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6. Pulp science fiction magazines

Chosen by:
Dr Robert Savage,
Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Amazing stories.(Continued by: Amazing science fiction)(New York, N.Y. : 1958) New York, N.Y. : Experimenter Pub. Co., 1926-1958.

Astounding stories.(Continued by: Astounding science-fiction)(New York, N.Y. : Street & Smith, 1933-1938)

Pulp science fiction magazines

Although novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are today seen as science fiction classics, science fiction did not exist as a recognised genre until 1926, when it was christened ‘scientifiction’ by Hugo Gernsback in his magazine Amazing Stories. Gernsback published older stories by authors such as Verne and Wells alongside more recent material commissioned from Edgar Rice Burroughs, ‘Doc’ Smith and the like, concocting a heady brew of adventure, romance and popular science that went straight to the heads of its mostly under-age readers. Printed on cheap wood pulp paper (hence the name ‘pulp’), Amazing Stories became as well-known for its lurid cover art as for its engrossing, thrill-a-minute stories. Gernsback was later honoured for his pioneering services to science fiction by having the most coveted award in the field, the Hugo, named after him. By the 1930s, however, growing competition, the effects of the Depression, and the paltry fees Gernsback paid his authors saw the quality of the magazine decline. The best young authors flocked to Astounding Science Fiction, which from 1936, under the charismatic leadership of editor John W. Campbell, spearheaded science fiction’s so-called ‘Golden Age’. Campbell nurtured talents like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard, encouraging a leaner, meaner style of fiction, still besotted with the potential wonders of technology but also increasingly haunted by its dangers.

Because pulp science fiction magazines like Amazing Stories and Astounding were produced to be consumed quickly and then thrown away, very few complete runs have been preserved. The Monash University Rare Books Library contains an extensive collection of early science fiction, making it an invaluable resource for scholars.

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