Astounding Stories. April 1931‪.‬

Science Fiction has always drawn some of our most creative writers to its form. Back in the early decades of the twentieth century events conspired to propel the whole genre forward from the earlier works of Jules Verne and other luminaries.

New media technologies were coming to the fore with radio and television to add to new industrial processes and ideas. Hollywood’s golden years were creating ‘escapist fare’ as the world battled with war and depression where the impossible seemed possible. On the streets pulp magazines were becoming the dominant form of mass market reading. The real world had shrunk and other worlds were sought.

Writers were able to fuse ideas with technical ‘know how’ and create fabulous inventions of other worlds and other times. These inspired other writers to re-imagine almost everything in the search for new situations and environments.

A Golden Age was upon us. These are their stories…….

MONSTERS OF MARS by EDMOND HAMILTON

Three Martian-Duped Earth-Men Swing Open the Gates of Space That for So Long Had Barred the Greedy Hordes of the Red Planet. (A Complete Novelette.)

THE EXILE OF TIME by RAY CUMMINGS

From Somewhere Out of Time Come a Swarm of Robots Who Inflict on New York the Awful Vengeance of the Diabolical Cripple Tugh. (Beginning a Four-Part Novel.)

CHAPTER I - Mysterious Girl

CHAPTER II - From Out of the Past

CHAPTER III - Tugh, the Cripple

CHAPTER IV - The Fight With the Robot

CHAPTER V - The Girl from 2930

CHAPTER VI - The New York Massacre of 1935

CHAPTER VII - The Vengeance of Tugh

HELL'S DIMENSION by TOM CURRY

Professor Lambert Deliberately Ventures into a Vibrational Dimension to Join His Fiancée in Its Magnetic Torture-Fields.

THE WORLD BEHIND THE MOON by PAUL ERNST

Two Intrepid Earth-Men Fight It Out with the Horrific Monsters of Zeud's Frightful Jungles.

FOUR MILES WITHIN by ANTHONY GILMORE

Far Down into the Earth Goes a Gleaming Metal Sphere Whose Passengers Are Deadly Enemies. (A Complete Novelette.)

CHAPTER I - The Monster of Metal

CHAPTER II - The Man-Hunt

CHAPTER III - "You Haven't the Guts"

CHAPTER IV - Spawn of the Cavern

CHAPTER V - A Death More Hideous

THE LAKE OF LIGHT by JACK WILLIAMSON

In the Frozen Wastes at the Bottom of the World Two Explorers Find a Strange Pool of White Fire and Have a Strange Adventure.

THE MENACE OF THE INSECT

THE GHOST WORLD by SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT

Commander John Hanson Records Another of His Thrilling Interplanetary Adventures with the Special Patrol Service.