Astonishing Stories
Encyclopedia
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp
science fiction magazine
, published by Popular Publications
between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl
, who also edited a companion publication, Super Science Stories
. After nine issues Pohl was replaced by Alden H. Norton, who subsequently rehired Pohl as an assistant. The budget for Astonishing was very low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his membership in the Futurians
, a group of young science fiction fans
and aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov
and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The final issue was dated April of that year.
The magazine was never regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but despite the low budget it published some well-received material. Science fiction critic Peter Nicholls
comments that "its stories were surprisingly good considering how little was paid for them", and this view has been echoed by other historians of the field.
, a pulp magazine
published by Hugo Gernsback
. By the end of the 1930s the field was booming, and several new sf magazines were launched in 1939. Frederik Pohl
, a young science fiction reader, was looking for a job that year. He visited Robert Erisman, who was the editor of two pulps, Marvel Science Stories and Dynamic Science Stories, to ask for a job as an assistant. Erisman turned him down, but suggested that Pohl contact Rogers Terrill at Popular Publications
, a leading pulp publisher. Erisman had heard that Popular was starting a new line of magazines, and thought that they might be interested in adding a science fiction title. On October 25, 1939, Pohl visited Terrill and persuaded him to give the idea a try, and left Terrill's office having been hired, at the age of nineteen, to edit two new magazines, on a salary of ten dollars per week. One was Super Science Stories
; the other was at one point intended to be titled Incredible Stories, but ultimately appeared as Astonishing Stories.
Popular was uncertain of the sales potential for the two new titles and decided to publish them under its Fictioneers imprint, which was used for lower-paying magazines. Astonishings first issue was dated February 1940; it was bimonthly, alternating monthly with Super Science Stories. Pohl's budget for an issue was $405: in Pohl's memoirs he recalls Harry Steeger
, one of the company owners, breaking down the budget for him: "Two hundred seventy-five dollars for stories. A hundred dollars for black and white art. Thirty dollars for a cover." Pohl could only offer half a cent per word for fiction, well below the rates offered by the leading magazines. At ten cents, the magazine was cheaper than any of the other sf magazines of the day, and it sold well, despite Pohl's limited resources. It was certainly assisted by Popular's wide and effective distribution network, and the publisher soon increased Pohl's budget, to pay bonuses for popular stories. Pohl later commented that he was uncertain whether the additional funds really helped to bring in higher quality submissions, although at the time he assured Steeger it would improve the magazine. Some of the additional money went to long-time writer Ray Cummings
, who was sufficiently well known that the young Pohl felt unable to reject his stories, even though he disliked his work. Cummings came to see Pohl in person to submit his work, and refused to sell for less than one cent a word; since the first visit came on a day when Pohl had some extra money available, Pohl was never able to bring himself to tell Cummings that he could not really afford to pay that rate. Pohl comments in his memoirs that "for months he would turn up regularly as clockwork and sell me a new story; I hated them all, and bought them all."
Pohl stretched his budget by reducing the space he needed to fill with fiction. For example, a long letter column took up several pages but required no payment; similarly, running advertisements for Popular's other magazines did not use up the fiction budget. Some authors sent inaccurate word counts with the stories they submitted, and Popular saved money by paying them on the basis of whichever word count was less—the author's or one done by Popular's staff. The result was a saving of forty to fifty dollars per issue. More money was saved by reusing snipped elements of black and white illustrations to fill space, as multiple uses of the same artwork did not require additional payments to the artist.
Towards the end of 1940 Popular doubled Pohl's salary to twenty dollars per week. In June 1941 Pohl went to see Steeger to ask for a further raise; he was planning to resign and work as a free-lance writer if he did not get more pay. Steeger, in Pohl's words, "had complaints of his own", and was not receptive; by the end of the meeting Pohl had lost his job as editor. Pohl later commented "I have never been sure whether I quit or got fired." Instead of replacing Pohl, Popular assigned editor-in-chief Alden H. Norton to add the magazines to his responsibilities. The arrangement lasted for seven months, after which Norton asked Pohl to return as his assistant. Norton offered Pohl a higher salary as an associate editor than he had received as the editor, and Pohl quickly accepted.
