Pulp fiction was the rocket fuel that propelled science fiction to popularity during the early to mid 20th century. Two magazines were especially important to the genre--Amazing Stories, launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback (for whom the Hugo Award is named), and Astounding Science Fiction, launched in 1930 as Astounding Stories and for which John W. Campbell (for whom the Campbell Memorial Award is named) first exercised complete editorial authority in 1938:
Amazing Stories was the first magazine to be devoted solely to science fiction, and it was published with few interruptions for almost eight decades. Among the many noted science fiction writers whose stories first appeared in Amazing Stories are Ursula K. Le Guin (recipient of five Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards) and Roger Zelazny (recipient of six Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards).
Astounding Science Fiction, known today as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, is the longest continually published magazine in the genre. Under Campbell's editorship the Golden Age of Science Fiction came to full fruition, and the magazine featured such Campbell "discoveries" as Isaac Asimov (born in Russia and author of over 500 books during his lifetime), Robert A. Heinlein (considered, with Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, to be one of the Big Three of science fiction writing) and Theodore Sturgeon (whose 1953 novel More Than Human is one of the few science fiction titles ever to have received mainstream critical acclaim).
Several other pulp fiction magazines contributed to the Golden Age of Science Fiction (roughly 1930-mid 1950s). Among the better known are Fantastic Adventures, Thrilling Wonder Stories and Other Worlds:
All of these magazines cultivated a host of wonderful writers, some of whom we will examine in more detail tomorrow....
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