On the backs of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, the two giants of Science Fiction, Hugo Gernsback built Amazing Stories. These two pioneers of SF were cheap European reprints but they were also the models upon which Gernsback wanted new writers to create. Hugo had the idea of an all-Scientifiction magazine but he did not have a ready-made stable of authors to fill that magazine. They needed training. And what better teachers than the man who created the voyage fantastique and the other guy who invented “idea” Science Fiction. (I have looked at the images of H. G. Wells’ fiction here.)
The very first work to appear in the inaugural issue in April 1926 was Verne’s Off On a Comet. The editor wrote:
In one way “Off On a Comet” showed a marked contrast to Verne’s earlier books. Not only does it invade a region of remotest space, but the author here abandons his usually scrupulously scientific attitude and give his fancy freer rein. In order that he may escort us through the depths of immeasurable space, to show us what astronomy really knows of conditions there and upon other planets, Verne asks us to accept a situation which in a sense self-contradictory.
As Gernsback points out, critics accused Verne of losing his mojo with this book, but later books regained some of that reputation. Was this “Extravagant Fiction Today – Cold Fact Tomorrow!”?
Off on a Comet is an odd choice then. Why not start with a classic like Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? I suspect that Hugo really wanted to start in space. He didn’t want his readers to think this would be an earth-bound magazine. The fact that he also presented H. G. Wells showed that Gernsback liked both ends of the spectrum. This Verne novel is closer to Wells’ approach of taking an idea and extrapolating from there, not be bound by known facts. (Something Verne criticized Wells for in the press. Why do I think of Elvis slagging the The Beatles?)
Off On a Comet (Amazing Stories, April–May 1926)
His second choice is much safer, one of Verne’s classic favorites. And it got us dinosaurs on the cover! A Trip to the Center of the Earth has scientists enter a volcano then journey deeper into the center where the dinosaurs live in a hollow world. This would inspire Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar stories among others.
A Trip to the Center of the Earth (Amazing Stories, May–June–July 1926)
“Doctor Ox’s Experiment” (Amazing Stories, August 1926) was one of Verne’s rare short stories. Dr. Ox tries a secret experiment to enrich a town with extra oxygen. This makes all the plants grow better and the people to be more energetic. Unfortunately they also become more warlike, attacking a neighboring town. As with all mad science, it ends with an explosion.
The Purchase of the North Pole (Amazing Stories, September–October 1926) is a sequel to A Trip to the Moon. The Baltimore Gun Club are building another gun. The idea is to use it to shift the Earth’s axis so that the North Pole, recently purchased, becomes desirable property.
“Drama in the Air” (Amazing Stories, November 1926) was a dry-run for Verne’s first big hit, Five Weeks in a Balloon, in which unfortunates end up in a runaway balloon. Verne would have air balloons in other stories such as Mysterious Island.
Robur the Conqueror (Amazing Stories, December 1927–January 1928) is an aerial version of Twenty Thousand Leagues, with Robur being the Nemo-like character. It had a sequel, which Gernsback published immediately after.
The Master of the World (Amazing Stories, February–March 1928) was that sequel to Robur the Conqueror. The story is pretty much a repeat of the first with a new vehicle called The Terror.
Hugo Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in April 1929, so the later appearance of Verne fell to his assistant, T. O’Conor Sloane, who assumed editorship of the magazine until 1938.
The English At the North Pole (Amazing Stories, May–June 1929) had Verne go North again. He would write about both poles with the The Ice Sphinx set at the South Pole, a sequel to Poe’s A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In this novel Captain Hatteras goes to the North Pole and finds a lost American expedition. The ship gets stuck in the ice and the men have to find intriguing ways to kill polar bears to survive. It all ends with Hatteras insane and in an asylum. Verne no doubt was inspired by The Franklin Expedition, as was Dan Simmons many decades later.
“The Desert of Ice” (Amazing Stories, July 1929)
“The Watch’s Soul” (Amazing Stories, December 1933) seems like a bit of filler by this time. The reprints in Amazing Stories had long since been replaced by new works but Sloane struggled at times to get material. Unlike Hugo back in 1926, Amazing Stories now had competition. Gernsback came back from his loss of Amazing Stories with three new pulps, Air Wonder, Science Wonder and eventually just Wonder Stories. The Clayton chain had also introduced Astounding Stories of Super-Science in 1930, which became Astounding Stories in October 1933.
“A Winter Amid the Ice” (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1933) was a dry-run for The English at the North Pole, but Sloane ran it anyway.
Measuring a Meridan (Amazing Stories, May–June–July–August 1934) was the last of the Verne reprints in Amazing Stories. The tale has two groups, one English and one Russian, in South Africa hunting big game. Not the most SF of Verne’s work. Science Fiction had grown exponentially since that first issue in April 1926. There were many new SF authors to fill the pages. (Which isn’t to say Verne didn’t get reprinted elsewhere. Later Saturn would use “Doctor Trifulgas” and “Eternal Adam” in 1957.) Sloane did try to remind all the fans about Verne’s cornerstone role with the cover of May 1934, and a color version of the contents banner by Leo Morey. It was a fitting tribute to a man who inspired so many.