Pohl was not eligible to be drafted for military service as he was married, but by the end of 1942 his marriage was over and he decided to enlist. As voluntary enlistment was suspended he was unable to immediately join the army, but eventually was inducted on April 1, 1943. Paper was difficult to obtain because of the war, and Popular decided to close the magazine down; the final issue, dated April 1943, was assembled with the assistance of Ejler Jakobsson
.
, a group of science fiction fans that included Isaac Asimov
, C.M. Kornbluth, Richard Wilson
and Donald Wollheim; the Futurians were eager to become professional writers and were glad to submit stories to Pohl. Asimov recalls in his memoirs that on October 27, 1939, two days after Pohl was hired to edit the magazines, Pohl turned up at Asimov's apartment and asked to buy "Half-Breed
", a story Pohl had been trying to sell on Asimov's behalf since June of that year. Pohl needed stories quickly for the first issue of Astonishing (though the name had not yet been selected), and as the story had been rejected by Amazing Stories
and Astounding Stories, Asimov was willing to sell it for half a cent per word. A couple of weeks later Pohl also acquired "The Callistan Menace
" from Asimov. The other Futurians were prolific as well; in Pohl's first year as an editor he bought a total of fifteen stories from them for the two magazines. Damon Knight
, another of the Futurians, recalled in his memoirs that Pohl once asked the group for a story to fill out an issue, with $35 available to pay for it. Kornbluth and Wilson wrote a first draft, alternating turns at the typewriter; the result was edited by Harry Dockweiler, another Futurian, and then again by Pohl before it appeared in the April 1940 Astonishing under the title "Stepsons of Mars", with a byline of "Ivar Towers". Pohl contributed material himself, using the pseudonyms "James McCreigh" and "Dirk Wylie" (the latter pseudonym was also used by Dockweiler); he used his own stories when he needed to fill an issue, and to supplement his salary of ten dollars a week. Particularly after his marriage to Doris Baumgardt in August 1940, Pohl realized that his salary covered their apartment rent with almost no money left over, and began to augment his income by selling to himself as well as to other magazines. When Pohl lost his job as editor in late 1941, he had bought from himself (and paid for) a couple of stories that he had not actually written, and hence had to write them very quickly and turn them in.
The first issue of Astonishing Stories was dated February 1940; the lead story was "Chameleon Planet" by John Russell Fearn
, and it also included Asimov's "Half-Breed" and fiction by Henry Kuttner
and Manly Wade Wellman
. Despite the difficulties caused by the low budget, Pohl was able to pay his authors promptly, unlike some of his competitors, and he thus began to receive stories of higher quality. Sf historian Mike Ashley
identifies "The Last Drop", by L. Ron Hubbard
and L. Sprague de Camp
as one of the better stories in Astonishing; historians Milton Wolf and Raymond H. Thompson consider the story to be unimpressive, and point instead to Alfred Bester
's "The Pet Nebula" in the February 1941 issue. Kuttner's "Soldiers of Space" and Robert Bloch
's "It Happened Tomorrow", both of which appeared in the February 1943 issue, are also praised. Pohl was also able to print the first three of Ross Rocklynne
's well-liked "Into the Darkness" series. Other well-known writers who appeared in the pages of Astonishing include Leigh Brackett
, Clifford Simak, and E. E. Smith
.
Pohl told his readers in Astonishings first issue that he would listen to their feedback and respond to their requests. In addition to paying attention to their comments on stories, he included departments in the magazine that encouraged interaction with the fans, such as a letter column, a section that listed fanzines with names and addresses, and a review column. The reviews, primarily by Wollheim, but also including contributions from Richard Wilson, Forrest Ackerman, and John Michel
, were of a higher standard than elsewhere in the field, and historian Paul Carter regards Astonishing and Super Science Stories as the place where "book reviewing for the first time began to merit the term 'literary criticism, and adds that "it was in those magazines that the custom began of paying attention to science fiction on the stage and screen also."
