveNew Wave is a term applied to science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. The term "New Wave" is borrowed from the French...
or by 1960s
psychedeliaPsychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
. In 1971 he serialized
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
's
The Lathe of Heaven, about a man whose dreams can modify reality. One writer who was influenced by this was James Tiptree, Jr., who later wrote that "after first plowing into the first pulpy pages of the 1971
Amazing in which
Lathe came out, my toe-nails began to curl under and my spine hair stood up." White's willingness to experiment led to
Amazing running more stories with sexual content than other magazines. One such story, White's own "Growing Up Fast in the City", was criticized as pornographic by some of Amazings readers. Other stories, such as Rich Brown's "Two of a Kind", about the violent rape of a black woman and the subsequent death of her rapists, also led to controversy. White also printed more conventional fiction, however, much of it of high quality. The magazine was nominated for the
Hugo awardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
(a readers' award, named for Hugo Gernsback) for best editor three times during his tenure (1970, 1971 and 1972), finishing third each time.
White's ability to attract new writers suffered because of the low rates he paid: one cent per word, as compared to three or five cents per word at the leading competitive magazines. To compensate, White cultivated new writers whose experimental work was not selling elsewhere. White made a deal in 1971 with
Gordon EklundGordon Eklund is a Nebula Award-winning, American science fiction author whose works include the "Lord Tedric" series and two of the earliest original novels based on the 1960s Star Trek TV series. He has written under the pen name Wendell Stewart, and in one instance under the name of the late E. E...
, who was hesitating to become a full-time writer because of the financial risks. White agreed to buy anything Eklund wrote, on condition that Eklund himself believed it was a good story. The result was that much of Eklund's fiction appeared in Amazing
and Fantastic
over the next few years.
Amazings reputation had been for formulaic science fiction almost since it began, but White was able to bring the magazine to a higher standard than any other editor except Cele Goldsmith, and gave
Amazing a respectable position in the field. His successors were not able to maintain the level of quality that he achieved.
After Ted White
When Elinor Mavor took over, in early 1979, she had no experience with science fiction magazines, and was unaware of the history of bad feeling within the science fiction community about the poor payments for reprinted stories. She was given an extremely limited budget to work with, and had few stories on hand to work with initially, and as a result her first issues contained several reprints. Mavor experimented in her first year with some new ideas, such as starting a story on the back cover in order to hook readers into buying the magazine to finish the story. She also began a serial story in graphic format which used reader input to continue its plot; it was not a success and "thankfully", according to Mike Ashley, the experiment was terminated after only three episodes.
Over time Mavor was to some extent able to reverse the negative perceptions of
Amazing among established authors, but she was initially forced to work primarily with newer writers. Early discoveries of hers include
Michael P. Kube-McDowellMichael Paul Kube-McDowell is a science fiction novelist. He has also dabbled in music, written for television, been a stringer for a daily newspaper, and published short fiction, reviews, assorted nonfiction and erotica. He was honored for teaching excellence by the 1985 White House Commission on...
,
John E. StithJohn E. Stith is an American science fiction author, known for the scientific rigor he brings to adventure and mystery stories....
and
Richard Paul RussoRichard Paul Russo is an American science fiction writer.He attended the Clarion Workshop in 1983; his first story, "Firebird Suite", appeared in Amazing Stories in 1981 and his first novel, Inner Eclipse, was published in 1988. His second novel, Subterranean Gallery, won the Philip K. Dick Award...
. In a notice published in her first issue, she asked readers for help in assembling news, reviews and fan information, and soon added columns that covered these areas. In 1981
Robert SilverbergRobert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
began a series of opinion columns. The artwork was of high quality, including work by
Stephen Fabian-Career:Fabian specializes in science fiction and fantasy illustration and cover art for books and magazines. Fabian also produced artwork for TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game from 1986 to 1995, particularly on the Ravenloft line. He was self-taught, two of his primary influences being Virgil Finlay...
, and later by David Mattingly.
