THE BEST OF AMAZING STORIES: The 1929 Anthology

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

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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!