Magazine Relaunch Event: Amazing Stories Magazine
You are invited to Amazing Stories Magazine - the Birthplace of Science Fiction - Back in Print! on Wednesday, September 12 at 6 pm in the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, third floor of the Lillian H. Smith branch.
Come celebrate the first new print issue of the magazine since 2005, by attending this special launch event. The first 50 people to attend will receive free copies of the magazine.
It's free! No registration is required. All are welcome!
Editor-in-Chief Ira Nayman will be on hand to give a brief history of the magazine and talk about the challenges of reviving it in the current economic and political climate. Nayman is the 2010 winner of the Jonathan Swift Satire Writing Contest. He is also the author of The Multiverse is a Nice Place to Visit, But I Wouldn't Want to Live There (Transdimensional Authority novel 5), ARNS and the Man (Alternate Reality News Service book 8), and creator of Les Pages aux Folles and READING IS SEXY!
Contributing authors who have confirmed their attendance at the relaunch event include: Paul Levinson (“Slipping Time”), Shirley Meier (“Flight of an Arrow”) and Drew Hayden Taylor (“When Angels Come Knocking”). Various other contributors to the magazine will also be on hand.
Pulps at the Merril Collection
One of the treasures of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy is its extensive collection of pulp magazines. These early, popular magazines are so named because they were printed on inexpensive paper made from wood pulp in a process invented in the 1880's.
Amazing Stories Magazine
The popularity of science fiction in the 1920s led to the establishment of pulp magazines dedicated solely to science fiction stories, the first of which was Amazing Stories, created in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback, an engineer and science fiction writer/publisher considered by some to be the father of science fiction as it is now known. A companion magazine to Science and Invention, which also began in 1926, featured such luminaries of the genre such as Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clark.
According to Nayman, the relaunch of Amazing Stories Magazine in print "is both exciting and a little scary.... Amazing Stories has a – ahem – storied history. This makes reviving the magazine a delicate balancing act between honouring Amazing Stories’ legacy and updating it for a modern audience. Fortunately, the authors who have contributed to the first issue have given us a great start!”
For more information about the history behind the relaunch of the magazine in print, read this publisher’s note originally prepared for the print version of the magazine.
Other Pulp Magazines
Other early pulp titles were: Astounding Stories, Science Wonder Stories, Air Wonder Stories, and Scientific Detective Monthly. Many more titles appeared in 1939 and continued throughout the 1940s: Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and Weird Tales. The magazine boom gave way to an explosion of paperback book publishing in the 1950's. Even so, science fiction periodicals such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog and Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as newer Canadian titles such as On Spec are still being published today.
The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy has a substantial number of these early magazines, including Amazing Stories.
With thanks to Annette Mocek and Kim Hull
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