After the merger with
Fantastic, Mavor continued to draw well-known writers to the magazine, including
Orson Scott CardOrson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
,
George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Richard Martin , sometimes referred to as GRRM, is an American author and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his bestselling series of epic fantasy novels that HBO adapted for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of...
, and
Roger ZelaznyRoger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
.
Brad LinaweaverBradford Swain Linaweaver is a science fiction writer and screenwriting for low budget movies.The novella version of his novel 'Moon of Ice' was a Nebula Award finalist and the novel length version won a Prometheus Award....
's "Moon of Ice", which appeared in March 1982, was nominated for a
Nebula awardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
; Martin's "Unsound Variations", which had appeared the issue before, was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo award.
Historian
James Gunn- Further reading :James E. Gunn The Listeners, BenBella Books, ISBN 1-932100-12-1 -External links:*...
's assessment of
Amazing in the 1980s is that Mavor, Scithers and Price, who between them edited
Amazing for a decade, were unable to sustain the standards established by Ted White in the 1970s.
Brian StablefordBrian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
, by contrast, comments that both Scithers and Price made efforts to publish good material, and that the packaging, from 1991 onwards, was perhaps the best presented of any science fiction magazine.
With the Wizards of the Coast relaunch in 1998 the contents, under editor Kim Mohan, became more media-focused. The initial plan was to have two or three stories per issue based on films, TV, and games. The 600th issue, in early 2000, included a
Harlan EllisonHarlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
story, as well as a story from the 100th issue, the 200th issue, and so on, up to the 500th issue.
Pamela SargentPamela Sargent is an American, feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award. She wrote a series concerning the terraforming of Venus that is sometimes compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but predates it...
also contributed a story. The Paizo publishing relaunch, in 2004, was even more focused on media content than the Wizards of the Coast version had been, with much more movie and comics-related material than science fiction. Several well-known authors appeared in the first issue, including Harlan Ellison, Bruce Sterling, and Gene Wolfe. Paizo also ran a blog for the magazine. The fiction received positive reviews, but Paizo soon put the magazine on temporary hold, and canceled it permanently the following year.
Influence on the field
Amazing Stories was influential simply by being the first of its kind. In the words of science fiction writer and critic
Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
, the magazine was "a snag in the stream of history, from which a V-shape spread out in dozens and then in hundreds of altered lives". Many early fans of the field began to communicate with each other through the letter column, and to publish
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s—amateur fan publications that helped establish connections among fans across the country. Many of these fans in turn became successful writers; and the existence of an organized science fiction fandom, and of writers such as
Ray BradburyRay Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
,
Arthur C. ClarkeSir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, and Isaac Asimov, who came to writing directly from fandom, can be dated to the creation of
Amazing Stories. After the first few years, when there was little or no competition,
Amazing Stories never again led the field in the eyes of critics or fans. Despite its long history, the magazine rarely contributed much to science fiction beyond the initial creation of the genre, though Gernsback himself is commemorated in the name "Hugo", which is the almost universally used term for the World Science Fiction Society's annually presented Science Fiction Achievement Awards. Gernsback has also been called the "Father of Science Fiction" for his role in creating
Amazing Stories.
Editors
Bibliographers do not always agree who should be listed as editor of any given issue of
Amazing. For example, Gernsback was in control for the first three years, but Sloane performed all the editorial duties related to fiction, and he is sometimes described as the editor. Similarly, later editors were sometimes under the supervision of editorial directors. The table below, and the charts above, generally follow the mastheads in the magazines, with short notes added. More details are given in the publishing history section, above, which focuses on when the editors involved actually obtained control of the magazine contents, instead of when their names appeared on the masthead.
- Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
(April 1926 – April 1929). Sloane performed almost all the editorial duties related to fiction.
- Arthur Lynch (May 1929 – October 1929). As under Gernsback, Sloane was essentially the editor during Lynch's tenure.