The artwork in Astonishing was initially quite poor, which was unsurprising given the minuscule budget Pohl had to work with. Much of the art was supplied by fans and artists early in their careers, including Doris Baumgardt (under the pseudonym Leslie Perri
) and Dorothy Les Tina, who later became Pohl's first and second wives, respectively. One fan artist who stood out from the rest was Hannes Bok
, who went on to become a well-respected artist with a very distinctive style. Ray Bradbury
commented positively on Bok's work in a letter in the August 1940 Astonishing, and Bok subsequently illustrated a story of Bradbury's in the April 1943 issue. Aleck Portegal, Popular's art director, had initially told Pohl that the regular artists would be unwilling to work for the low rates he could offer, but in the event some of them were willing to take less pay to get the extra work. More professional art began to appear in the magazine, including work by Virgil Finlay
, Alexander Leydenfrost, Leo Morey, Hans Wessolowski, and Frank R. Paul
, all well-known in the field. Some art appeared under the name Stephen Lawrence, which was known to be a pseudonym of Lawrence Stevens, but it was subsequently discovered that some of this work was actually by Lawrence Stevens' son Peter.
Astonishing Stories is not remembered as being among the best science fiction magazines: both critic Peter Nicholls
and sf writer Jack Williamson
have described it as a "training ground" for writers who would go on to do their best work elsewhere. However, Nicholls adds that "its stories were surprisingly good considering how little was paid for them", and Wolf and Thompson agree, claiming that "there was much that was memorable in Astonishing, both by way of immediate appeal and of more lasting quality". Pohl himself, who later became a very successful magazine editor, felt he made many mistakes. He quotes as an example his serialization of Malcolm Jameson
's story "Quicksands of Youthwardness" in three parts; the story was only 27,000 words long, and readers complained (justifiably, in Pohl's view) that serializing it in a bimonthly magazine meant they had to wait for five months to read the whole story, in relatively small 9,000-word pieces. Overall, Pohl assessed his performance by saying "I wasn't really a very good editor"; adding "With what I know now I could have made those magazines sing, but as it was they just lay there".
A Canadian edition appeared for three issues, dated January, March, and May 1942, published by Popular Publications' Toronto branch. It was priced at 10 cents and ran to 96 pages; it was also in pulp format, but fractionally larger than the US version. The first and third issues reprinted the November 1941 and March 1942 US issues of Astonishing, but the March 1942 Canadian issue was a reprint of the November 1941 Super Science Stories, omitting one story. The covers in all three issues were replaced by new paintings, and the interior artwork was also different. The artists responsible for the new illustrations and covers were not credited. In August 1942 a Canadian edition of Super Science Stories began which also alternated between reprinting the US editions of Astonishing and Super Science Stories; this could be regarded as a continuation of the Canadian edition of Astonishing, although the volume numbering was restarted at volume 1 number 1 when the name was changed.
Pulp magazine
Pulp 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...
science fiction magazine
Science fiction magazine
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....
, published by Popular Publications
Popular Publications
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles...
between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, who also edited a companion publication, Super Science Stories
Super Science Stories
Super Science Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine published by Popular Publications from 1940 and 1943, and again from 1949 to 1951. Popular launched it under their "Fictioneers" imprint, which they used for magazines paying writers less than one cent per word...
. After nine issues Pohl was replaced by Alden H. Norton, who subsequently rehired Pohl as an assistant. The budget for Astonishing was very low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his membership in the Futurians
Futurians
The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937-1945.-Origins of the group:As described...
, a group of young science fiction fans
Science fiction fandom
Science 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...
and aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac 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 Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The final issue was dated April of that year.
The magazine was never regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but despite the low budget it published some well-received material. Science fiction critic Peter Nicholls
Peter Nicholls (writer)
Peter Nicholls is an Australian literary scholar and critic. He is the creator and a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ....
comments that "its stories were surprisingly good considering how little was paid for them", and this view has been echoed by other historians of the field.
Publication history
Although science fiction (sf) had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing StoriesAmazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
, a pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp 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...
published by Hugo Gernsback
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...
. By the end of the 1930s the field was booming, and several new sf magazines were launched in 1939. Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, a young science fiction reader, was looking for a job that year. He visited Robert Erisman, who was the editor of two pulps, Marvel Science Stories and Dynamic Science Stories, to ask for a job as an assistant. Erisman turned him down, but suggested that Pohl contact Rogers Terrill at Popular Publications
Popular Publications
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles...
, a leading pulp publisher. Erisman had heard that Popular was starting a new line of magazines, and thought that they might be interested in adding a science fiction title. On October 25, 1939, Pohl visited Terrill and persuaded him to give the idea a try, and left Terrill's office having been hired, at the age of nineteen, to edit two new magazines, on a salary of ten dollars per week. One was Super Science Stories
Super Science Stories
Super Science Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine published by Popular Publications from 1940 and 1943, and again from 1949 to 1951. Popular launched it under their "Fictioneers" imprint, which they used for magazines paying writers less than one cent per word...
