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New Fandom, v. 2, issue 1, April 1940

Page 7

of new readers who want only sugar-coated pills of future adventure.
V. Wonder Stories, "A Decade of Change".
It was a great day for science-fiction when Hugo Gornsback first started a new line of magazines after leaving Amazing in 1929. The first magazine was titled "Science Wonder Stories" and appeared in June 1929. Its companion magazine was Air Wonder Stories, which came out just one month later, and consequently ran for only eleven issues, contrary to general belief. Science Wonder had every concivable kind of plot, with a vin and gusto that the old Amazing didn't have. Air Wonder stuck to themes concerning flight, as its name indicates. At first it featured stratosphere and other terrestrial flight, but then it turned to Interplanetary flight. The complete set of Air Wonder is a rare collector's item and they contain some excellent fiction. Another failure was the attempt to publish the Scientific Detective Monthly. Those were the boom days! Today we are experiencing the boom of a new era and a new type of science-fiction. How will they rate it in the long run? Will the new era also pass? In those days it seemed, for a while, that science-fiction would become a strong factor in the pulp magazine field, but it was too early. Ten years had to pass before such a spree was to develope--- cultinating in today's crop of magazines.
The depression cut Gernsbock down to Wonder Stories --- how it managed to survive and print good science-fiction was an open secret. Lax and slow payments for materiel. Gornsbock owns a debt to his authors who waited on him for years. He partially repaid that debt by printing some of the best science-fiction that had apepared to date. David Lussor and Charles D. Hornig, the managing editors, made the mag readable in spit of poor sales and a rising tide of distrust. The amount of good fiction they put out is a tribute to the staff as a whole. Gornsback constently experimented with new ways of presenting science-fiction to the public. The history of Gernsbock Publications would make an interesting chapter in the history of American enterprise --- science-fiction being only one phase of it. Every type of story was tried, along with cover contests, new-type stories, and all foiled to take the grade. Even the size, price, and paper changed several times. The now Astounding prides itself on the experiments -- Wonder beat them all. Alas, Wonder as the old fans knew it vanished with the April, 1936 issue.
For a time the fans were inconsolable in spite of the fact that they, themselves, were a large factor in its demise. Why? They wanted old Wonder, but they wanted a better business policy. They didn't get either, until the Thrilling Wonder Stories came out. An interesting interlude in science-fiction had closed. Gornsbock had apparently passed fro the field. The failure of Wonder had outdated Amazing's failure by only two years. Does it seem strange that Wonder, Amazing and Astounding failed? With the new viewpoints on science-fiction a great revivial had started that may need[?] its success as a literature.
The now Thrilling Wonder Stories first appeared in August, 1936 with another fan as editor. Mortimer Wosingor. Thus Astounding with Campbell, Hornig with Science Fiction, Weisinger with Wonder, and Amazing with Palmer all have ex-fans and leaders in the field of authoring to guide them. The rush is on! Thrilling Wonder has many weaknesses --- the cief of them being that all of their stories are either puerille or stupid. Now and then a gan has been published.

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of new readers who want only sugar-coated pills of future adventure. V. Wonder Stories, "A Decade of Change". It was a great day for science-fiction when Hugo Gornsback first started a new line of magazines after leaving Amazing in 1929. The first magazine was titled "Science Wonder Stories" and appeared in June 1929. Its companion magazine was Air Wonder Stories, which came out just one month later, and consequently ran for only eleven issues, contrary to general belief. Science Wonder had every concivable kind of plot, with a vin and gusto that the old Amazing didn't have. Air Wonder stuck to themes concerning flight, as its name indicates. At first it featured stratosphere and other terrestrial flight, but then it turned to Interplanetary flight. The complete set of Air Wonder is a rare collector's item and they contain some excellent fiction. Another failure was the attempt to publish the Scientific Detective Monthly. Those were the boom days! Today we are experiencing the boom of a new era and a new type of science-fiction. How will they rate it in the long run? Will the new era also pass? In those days it seemed, for a while, that science-fiction would become a strong factor in the pulp magazine field, but it was too early. Ten years had to pass before such a spree was to develope--- cultinating in today's crop of magazines. The depression cut Gernsbock down to Wonder Stories --- how it managed to survive and print good science-fiction was an open secret. Lax and slow payments for materiel. Gornsbock owns a debt to his authors who waited on him for years. He partially repaid that debt by printing some of the best science-fiction that had apepared to date. David Lussor and Charles D. Hornig, the managing editors, made the mag readable in spit of poor sales and a rising tide of distrust. The amount of good fiction they put out is a tribute to the staff as a whole. Gornsback constently experimented with new ways of presenting science-fiction to the public. The history of Gernsbock Publications would make an interesting chapter in the history of American enterprise --- science-fiction being only one phase of it. Every type of story was tried, along with cover contests, new-type stories, and all foiled to take the grade. Even the size, price, and paper changed several times. The now Astounding prides itself on the experiments -- Wonder beat them all. Alas, Wonder as the old fans knew it vanished with the April, 1936 issue. For a time the fans were inconsolable in spite of the fact that they, themselves, were a large factor in its demise. Why? They wanted old Wonder, but they wanted a better business policy. They didn't get either, until the Thrilling Wonder Stories came out. An interesting interlude in science-fiction had closed. Gornsbock had apparently passed fro the field. The failure of Wonder had outdated Amazing's failure by only two years. Does it seem strange that Wonder, Amazing and Astounding failed? With the new viewpoints on science-fiction a great revivial had started that may need[?] its success as a literature. The now Thrilling Wonder Stories first appeared in August, 1936 with another fan as editor. Mortimer Wosingor. Thus Astounding with Campbell, Hornig with Science Fiction, Weisinger with Wonder, and Amazing with Palmer all have ex-fans and leaders in the field of authoring to guide them. The rush is on! Thrilling Wonder has many weaknesses --- the cief of them being that all of their stories are either puerille or stupid. Now and then a gan has been published.