- T. O'Conor Sloane
Thomas O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. was the editor of Amazing Stories from 1929 through 1938. In that year, publisher Ziff-Davis moved production of the magazine to Chicago and named Raymond A. Palmer as Sloane's successor....
(November 1929 – May 1938)
- Raymond A. Palmer
Raymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications...
(June 1938 – December 1949)
- Howard Browne
Howard Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
(January 1950 – August 1956). Fairman actually took over editorial duties with the May or June 1956 issue.
- Paul W. Fairman
Paul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
(September 1956 – November 1958)
- Cele Goldsmith Lalli
Cele Goldsmith Lalli was an American editor. She was the editor of Amazing Stories from 1959 to 1965, Fantastic from 1958 to 1965, and later the Editor-in-Chief of Modern Bride magazine....
(December 1958 – June 1965). Norman Lobsenz was introduced as editor, but in fact Cele Goldsmith did all the editorial work. When she married she used her married name of Cele Lalli.
- Joseph Ross (August 1965 – October 1967). A pseudonym for Joseph Wrzos.
- Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
(December 1967 – September 1968)
- Barry N. Malzberg
Barry Nathaniel Malzberg is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.-Overview:Initially in his post-graduate work Malzberg sought to establish himself as a playwright as well as a prose-fiction writer. His first two published novels were issed by Olympia Press...
(November 1968 – January 1969)
- Ted White
Ted White is a Hugo Award-winning American writer, known as a science fiction author and editor and fan, as well as a music critic...
(March 1969 – February 1979)
- Elinor Mavor
Elinor Mavor was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from early 1979 until late 1982. She had done illustrations and production work for several magazines, working for Arthur Bernhard. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade magazine...
(May 1979 – September 1982). From May 1979 – August 1981 Mavor used the pseudonym Omar Gohagen; subsequently she used her real name.
- George H. Scithers
George H. Scithers was a science fiction fan, author, and Hugo Award winning editor.A long-time member of the World Science Fiction Society, he published a fanzine starting in the '50s, wrote short stories, and moved on to edit several prominent science fiction magazines, as well as a number of...
(November 1982 – July 1986)
- Patrick Lucien Price
Patrick Lucien Price is a game designer and editor who worked on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from TSR.-Early life and education:Pat Price was born in Whiting, Indiana. Price earned a B.A...
(September 1986 – March 1991)
- Kim Mohan
Kim Mohan is an American author and editor.-Biography:Kim Mohan was born in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Williams Bay, Wisconsin when he was five. He became an avid science-fiction and fantasy reader and occasional wargamer, and graduated third in his high school class...
(May 1991 – Winter 1995 and Summer 1998 – Summer 2000)
- David Gross (September 2004 – December 2004)
- Jeff Berkwits
Jeff Berkwits is an American science fiction editor. He was appointed editor of Amazing Stories by Paizo Publishing in 2004. Berkwits remained in that position until Amazing went on hiatus in 2005, only three issues into his editorship....
(January 2005 – March 2005)
Other bibliographic details
Amazing began as a bedsheet format magazine; this lasted until October 1933, which saw a switch to pulp size. With the April–May 1953 issue
Amazing became a digest. Seven issues in the early 1980s, from November 1980 to November 1981, were a half-inch taller than the regular digest size, but thereafter the magazine reverted to the standard digest format. In May 1991 the magazine returned to a large format, but this only lasted until the Winter 1994 issue, and the next three issues were digest-sized once again. When the magazine reappeared in 1998 it was in bedsheet format and it remained that size until the very end. The last issue, March 2005, was only distributed as a PDF download, never as a physical magazine. The volume numbering contained some irregularities: the numbering given in the tables above appears to be in error for the period from 1979 to 1983, but in fact it is given correctly in the table. Note also that vol. 27 no. 8 was a single issue, not two, as it seems to be from the table; it was dated Dec 1953/Jan 1954.
