Author: jmstine

"An enormously enjoyable treat, one that has opened my eyes to what was happening in the world of science fiction in that period. Hugely entertaining. It should be required reading for anyone interested in this era of science fiction." —Goodreads, 5-star review.

It was a breathtaking year for science fiction, an editorial breakthrough that changed in an instant the nature of science fiction, at least as presented in pulpwood publications, and its impact can be seen in almost every story lauded by Amazing Stories’ readers in 1930 and/or hailed by critics in subsequent years as among the field’s enduring masterworks—most of which appear in this volume of The Best of Amazing Stories. Louise Taylor Hansen’s “The Prince of Liars,” G. Peyton Wertenbaker’s “The Ship That Turned Aside,” Edmond Hamilton’s “The Man who Saw the Future,” Merab Eberle’s “The Mordant,” and the others we have selected as among the year’s most acclaimed stories are, by the standards of the time, lean, mean little narratives meant to dispense with ponderous lecturing and, instead, delight a reader's curiosity and desire for adventure. While remaining solidly rooted within the possibilities of future science, and filled with thought-provoking ideas, they proceed straight along their path with hardly a doff of the hat to explanation and technical detail.

Included in this anthology are such early gems and classics as:

THE MAN WHO SAW THE FUTURE
Edmond Hamilton

THE GOSTAK AND THE DOSHES
Miles J. Breuer, M.D.

THE PRINCE OF LIARS
Louise Taylor Hansen

THE IVY WAR
David H. Keller, M.D.

THE SHIP THAT TURNED ASIDE
G. Peyton Wertenbaker

THE MORDANT
Merab Eberle

RHYTHM
Charles Cloukey

THE FEATHERED DETECTIVE
A. Hyatt Verrill

THROUGH THE VEIL
Leslie Francis Stone

THE COSMIC EXPRESS
Jack Williamson

With an in-depth Introduction covering the best stories in every issue of Amazing Stories that year. Plus the original illustrations that accompanied the stories when they first appeared the magazine—along with the original blurbs and captions as well.

Praise for The Best of Amazing Stories:

“A delightful find … anthology series that attempts to collect the early days of perhaps the greatest SF magazine, Amazing Stories, the Grand Old Lady of the pulps. The editors also include the interior illustrations, including work by Frank R. Paul and F. S. Hynd.” —Black Gate

"Hugely entertaining. It should be required reading for anyone interested in this era of science fiction." —Goodreads

"The Editor did a good job in assembling this pre-World War II selection of American science-fiction short stories. Well worth the price!" —Amazon Reviews

***

The newest volume of this widely-acclaimed anthology series showcases memorable stories from the pens of the era's most celebrated authors:

Clare Winger Harris and Miles J. Breuer, MD give birth to “A Baby on Neptune,” a tale whose conceptualization and execution had no parallel until Cyril Kornbluth and Judith Merril’s 1951 Mars Child (AKA Outpost Mars).

Miles J. Breuer, MD presents one of his patented mind-stretchers, “The Captured Cross-Section,” which manages to combine science, adventure and romance without even straining.

G. Peyton Wertenbaker takes us into “The Chamber of Life,” possibly the first ever tale of virtual reality, which sf critic Sam Moskowitz cited for its “stylistic finish, sophistication and subtlety".

Bob Olsen’s “The Superperfect Bride,” opens new directions in scifi, depicting nudity and arousal for the first time in a science fiction magazine while grappling with questions of identity and humanity. (SF historian E. F. Bleiler cites it as “almost surreal in its eroticism.")

David H. Keller, MD displays an adroit mastery of the scientific horror yarn in "The Worm", which proves him every bit the equal of H. P. Lovecraft, whose "the Colour Out of Space," had appeared in Amazing two years earlier.

Louise Taylor Hansen (an author of books popularizing anthropology and geology) defied gender expectations with a rigorous scientific adventure puzzle, "The Undersea Tube", the spellbinding story of marine disaster in a future where the continents are connected by tubes bored beneath the world’s oceans. The story comes complete with Hansen’s own plan and section drawings.

Wallace West offers “The Last Man,” focusing on the euphonious character's fate in an all-female society produced through pathogenesis.

A Hyatt Verrill hits the heights with “Vampires of the Desert,” which Bleiler ranked as “Verrill’s best story.”

Captain S. P. Meek gives readers a true classic in “Futility”, a story Bleiler says is “arguably Meek’s best,” dealing with a computer so advanced it can forecast anyone’s date of death (which may well have been the genesis of Robert A. Heinlein’s first published story, “Lifeline”).

