Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories magazine, sometimes retitled Amazing Science Fiction, began in April 1926, becoming the first science fiction magazine and one of the pioneers of science fiction in the United States.

Related Topics:
Science fiction magazine - Science fiction - United States

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Created by Hugo Gernsback, it appears to today's eyes as a classic pulp magazine, printed on cheap paper with sometimes lurid cover art (much of it by the legendary Frank R. Paul), and a much-imitated logo featuring the magazine name in ever-shrinking letters. Instead of presenting tales of detectives, westerns, aviators, girls or swamp monsters, or a combination of genres, as was the habit of pulps to that point, it was filled with stories of a style originally called "scientific romances." Gernback coined the portmanteau word "scientifiction" (abbreviated "stf") to cover the genre; over the years, becoming better known as science fiction.

Related Topics:
Hugo Gernsback - Pulp magazine - Frank R. Paul - Portmanteau

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Despite its appearance, Gernsback was attempting to create a premium product. Most pulp magazines were about 180 x 250 mm, with ragged (uncut) edges. Amazing was larger at 200 x 280 mm, the so-called bedsheet format, with neatly trimmed edges, and a slightly higher cover price. Gernsback frequently reprinted those he considered the fathers of stf: H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe (remembered more now as a horror writer). There were other reprints; it took a few years to build up a level of available writers for more original material.

Related Topics:
Bedsheet - H. G. Wells - Jules Verne - Edgar Allan Poe - Horror

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Amazing was the first science fiction magazine, but it did not appear without context. Gernsback had been publishing magazines like Modern Electrics since 1909, with the emphasis on science and invention. Science fiction stories had been appearing in these titles and had been popular, so an all-fiction magazine was a natural experiment. But by 1929, Gernsback had been forced into bankruptcy, and lost control of Amazing (which continued publication without interruption under its new owners). So it was that in 1929 Gernsback launched the first rival to the magazine he had founded – Science Wonder Stories.

Related Topics:
Modern Electrics - 1909 - 1929 - Bankruptcy - Science Wonder Stories

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The new publishers installed T. O'Conor Sloane as editor. He continued until 1938, when the title was sold to Ziff-Davis. For some years Amazing followed a less serious bent under editor Raymond A. Palmer, achieving commercial success but critical derision for its "Shaver Mystery" stories of creatures allegedly inside the Earth which were presented not as sf but fact. At Ziff-Davis, Amazing soon gained a companion title, Fantastic Adventures, also edited by Palmer, which quickly became a somewhat more fantasy-oriented magazine and was published till 1954, when it was merged with the magazines' newer, more-sophisticated-looking companion Fantastic. The latter title would run, under a variety of title variations, till it was merged with Amazing in 1980; both magazines shared the same editor throughout Fantastics life.

Related Topics:
T. O'Conor Sloane - 1938 - Ziff-Davis - Raymond A. Palmer - Shaver Mystery - Fantastic Adventures - Fantasy - Fantastic - 1980

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The magazine continued publication more or less continuously from 1926 until the 1990s, under various editors, publishers and formats. During that decade it was published erratically, and eventually Wizards of the Coast shuttered a version published by Pierce Watters.

Related Topics:
1990s - Wizards of the Coast

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In 2004 it was relaunched by Paizo Publishing. In December of that year, it was announced that following the April 2005 issue, the magazine would go on hiatus.

Related Topics:
2004 - Paizo Publishing - April - 2005 - Hiatus

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In its early years, there were companion titles including Amazing Stories Quarterly. The title Amazing has also been used for unconnected publications including the British science fiction magazine Amazing Science Stories (1951).

Related Topics:
Amazing Stories Quarterly - Amazing Science Stories - 1951

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

Related Topics:
Steven Spielberg - Amazing Stories - 1985 - 1987

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