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Science Fiction Magazine ... Read more

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Word count: 2233. ... Read more

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Stories include: A Martian Odyssey (voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame by the Science Fiction Writers of America); Proteus Island; Brink of Infinity; The Adaptive Ultimate; The Lotus Eaters. Introduction "The Wonder of Weinbaum" by Sam Moskowitz. Not to be confused with a book published by Sphere in the UK with a similar title: they are different story collections. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Dream of X
A ruthless distillation of Hodgson's classic future romance, THE NIGHT LAND, which pares the original novel's epic length, some 200,000 words, down to the size of a novella (20,000 words), making it eminently more readable, and losing none of THE NIGHT LAND's poetry, strangeness, nor charm. ... Read more

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Winged Men and Batrachian Witches
Pyramid Books published three anthologies of stories from _Weird Tales_ in the early 1960s: _The Unexpected_ (1961), _Weird Tales_ (1964), and _Worlds of Weird_ (1965). All three credit Leo Margulies as the editor. But according to _The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_ (1995), Sam Moskowitz ghost edited the last two. This seems likely. The first book consists of more modern-- and generally better-- stories. The latter two books are more old-fashioned and more uneven in quality. But perhaps they give the reader a better flavor of the magazine during its golden years.

_Worlds of Weird_ (1965) consists of seven stories published in the thirties-- the golden era of the magazine, when the eccentric but able Farnsworth Wright was at the editorial helm. The stories are: Seabury Quinn's "Roads," Nictzin Dyalhis's "The Saphire Goddess," Robert E. Howard's "Valley of the Worm," Edmond Hamilton's "He That Hath Wings," Clark Ashton Smith's "Mother of Toads," David H. Keller's "The Thing in the Celler," and Frank Belknap Long's "Giants in the Sky". Four of the authors-- Dyalhis, Howard, Hamilton, and Long-- were represented in the earlier _Weird Tales_ (1964). In general, the stories in this anthology appear to be a cut above those in the earlier volumn.

The entry by Dyalhis is a parallel worlds sword and sorcery adventure that is not quite as good as "The Sea Witch," but it is still great fun. The Howard is a historical sword and sorcery that is a marked improvement over his dreadful "Pigeons From Hell". The Long is one of the "soft" science fictional pieces that the Unique Magazine published from time to time. It is, like most of Long's stories, fairly routine. But the Hamilton is something else again. It is the allegory about the boy born with wings, his freedom, and his tragic fate. It is a beautifully told tale-- one of the author's best.

The Seabury Quinn story was billed as a kind of Christmas story when it first appeared. I will say no more about the plot lest I spoil the "surprise" ending that is telegraphed from the beginning. I would have preferred one of the author's Jules de Grandin stories that is longer in entertainment value and shorter on piety.

There remain two horror stories. The Smith is an appropriately unpleasant tale featuring a French batrachian witch. It is moderately effective. The Keller is a psychological chiller that never brings its horror directly onstage. But it closes with a desperate line of denial and rationalization that hit me where I live.

An added bonus is a cover and some dandy interior illustrations by Virgil Finlay and a historical introduction about the early years of _WT_ by Moskowitz. Do you want to know the story about how H.P. Lovecraft was once offered the editorship of the magazine? Or how it came about that he ghosted Harry Houdini's "Imprisoned with the Pharoahs"? Or what the relationship was between _Weird Tales_ and _Home Brew_, America's Zippiest Magazine? Then buy this book and read the introduction.
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Customer Reviews (3)

Terrific survey of science fiction in its infancy, in popular English and American magazines
There have been several anthologies of early science fiction published over the years - H.G. Wells and his contemporaries have been relatively well-served by the publishing industry, particularly as their works have entered the public domain - though the interest in such primitive genre work seems to have abated since the 1970s, and this book as well as Castle Books' similar "Rivals of H.G. Wells" are both long out of print (though easy enough to find here and elsewhere without spending a fortune).This Sam Moskowitz volume is probably the best single introduction to the period that I've seen, though, and I wouldn't hesititate to recommend it to anyone who has read a bit of Wells or Verne and wants to explore further.

The first 40 pages or so are taken up by a brief history of the popular magazines of the 1890s and 1900s, in both England where the rage for the "scientific romance" really seemed to take root first, and in America which was to dominate the field eventually.Illustrated, general-interest magazines like THE STRAND, THE IDLER, PEARSON'S, THE METROPOLITAN and THE ARGOSY provided cheap entertainment that could be afforded by even the lower middle classes from whence young H.G. Wells sprung, and which would given him his start as a writer of fiction, alongside such still-famous names as Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne (in translation) and of course, many others who have not survived in the public consciousness over the past century.

Unlike Moskowitz' later "sequel", Under the Moons of Mars - A History and Anthology of The Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines 1912 - 1920, "Science Fiction by Gaslight" is made up entirely of short stories that are complete in this volume.They are grouped in nine different themes:Catastrophes, Marvellous Inventions, Monsters and Horrors, Future War, Man-Eating Plants, Far-Out Humor, Scientific Crime and Detection, Medical Miracles, and Adventures in Psychology.Authors, in addition to Wells and Verne, include William Hope Hodgson, Fred M. White, Grant Allen, George Griffith and Robert Barr - 26 stories in all, each with a brief biographical sketch of the author preceding it.All in all, a well-chosen, well-researched book that really showcases the breadth of early science fiction as it appeared in the short form.Only a few of the stories may be considered "classics" - Hodgson's VOICE IN THE NIGHT is one that might qualify - but most are a lot of fun, dated or humorously inaccurate though they might be.Worth hunting down for the specialist, as are most of the author's books.

Herman Melville worte SciFi?
In matter of fact he did.There are many stories in this anthology that predate "popular" Science Fiction.Most of these stories were published in the "dime" men's magazines of the time.And that time was very short indeed.Just slightly more than ten years between the time people heated their homes with coal and the time people moved to electricity.

There is a story by H.G. Wells about an amoured mechanical truck that used camera obscura controlled machine guns to sweep trenches.This story predates The First World War.In this story the Germans win the war.

Submarine warfare?It's in there.Astronomical disasters?In there.Geological mishaps?There!

This is quite a collection and sure to entertain when you realize that most of these stories were far ahead of their time.

For science fiction historians.
It's been a long time since I read this anthology, but it has always stuck in my mind.Not because the stories were that incredible, but because it proves that there's nothing (much) new under the sun.The stories within contain many of the now famous tropes of SF--pollution, strange beasts, mechanical men, and so.Yet every story here was written before the 20th century!

The late Sam Moskowitz was a dedicated archivist of all things SF.If you are a student of the genre, you will enjoy this collection. ... Read more