Plus all the original illustrations and editorial blurbs for each story, and a fascinating, informative Introduction surveying Amazing Stories' high points throughout 1929!

GREAT STORIES FROM THE PIONEER SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’S EARLY ISSUES!

“It was Amazing Stories all the way with me.” —Isaac Asimov

“A delightful find … an anthology series that attempts to collect the early days of perhaps the greatest SF magazine, Amazing Stories, the Grand Old Lady of the pulps. The editors also include the interior illustrations, including work by Frank R. Paul and F. S. Hynd.” —Black Gate

1928 saw the first, and very memorable, appearances in Amazing of science fiction masters and future award winners Jack Williamson and Edmond Hamilton, plus a prescient ecological story by Clare Winger Harris, a queasy and hilarious fourth-dimensional romp by Miles J. Breuer M.D., an uncannily astute prediction of the cultural problems the automobile age would bring by satirist David H. Keller M.D., Charles Clooney’s dazzling consideration of what happens when the first bullet is fired on the Moon, an affecting human document by Edwin K. Slat mixing the adventure of flight to Venus with a touching love story and characters you will not soon forget, and architect Harold Donitz’ amazing vision of his architectural future, which uncannily resembles our own 21st century. Plus a thought-provoking Introduction covering the year in review for Amazing Stories, along with the original magazine blurbs and illustrations for each story.

“Five stars! Everything I had hoped for!!! This book will become a prize in my collection. I love the very colorful artwork on the front and back pages. The stories contain the original artwork from the original "Amazing Stories" magazine. The 9 X 6 size is perfect for reading, not a large as a magazine, but not as small as a mass market paperback. This book makes me feel very nostalgic and transports my mind back to the time when the stories were originally written. Sci-Fi Fans, this is a Great book!!” —Amazon Review

“Five stars! Please make more of these anthologies! I love old pulp stories. Amazing Stories with its scientifiction stories didn't disappoint. My favorites in this collection being "The Plague of the Living Dead", "The Machine Man of Ardathia", "The Tissue-Culture King", and of course a Lovecraft story to top it all off "The Colour out of Space". I really hope they make more of these anthologies. This being my first.” —Amazon review

1927 was a banner year for Amazing Stories. For Amazing’s second year, Gernsback knew he would have to find more new writers with up-to-date science fictional ideas. And in 1927, Gernsback succeeded in spades, introducing not only a bumper crop of new authors and fresh stories, but also four brand spanking new tropes, to the nascent world of science fiction.

A. Hyatt Verrill’s “Plague of the Living Dead,” wasn’t just another story of bloodthirsty zombies on the hunt, made more credible with a scientific rationale for their existence—it’s the first such story ever! But Gernsback was just getting warmed up. The 1927 Amazing Stories was also the first publication to introduce the work of the now-legendary fantasist H. P. Lovecraft to a mass audience. Though often mistaken as a writer of supernatural fiction, Lovecraft was actually a science fiction author, whose famed evil gods—the Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, and Nyarlathotep—were not gods at all, but highly advanced aliens inspired by Lovecraft’s readings of the new discoveries of Eddington, Einstein, and other early 20th century scientists. But Gernsback wasn’t finished yet. He also introduced the work of a man whom the magazine’s readers would consider one of the leading science fiction writers of its first decade: Miles J. Breuer, M.D. Although physician Brewer would become famed for mind-bending stories of conceptual breakthrough, usually facing mortals with dimensional dilemmas—such as “The Gosstak and the Doshes” and “The Captured Cross-Section”—his debut in Amazing, “The Man with the Strange Head,” took a different tack and its appearance would mark the birth of yet another trope: that of a man who extends his life and strength through the creation of a mechanical body (which may also have served as a direct inspiration for Iron Man’s suit). And fourteen months after his inaugural issue and only six months after he began his push to fill Amazing with new writers and stories, Gernsback introduced the first woman author to appear in the pages of a science fiction magazine, Claire Winger Harris—and she introduced “The Fate of the Poseidonia", the first story in which the Earth is saved not by a hero but a heroine, a pacesetter tale whose style, characterization and superior storytelling would only be equaled by the best of Amazing’s male writers during its first decade.

