Amazing #1, April 1926:
COVER
The cover picture is of a group of people skating on a frozen pond while two ships are held up in the air by piles of ice and snow, with Saturn looming in the background. An interesting visual to start off with. Having read the magazine, I can see that it was inspired by the Verne story, Off on a Comet, depicting a scene from the end of the first part.
EDITORIAL
The editorial by Hugo Gernsback discusses the ‘new’ genre of ‘scientifiction,’ describing it as “a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision.” He also mentions two other magazines that had this sort of story, ‘Science & Invention’ and ‘Radio News,’ but these were primarily filled with real-world articles, with only the occasional sci-fi story. Some pulp magazines included early sci-fi; all of these stories are reprints, mostly from earlier magazines. However, Amazing is the first magazine devoted solely to ‘scientifiction.’
The editorial also mentions that the magazine has the rights to quite a few stories by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, and others, and will be publishing them either as short stories or serialized novels. They’ll also include fresh, new material as the magazine continues on.
OFF ON A COMET, PART 1, Jules Verne
The first story is a lengthy, serialized Jules Verne novel, broken up into two parts. And through the entire first part, the only indication we are given that the story takes place on a comet is its title; at no point do any of the characters in the book become aware of where they actually are; they think they are still on a part of Earth that has broken off and ended up spinning off into its own orbit. Fortunately, there is still an atmosphere and lots of water to float their boats on. The main character is a French army captain, Captain Servadac,
The novel was first published in serial format in 1877, translated into English that same year. There have been several different translations, and it appears that the original English translation is the one being used in this magazine.
The story’s introduction (by the magazine’s editor) tells us that this is a bit of a departure from his usual scientific romances, in that the science is pretty weak and unrealistic; a comet that large ‘brushing’ against the Earth would be cataclysmic Armageddon, and everyone would most definitely notice it. In this story, no one has any clue that there was even a comet near Earth, let alone that they’re now stuck on it. So, this story is definitely more ‘fiction’ than science. Still, it’s an interesting tale, one I’ve never read before, so it makes for a good bit of entertainment.
The biggest problem with the story, though, isn’t its plot or its scientific flights of fancy; it’s the exaggerated stereotypical (for the time) representation of the various people on the comet, especially the Jewish merchant, Isaac. Every negative stereotype of Jews prevalent in society at that time is embodied in Isaac, to the point that Verne actually got letters of complaint from Jewish leaders at the time. If you can get past the portrayal of Isaac, who apparently has zero redeeming qualities and is the butt of insults and jokes throughout, the story is a decent read.
Other than the premise, actually, the story does stick to science; the astronomy is pretty exact (for the time), and the struggle to survive (particularly when the temperature drops to a constant -60°) is believable. It’s not quite ‘The Martian’ in its realism, but it’s definitely a challenge for the characters to survive.
All in all, this first part (part II comes next month) takes up half the issue, with 24 chapters. The ‘cliffhanger’ reveals the captain and a Russian lieutenant crossing the frozen ocean of Gallia (the comet’s name) to find the person who has been leaving cryptic notes about the comet’s name, only to find him nearly dead of cold and hunger. They bring him back to the only warm place on the comet (a set of caves next to an active volcano)…and we’re done for now.
THE NEW ACCELERATOR, H.G. Wells
This is a short story by the other 19th-century master of sci-fi. Unlike Verne (who died in 1905), Wells was still alive and writing. This story dates from 1901, and is about a chemical concoction created by Professor Gibberne, an elixir that accelerates all of an individual’s physiological and cognitive processes to an extreme degree. We’re talking the Flash or Quicksilver here. The story looks at how this would affect people; although the protagonists can move really fast, they have no protection against air friction, for example. The science doesn’t get fully explored, though. The story is quick, less than six pages long, and doesn’t match up to the quality of his more well-known stories. Still, an entertaining, quick read.
THE MAN FROM THE ATOM, G. Peyton Wertenbaker
Another short story, this one is about a man who is subjected (voluntarily) to the effects of a size-changing device. In the course of the five pages, the protagonist (who isn’t the inventor of the device) chooses to use the device to grow, and with the help of a primitive space-suit grows to the point that he actually becomes larger than the solar system, then the galaxy, even the universe itself…until he suddenly realized that the universe is actually a subatomic realm, and he’s grown into the next universe. Oh, and he can’t get back home, either; not only has he grown to unimaginable heights, but time has also passed at a greatly-accelerated rate, to the point that our world no longer exists, and he’s completely alone…And this is just part one; the second part is in the next issue.
It's an interesting premise, but a fantastic one (in the old sense of the word). I doubt a story like this would fly in today's market. This story was originally printed in Gernsback’s Science and Invention magazine, in the August 1923 edition.
THE THING FROM “OUTSIDE”, George Allen England
This is a horror story more than a science-fiction story; the story is about a group of travelers in the Canadian winter wilderness who are being stalked by some sort of alien creature, a creature so alien that it completely freezes whatever it touches, and whatever it freezes can never be thawed. Further, the humans in the story are slowly driven mad by the creature’s unearthly power. The story explores the question of ‘why,’ as in, ‘why would any creature do this to us humans?’ But the creature is so completely alien that no motive can be construed or understood by humans, leaving us to speculate; thus, horror more than science-fiction. The story ends with the two survivors waking up in a mental institution in Montreal, the woman having no memory of what had happened. It definitely would fit in the Weird Tales/Lovecraft model, and would in fact be reprinted in the Magazine of Horror in January of 1965.
Like the previous story, this is a reprint from Science & Invention, from the April 1923 issue. It’s just shy of seven pages in length.
THE MAN WHO SAVED THE EARTH, Austin Hall
This novella was reprinted from All-Story Weekly magazine, December 13, 1919. This one is a bit of a mystery; the explanation doesn’t occur until the very end of the story. All we know is that chunks of Earth are disappearing without reason; first, a small bit of an Oakland street, then a mountain, and finally an enormous cavern is gouged out of North America and the ocean, draining the water and threatening all life on Earth. The only person who knows what’s going on is the garden-variety super-genius scientist, Charley Huyck, who sacrifices his own life to stop Mars from sucking up the rest of our water. No, not Martians; Mars itself is alive. Okay, then.
At 17 pages in length, this is the second-longest story in the magazine. It’s a quick read, but I found it less gripping than the other short stories. I would say that this is the weakest story so far. Not that it’s terrible, but I just didn’t find it to be as good.
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR, Edgar Allan Poe
Orginally published in 1845, this story has an interesting history, almost as interesting as the story itself. When it was first published, many people believed it to be a true story, and Poe didn’t admit otherwise for a while afterwards. In fact, people who were into hypnotism, or mesmerism as it was known at the time, tried to duplicate the story’s feat of mesmerizing a man on the edge of death and getting his first-hand report of what was happening to him.
So, while this one is science fiction (mesmerism was a hot topic at the time), it’s got touches of horror as well, as does much of Poe’s oeuvre. His graphic descriptions were very creepy, and his narration is frightening at times. After all, keeping a man on the edge of death from crossing over for seven months is quite the feat. This one is definitely a strong story, probably the best one in the issue.
And that wraps things up for the very first issue of Amazing Stories. If you like, leave a comment. If you're interested in a different kind of anthology, one that incorporates different genres, check out A Universe of Possibilities, my multi-genre short-story anthology, available at Amazon.
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