; the other was at one point intended to be titled Incredible Stories, but ultimately appeared as Astonishing Stories.
Popular was uncertain of the sales potential for the two new titles and decided to publish them under its Fictioneers imprint, which was used for lower-paying magazines. Astonishings first issue was dated February 1940; it was bimonthly, alternating monthly with Super Science Stories. Pohl's budget for an issue was $405: in Pohl's memoirs he recalls Harry Steeger
Harry Steeger
Henry "Harry" Steeger co-founded Popular Publications in 1930, one of the major publishers of pulp magazines, with Harold S. Goldsmith. Steeger handled editorial matters while Goldsmith took care of the business side. Both were veterans of the pulp magazine business. Steeger had edited war pulps at...
, one of the company owners, breaking down the budget for him: "Two hundred seventy-five dollars for stories. A hundred dollars for black and white art. Thirty dollars for a cover." Pohl could only offer half a cent per word for fiction, well below the rates offered by the leading magazines. At ten cents, the magazine was cheaper than any of the other sf magazines of the day, and it sold well, despite Pohl's limited resources. It was certainly assisted by Popular's wide and effective distribution network, and the publisher soon increased Pohl's budget, to pay bonuses for popular stories. Pohl later commented that he was uncertain whether the additional funds really helped to bring in higher quality submissions, although at the time he assured Steeger it would improve the magazine. Some of the additional money went to long-time writer Ray Cummings
Ray Cummings
Ray Cummings was an American author of science fiction, rated one of the "founding fathers of the science fiction pulp genre". He was born in New York and died in Mount Vernon, New York....
, who was sufficiently well known that the young Pohl felt unable to reject his stories, even though he disliked his work. Cummings came to see Pohl in person to submit his work, and refused to sell for less than one cent a word; since the first visit came on a day when Pohl had some extra money available, Pohl was never able to bring himself to tell Cummings that he could not really afford to pay that rate. Pohl comments in his memoirs that "for months he would turn up regularly as clockwork and sell me a new story; I hated them all, and bought them all."
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 2/1 | 2/2 | ||||||
| 1941 | 2/3 | 2/4 | 3/1 | 3/2 | ||||||||
| 1942 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 4/1 | 4/2 | ||||||||
| 1943 | |bgcolor=#ffff99|4/3 | 4/4 | ||||||||||
| Issues of Astonishing Stories, showing volume/issue number. The colors identify the editors for each issue: Frederik Pohl until September 1941, and Alden H. Norton for the remaining issues. |
||||||||||||
Towards the end of 1940 Popular doubled Pohl's salary to twenty dollars per week. In June 1941 Pohl went to see Steeger to ask for a further raise; he was planning to resign and work as a free-lance writer if he did not get more pay. Steeger, in Pohl's words, "had complaints of his own", and was not receptive; by the end of the meeting Pohl had lost his job as editor. Pohl later commented "I have never been sure whether I quit or got fired." Instead of replacing Pohl, Popular assigned editor-in-chief Alden H. Norton to add the magazines to his responsibilities. The arrangement lasted for seven months, after which Norton asked Pohl to return as his assistant. Norton offered Pohl a higher salary as an associate editor than he had received as the editor, and Pohl quickly accepted.
Pohl was not eligible to be drafted for military service as he was married, but by the end of 1942 his marriage was over and he decided to enlist. As voluntary enlistment was suspended he was unable to immediately join the army, but eventually was inducted on April 1, 1943. Paper was difficult to obtain because of the war, and Popular decided to close the magazine down; the final issue, dated April 1943, was assembled with the assistance of Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson
Ejler Jakobsson was a Finnish-born science fiction editor.Jakobsson moved to the United States in 1926 and began a career as an author in the 1930s. He worked on Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories briefly before they shut down production due to paper shortages...
.
Contents and reception
Because of the low rates of pay, the stories submitted to Astonishing in its first year had generally already been rejected elsewhere. However, Pohl was a member of the FuturiansFuturians
The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937-1945.-Origins of the group:As described...
, a group of science fiction fans that included Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac 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...