But, these four classics aren't the only first-rate stories Gernsback could boast of in 1927, and in this anthology you will find six more bests from that year, including “Retreat to Mars” by Cecil B. White—an “idea story” with a kicker—and Benjamin Witwer's “Radio Mates” which, unlike so many scientific-device-leads-our-hero-to-a-princess-in-need-of-rescue stories, offers a touch of romance between equals. Then, with “Advanced Chemistry” by Jack G. Huekels, we see not only the first story about chemistry in an sf magazine—but a story which has achieved a fame of its own in scientific circles, and been reprinted in scientifically-themed anthologies as well as textbooks over the years. Bob Olsen's “The Four-Dimensional Roller-Press” is a dimensional romp, with a nod to Edwin Abbott's Flatland, that proved so popular with readers that four further “Four-Dimensional” sequels were demanded. “The Machine Man of Ardathia” was one of the youthful Forrest J Ackerman's favorite stories—and some years later he considered it a high honor to be allowed to collaborate with the author, Francis Flagg. Though bound to stir unease in many readers, “The Tissue Culture King” by biologist Julian Huxley (brother of Aldous), is easily one of the most gracefully written stories ever printed in a Gernsback publication.
And, as a special treat for modern readers, we have paired each story with the original illustrations—most by the immortal Frank R. Paul, surely the first man to be paid to envision a new aspect of a new future every single day.

A unique collection of classic science fiction tales selected from the first year of the very first science fiction magazine.

1926 was a very good year, at least for speculative fiction, as this anthology proves. The Best of Amazing Stories: the 1926 Anthology is the first of a year-by-year showcasing of the best stories selected from each year of the publication's celebrated history.

Our 1926 selection presents work by such distinguished practitioners of the craft as multiple Hugo Award winner Murray Leinster; Gernsback Award winners H. G. Wells, G. Peyton Wertenbaker and A. Hyatt Verrill; screen writer Curt Siodmak; the controversial Austin Hall, and others. Stories include "The Runaway Skyscraper," "Whispering Ether," "The Man from the Atom," "The Eggs from Lake Tanganyika," "In the Abyss," "Through the Crater's Rim," and more.

To be followed by The Best of Amazing Stories: the 1927 Anthology next month!

The ebook edition of The Best of Amazing Stories: The 1926 Anthology will normally sell for $5.99, but we're offering it for only $3.99 as a special introductory sale.

“A fairly good time capsule of sf starting to become a genre of its own ... for the pulp fiction fan, this will be an interesting and fun read And all of 1940's covers are reprinted on this anthology's back cover.” —Amazon review.

1940 was an important year for Amazing Stories—and for its new editor, Raymond A. Palmer. For Palmer it was the culmination of his dream to create a stable of new science fiction writers for Amazing, the way John W. Campbell Jr. had done two years earlier with such spectacular success at Astounding Stories. Palmer gathered Don Wilcox, Robert Moore Williams, the highly underrated Rog Phillips, David Wright O’Brien, David Vern Reed (of Batman fame), Chester. S. Geier, the Livingston brothers (Herbert and Berkeley), Leroy Yerxa, Frances Deegan, Richard S. Shaver, and others quite popular then but of lesser fame today. He also opened his pages to anything such important authors as Ray Bradbury, Nelson S. Bond, Eando Binder, and Robert Bloch cared to write,

1940 was the year it all came together for Ray Palmer. From then on Amazing Stories’ readership and circulation would continue to grow, even through and after the war, in a triumphal arc.
The stories reprinted here, we believe are among the most outstanding Palmer published in Amazing during 1940. Guiding our selections are what we feel are three key signifiers of quality: 1) reader reaction as reflected in the magazine’s letter columns, 2) a story having been deemed worthy of reprint by the field’s most able anthologists, and 3) our own personal reading of all twelve issues published that year.

The gem of the year, a novelette which still enjoys classic status today, was undoubtedly “The Voyage that Lasted 600 Years,” the first story ever set on board a ship making a generations-long voyage to a distant star. Once again Amazing was in the lead with a cornerstone sf idea that remains a vital part of the field to this day (beating out Robert A. Heinlein’s “Universe,” which is often misremembered as the first use of a generation starship, by a full year).

Also included are
Truth Is A Plague
David Wright O’Brien
The Living Mist
Ralph Milne Farley
Paul Revere And The Time Machine
A. W. Bernal
Monster Out Of Space
Malcolm Jameson
The Day Time Stopped Moving
Ed Earl Repp (Writing As Bradner Buckner)
The Mathematical Kid
Ross Rocklynne
The Strange Voyage Of Dr. Penwing
Richard O. Lewis
The Three Wise Men Of Space
Donald Bern
Sons Of The Deluge
Nelson S. Bond

This special 1940 Retro-Hugo edition of The Best of Amazing Stories is not intended to tell World Science Fiction Convention members who or what to vote for (or not to vote for). At the same time it is not possible for most readers to obtain copies of all the science fiction stories and novels published during 1940 or even those classics that might be ranked among the best. Unfortunately, many of the latter are not in print, and those that are are scattered widely among many different anthologies and not easy to assemble. We offer this present book in the hope that it may help contemporary readers become more informed about, at least, some of the better science fiction of the year 1940.

