Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930

Published initially as a pulp magazine with the first issue appearing on the newsstands in January 1930 Astounding Stories of Super-Science (later to become simply Astounding Stories then Astounding Science Fiction and later to the present day Analogue magazine) was to become the longest-running American Science Fiction periodical and for many the most influential title of the genre.. Originally the brainchild of publisher William Clayton and editor Harry Bates Astounding Stories of Super-Science attracted some of the better pulp writers of the day including Victor Rousseau and Murray Leinster both of whom have stories here. The stories for the most part are either straight action-adventure or mysteries with scientific elements added in but there is a naive charm in their optimism that truth and good will out as long as good people don't stand by and do nothing.. The pulp era (1920s and '30s) of Science Fiction was followed by the Golden Age (late 30s and '40s) which transitioned through the 1950s into The New Wave of the 1960s and '70s and brought us to the present day’s dark dystopian and speculative fiction via '90s Cyberpunk. Despite the explosion of Sci Fi onto big and small screens alike since the '80s and notwithstanding the quality of films such as Blade Runner and the Alien Trilogy or TV blockbusters such as Gattica the chips all seem to fall one way and the future still looks pretty dark from here.. That’s why it’s sometimes worth revisiting those early optimistic days where the future was there for the taking. True some of the stories here read like slightly warped adolescent adventures but if we’re looking to shake off the pessimism of middle and late adulthood it’s necessary to find our way back to that childlike state where nothing is impossible then this is truly the best place to start – after all this is where it all began!