, C.M. Kornbluth, Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson (author)
Richard Wilson was a Nebula Award winning American science fiction writer and fan. He was a member of the Futurians, and was married at one time to Leslie Perri....
and Donald Wollheim; the Futurians were eager to become professional writers and were glad to submit stories to Pohl. Asimov recalls in his memoirs that on October 27, 1939, two days after Pohl was hired to edit the magazines, Pohl turned up at Asimov's apartment and asked to buy "Half-Breed
Half-Breed (short story)
Half-Breed is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the February 1940 issue of Astonishing Stories and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. It was the fifteenth story written by Asimov, and the fourth to be published...
", a story Pohl had been trying to sell on Asimov's behalf since June of that year. Pohl needed stories quickly for the first issue of Astonishing (though the name had not yet been selected), and as the story had been rejected by Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
and Astounding Stories, Asimov was willing to sell it for half a cent per word. A couple of weeks later Pohl also acquired "The Callistan Menace
The Callistan Menace
The Callistan Menace is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the April 1940 issue of Astonishing Stories and was reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov...
" from Asimov. The other Futurians were prolific as well; in Pohl's first year as an editor he bought a total of fifteen stories from them for the two magazines. Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon 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:...
, another of the Futurians, recalled in his memoirs that Pohl once asked the group for a story to fill out an issue, with $35 available to pay for it. Kornbluth and Wilson wrote a first draft, alternating turns at the typewriter; the result was edited by Harry Dockweiler, another Futurian, and then again by Pohl before it appeared in the April 1940 Astonishing under the title "Stepsons of Mars", with a byline of "Ivar Towers". Pohl contributed material himself, using the pseudonyms "James McCreigh" and "Dirk Wylie" (the latter pseudonym was also used by Dockweiler); he used his own stories when he needed to fill an issue, and to supplement his salary of ten dollars a week. Particularly after his marriage to Doris Baumgardt in August 1940, Pohl realized that his salary covered their apartment rent with almost no money left over, and began to augment his income by selling to himself as well as to other magazines. When Pohl lost his job as editor in late 1941, he had bought from himself (and paid for) a couple of stories that he had not actually written, and hence had to write them very quickly and turn them in.
The first issue of Astonishing Stories was dated February 1940; the lead story was "Chameleon Planet" by John Russell Fearn
John Russell Fearn
John Russell Fearn was a British author and one of the first British writers to appear in American pulp science fiction magazines.-Career:...
, and it also included Asimov's "Half-Breed" and fiction by Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
and Manly Wade Wellman
Manly Wade Wellman
Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer. He is best known for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains and for drawing on the native folklore of that region, but he wrote in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, detective...
. Despite the difficulties caused by the low budget, Pohl was able to pay his authors promptly, unlike some of his competitors, and he thus began to receive stories of higher quality. Sf historian Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley (writer)
Michael Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.He edits the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, each arranged around a particular theme in mystery, fantasy, or science fiction...
identifies "The Last Drop", by L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
and L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
as one of the better stories in Astonishing; historians Milton Wolf and Raymond H. Thompson consider the story to be unimpressive, and point instead to Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books...
's "The Pet Nebula" in the February 1941 issue. Kuttner's "Soldiers of Space" and Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert 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...
's "It Happened Tomorrow", both of which appeared in the February 1943 issue, are also praised. Pohl was also able to print the first three of Ross Rocklynne
Ross Rocklynne
Ross Rocklynne was the pen name used by Ross Louis Rocklin, an American science fiction author active in the Golden Age of Science Fiction....
's well-liked "Into the Darkness" series. Other well-known writers who appeared in the pages of Astonishing include Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, Clifford Simak, and E. E. Smith
E. E. Smith
Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., also, E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and Ted was a food engineer and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others...
.
Pohl told his readers in Astonishings first issue that he would listen to their feedback and respond to their requests. In addition to paying attention to their comments on stories, he included departments in the magazine that encouraged interaction with the fans, such as a letter column, a section that listed fanzines with names and addresses, and a review column. The reviews, primarily by Wollheim, but also including contributions from Richard Wilson, Forrest Ackerman, and John Michel
John Michel
Field Marshal Sir John Michel GCB, PC was a British Army officer.-Military career:Educated at Eton College, Michel was commissioned into the 64th Regiment of Foot in 1823. In 1835 he was appointed Aide-de-Camp to General Sir Henry Fane in India...