Contains a special Introduction and survey of the best stories published in every magazine during the year.

Being the Weird Adventures of Archeologist Charles Winterbottom with Frankenstein, Captain Nemo, and a certain Wicked Witch on the Yellow Brick Road, in Atlantis—and Beyond.

In this second volume of his Weird Adventures, Archeologist Charles Winterbottom's desperate quest to find the fabled Eye on the Pyramid sets him on a collision course with Baron Frankenstein, Captain Nemo, the Wicked Witch of the West, and a certain famous Wizard—on the Yellow Brick Road, in Atlantis, at Graceland Cemetery, and in the dungeon beneath a Mad Scientist's Laboratory.

A hilarious sendup of Dan Brown and James Rollins, the Oz canon, Jules Verne, and so much more. Steampunk has never been funnier. For lovers of Discworld, Xanth, the Mythadventures and so much more.

Being the Weird Adventures of Charles Winterbottom, Archeologist with Azathoth, Cthulhu, the Yeti Queen, the Dark Gods of Lemuria.

Charles Winterbottom is an archeologist of the Indiana Jones sort, except that Winterbottom is a buffoon and a unrepentant womanizer. As Captain Sally, the commander of the spaceship that brought him to Mars, has said on a couple of occasions, “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Charlie.”

Winterbottom’s colleague, Heinrich Schmidt, talks him into an expedition to Mars to find out the truth about the Cydonia area. After vigorous training as astronauts, Winterbottom, Schmidt and the crew of the Perceval blast off for Mars. The crew consists of Captain Sally Randy, commander and pilot; Plush Blue, medic, biology specialist and social scientist; Jack Dooper, science officer and navigator; and Larke, android chief of engineering and maintenance. On the trip to Mars, there is a lot of hanky-panky. Winterbottom goes to the storeroom on occasion with Plush Blue, but loses her to Dooper, who is known as Super Dooper. He also strikes out with Captain Sally.

They finally arrive at Mars and explore the Cydonia area, to which Larke claims the Martians are transmitting signals. Winterbottom, Schmidt, Larke and Captain Sally stumble upon—and are trapped in—an underground catacomb, and are then arrested by seven-foot, green-skinned Martian priests for desecrating a sacred place. They are brought to Princess Golygee for judgment, and are sentenced to be sacrificed to the demon god Azathoth...

But you will have to read the rest of Winterbottom's misadvetures with Cthulhu, the Yeti Queen, the Dark Gods of Lemuria, and other terrifying creatures of the night—and especially his dinner with the Lord of the Undead—for yourself!

Being the Experiences of Archeologist Charles Winterbottom in Middle Land with the robbit, Froggy Baggy, the mechanical man, Jeeves, and young Billy Ratson, who knows a secret word – in quest of the Ring of Power supposed to have been Unmade at Mount Death – and opposed by the evil Sorcerer, Bairon, and his minions the fawning wizard Soreguy, the undead Vlad Dracul, and Heleem, the Wicked Witch of the West. Queen of the Winkies.

A unique anthology of time-tested shudder-stories about a unique breed of women who "refused to take death lying down"—available exclusively to eBook readers.

Though they may all be siblings beneath the skin (and beneath the soil of the graveyard!), these vampiric sisters are as different as any eight women could be. Though most imbibe their blood the traditional way, one—"The Good Lady Ducayne"—prefers to acquire her nourishment through more scientific means.

Another doesn't even drink blood at all; her approach to draining the life from her victims is somewhat more direct (but we think you'll agree that "Luella Miller" deserves the appellation "vampire" every bit as much as any of the rest).

Some inhabit ancient European castles with bloodlines that stretch back into history ("Schloss Wappeburg"), others (like "Mrs. Amworth") are freshly-minted, dwelling in the house right across the street. Some are reached by automobile ("The Dark Castle"); others lie far back in time in the late 1700s ("Wake not the Dead"). Some joined the legions of the undead via the standard methods, like suicide ("The Blood is the Life"), while still others owe their existence to very unusual means indeed ("Placide's Wife").

There is one thing these frightful female fiends have in common, however, besides their fangs: Once you've met them, you will never forget them!