Amazing Stories — the first all-science-fiction pulp magazine — debuted with its April 1926 number. That issue actually would have been hitting newsstands a month early, in March.
For those counting along at home, that would be 88 years ago this year.
While Hugo Gernsback’s portmanteau “scientifiction” didn’t stick around that long (nor did Gernsback at the magazine, for that matter), Amazing Stories remained in print — first as a pulp, then as a digest — through 1995, and sporadically through 2005.
Last year, it resurfaced as an online magazine at AmazingStoriesMag.com.
Read publisher Steve Davidson‘s tribute “Happy 88th Birthday, Amazing Stories!” at the website.
L. Sprague de Camp — I’ve enjoyed his science-fiction works, such as “Lest Darkness Fall,” “The Wheels of If,” and “Genus Homo.”
But mention his name in some pulp circles and you’ll incur the wrath of Crom, thanks to de Camp’s — ahem — editing of Robert E. Howard‘s original Conan stories for reprint in the 1960s. (Taranich‘s blog, The Blog That Time Forgot, links to a series on the de Camp controversy that Morgan Holmes wrote back for the REH United Press Association website in 2008.)
Jeffrey Shanks posted a link to “An Odd Encounter” from the blog On an Underwood No. 5 on Facebook the other day. In a post, T. Bryan Vick recounts a meeting with a REH fan afflicted with de Camp’s editing.
Lastly, if you’re in the market for paperbacks (and hopefully some pulps), check out the 35th annual Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show.
It’s 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, March 16; admission is $5. The show is at the Glendale Civic Auditorium (a big change from the run-down Guest House Inn in Mission Hills, where the show was held for many years). More than 45 authors and illustrators will be on hand for signing books and such.
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