Amazing Stories Quarterly
Amazing Stories Quarterly was a U.S. science fiction pulp magazine that was published between 1928 and 1934. It was launched by Hugo Gernsback as a companion to his Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, which had begun publishing in April 1926. Amazing Stories had been successful enough for Gernsback to try a single issue of an Amazing Stories Annual in 1927, which had sold well, and he decided to follow it up with a quarterly magazine. The first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly was dated Winter 1928 and carried a reprint of the 1899 version of H.G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes. Gernsback's policy of running a novel in each issue was popular with his readership, though the choice of Wells' novel was less so. Over the next five issues, only one more reprint appeared: Gernsback's own novel Ralph 124C 41+, in the Winter 1929 issue. Gernsback went bankrupt in early 1929, and lost control of both Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly; associate editor T. O'Conor Sloane then took over as editor. The magazine began to run into financial difficulties in 1932, and the schedule became irregular; the last issue was dated Fall 1934.
Authors whose work appeared in Amazing Stories Quarterly include Stanton A. Coblentz, Miles J. Breuer, A. Hyatt Verrill, and Jack Williamson. Critical opinions differ on the quality of the fiction Gernsback and Sloane printed: Brian Stableford regards several of the novels as being important early science fiction, but Everett Bleiler comments that few of the stories were of acceptable quality. Milton Wolf and Mike Ashley are more positive in their assessment; they consider the work Sloane published in the early 1930s to be some of the best in the new genre.
Bibliographic details[edit]
Amazing Stories Quarterly was published by Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing until Spring 1929. A single issue appeared from Irving Trust, the trustee in Gernsback's bankruptcy; then four issues, from Fall 1929 to Summer 1930, again under the Experimenter Publishing imprint, and then four more from Radio-Science Publications. The last ten issues, from Fall 1931 to Fall 1934, were published by Teck Publishing, of Washington and Dunellen. The magazine was in large pulp format throughout, and was 144 pages long, except for the last two issues, which were 128 pages. It was priced at 50 cents. The first six issues were edited by Gernsback; from the Summer 1929 issue on, the editor was Sloane.[2] There was a Canadian reprint of the final issue, Fall 1934.[9]
Another 27 issues of Amazing Stories Quarterly appeared from Ziff-Davis from 1940 to 1943, and also from 1949 to 1951, but these were not original magazines, only rebound issues of Amazing Stories.[2]