, were of a higher standard than elsewhere in the field, and historian Paul Carter regards Astonishing and Super Science Stories as the place where "book reviewing for the first time began to merit the term 'literary criticism, and adds that "it was in those magazines that the custom began of paying attention to science fiction on the stage and screen also."
The artwork in Astonishing was initially quite poor, which was unsurprising given the minuscule budget Pohl had to work with. Much of the art was supplied by fans and artists early in their careers, including Doris Baumgardt (under the pseudonym Leslie Perri
Leslie Perri
Leslie Perri was the pen name of Doris Marie Claire "Doë" Baumgardt, an American science fiction fan, writer, and illustrator. She was a member of the Futurians, the influential science fiction fan club. Through her Futurian connections, she also edited minor romance fiction magazines...
) and Dorothy Les Tina, who later became Pohl's first and second wives, respectively. One fan artist who stood out from the rest was Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard , was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds...
, who went on to become a well-respected artist with a very distinctive style. Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray 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...
commented positively on Bok's work in a letter in the August 1940 Astonishing, and Bok subsequently illustrated a story of Bradbury's in the April 1943 issue. Aleck Portegal, Popular's art director, had initially told Pohl that the regular artists would be unwilling to work for the low rates he could offer, but in the event some of them were willing to take less pay to get the extra work. More professional art began to appear in the magazine, including work by Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques...
, Alexander Leydenfrost, Leo Morey, Hans Wessolowski, and Frank R. Paul
Frank R. Paul
Frank 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....
, all well-known in the field. Some art appeared under the name Stephen Lawrence, which was known to be a pseudonym of Lawrence Stevens, but it was subsequently discovered that some of this work was actually by Lawrence Stevens' son Peter.
Astonishing Stories is not remembered as being among the best science fiction magazines: both critic Peter Nicholls
Peter Nicholls (writer)
Peter Nicholls is an Australian literary scholar and critic. He is the creator and a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ....
and sf writer Jack Williamson
Jack Williamson
John 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...
have described it as a "training ground" for writers who would go on to do their best work elsewhere. However, Nicholls adds that "its stories were surprisingly good considering how little was paid for them", and Wolf and Thompson agree, claiming that "there was much that was memorable in Astonishing, both by way of immediate appeal and of more lasting quality". Pohl himself, who later became a very successful magazine editor, felt he made many mistakes. He quotes as an example his serialization of Malcolm Jameson
Malcolm Jameson
Malcolm Jameson was an American science fiction author. An officer in the US Navy, he was active in American pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His writing career began when complications of throat cancer limited his activity. According to John W...
's story "Quicksands of Youthwardness" in three parts; the story was only 27,000 words long, and readers complained (justifiably, in Pohl's view) that serializing it in a bimonthly magazine meant they had to wait for five months to read the whole story, in relatively small 9,000-word pieces. Overall, Pohl assessed his performance by saying "I wasn't really a very good editor"; adding "With what I know now I could have made those magazines sing, but as it was they just lay there".
Bibliographic details
Astonishing Stories was edited by Frederik Pohl from February 1940 through September 1941 (nine issues), and then by Alden H. Norton from November 1941 through April 1943 (seven issues). It was published by Fictioneers, Inc., a subsidiary of Popular Publications. It was pulp-sized throughout its run, with 112 pages and a cover price of 10 cents. The volume numbering was regular, with four volumes of four numbers. It was bimonthly for the first eight issues; the next four were on an irregular schedule, and the last four, from October 1942, were bimonthly again.A Canadian edition appeared for three issues, dated January, March, and May 1942, published by Popular Publications' Toronto branch. It was priced at 10 cents and ran to 96 pages; it was also in pulp format, but fractionally larger than the US version. The first and third issues reprinted the November 1941 and March 1942 US issues of Astonishing, but the March 1942 Canadian issue was a reprint of the November 1941 Super Science Stories, omitting one story. The covers in all three issues were replaced by new paintings, and the interior artwork was also different. The artists responsible for the new illustrations and covers were not credited. In August 1942 a Canadian edition of Super Science Stories began which also alternated between reprinting the US editions of Astonishing and Super Science Stories; this could be regarded as a continuation of the Canadian edition of Astonishing, although the volume numbering was restarted at volume 1 number 1 when the name was changed.
External links
- Astonishing Stories Checklist, images of all covers of Astonishing Stories