The following table shows which issues appeared from which publisher.
| Dates | Publisher |
| April 1926 – June 1929 |
Experimenter Publishing, New York |
| July 1929 – October 1930 |
Experimenter Publications, New York |
| November 1930 – September 1931 |
Radio-Science Publications, New York |
| October 1931 – February 1938 |
Teck Publishing Corporation, New York |
| April 1938 – February 1951 |
Ziff-Davis, Chicago |
| March 1951 – June 1965 |
Ziff-Davis, New York |
| August 1965 – February 1979 |
Ultimate Publishing, New York |
| May 1979 – June 1982 |
Ultimate Publishing, Scottsdale, Arizona |
| September 1982 – May 1985 |
Dragon Publishing, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin |
| July 1985 – Winter 1995 |
TSR, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin |
| September 2004 – March 2005 |
Paizo Publishing, Bellevue, Washington |
The title of the magazine changed several times:
| Dates | Title |
| April 1926 – February 1958 |
Amazing Stories |
| March 1958 – April 1958 |
Amazing Science Fiction |
| May 1958 – September 1960 |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories |
| October 1960 – July 1970 |
Amazing Stories |
| September 1970 – February 1979 |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories |
| May 1979 – August 1980 |
Amazing Stories |
| November 1980 – November 1984 |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories Combined with Fantastic |
| January 1985 – March 1985 |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories Combined with Fantastic Stories |
| May 1985 – January 1986 |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories |
| March 1986 – March 2005 |
Amazing Stories |
Two different series of reprints of
Amazing appeared in the United Kingdom. First came a single undated issue from Ziff-Davis, in November 1946. In June 1950, Thorpe & Porter began a second series that lasted until 1954, and totalled 32 issues. The Ziff-Davis issue and the first 24 issues from Thorpe & Porter were pulp-sized; the last eight were digests. The Thorpe & Porter issues were undated, but the pulp issues were numbered from 1 to 24, and were initially bimonthly. The March 1951 issue was followed by April and November, however, and in 1952 issues appeared in February, March, April, June, July, September and November. 1953 saw nine pulp issues, omitting only March and May; and with December came the change to digest-size and a perfectly regular bimonthly schedule which lasted until February 1955. These last eight issues were numbered volume 1, numbers 1 to 8. There was also a Canadian edition which lasted for 24 issues from September 1933 to August 1935, from Teck Publications; these were identical to the US editions except that the front covers were overprinted with "Printed in Canada on Canadian Paper". A Japanese edition ran for seven issues in mid-1950, selecting stories from
Fantastic Adventures as well as from
Amazing.
Several anthologies of stories from
Amazing have been published, including:
| Year | Editor | Title |
| 1967 |
Joseph Ross |
The Best of Amazing |
| 1973 |
Ted White |
The Best from Amazing Stories |
| 1985 |
Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg Martin Harry Greenberg was an American speculative fiction anthologist and writer.-Biography:Dr. Martin H. Greenberg was born March 1, 1941, to Max and Mae Greenberg in South Miami Beach, Florida...
|
Amazing Stories: 60 Years of the Best Science Fiction |
| 1986 |
Martin H. Greenberg |
Amazing Stories: Vision of Other Worlds |
| 1987 |
Martin H. Greenberg |
Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The Wonderful Years, 1926–1935 |
| 1987 |
Martin H. Greenberg |
Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The War Years, 1936–1945 |
| 1987 |
Martin H. Greenberg |
Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The Wild Years, 1946–1955 |
Media crossovers
Director
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
licensed the title for use on an American television show called
Amazing StoriesAmazing Stories is a fantasy, horror, and science fiction television anthology series created by Steven Spielberg. It ran on NBC from 1985 to 1987, and was somewhat erratically screened in Britain by BBC1 and BBC2 - billed in the Radio Times as "Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories" - with episodes...
that ran from 1985 to 1987. Between 1998 and 2000,
Amazing Stories published a series of short stories based upon the
Star TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
franchise. In 2002, these stories were reissued by
Pocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
in the collection
Star Trek: The Amazing Stories.
External links