I feel a certain amount of delight in how bad and cheerfully exuberant this book is – The Father of American Science Fiction was thrilled to death by the future of science, an obvious admirer of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and his story reminds me of ardent fanfic.
Love, not art.
Ralph brings together several stories written over ten years and published in Amazing Stories. They feature the adventures of a man who has a “+” added to his name because he is one of the ten smartest men on the planet, and places a great reliance on ether, radium, and believe it or not, goat’s blood. The story serves as a platter to serve the real course – fascinating scientific possibilities.
I had to skim this somewhat to keep going, but there were some writing pleasures in here. Gernsback showed a wonderful talent for explaining expressions on people’s face, and I really liked the last words,
reading Ralph’s name as “One To Forsee For One.”
The Hugo awards were named after Hugo Gernsback. He was a Luxembourgian immigrant and an American entrepeneur who in 1925 created the first scifi pulp (“scientifiction” was his first try at naming the genre), Amazing Stories. It gives me comfort that such a magnificent genre found its genesis and support in
such humble and ardent exercise.
Hugo Gernsback reminds us that one of the basic pillars of science fiction is not Story, or writing, or even science – it is an absolute delight and joy in the fantastic. This is a very important lesson in a way to generate excitement in a story.
Love, not art.
Ralph brings together several stories written over ten years and published in Amazing Stories. They feature the adventures of a man who has a “+” added to his name because he is one of the ten smartest men on the planet, and places a great reliance on ether, radium, and believe it or not, goat’s blood. The story serves as a platter to serve the real course – fascinating scientific possibilities.
I had to skim this somewhat to keep going, but there were some writing pleasures in here. Gernsback showed a wonderful talent for explaining expressions on people’s face, and I really liked the last words,
reading Ralph’s name as “One To Forsee For One.”
The Hugo awards were named after Hugo Gernsback. He was a Luxembourgian immigrant and an American entrepeneur who in 1925 created the first scifi pulp (“scientifiction” was his first try at naming the genre), Amazing Stories. It gives me comfort that such a magnificent genre found its genesis and support in
such humble and ardent exercise.
Hugo Gernsback reminds us that one of the basic pillars of science fiction is not Story, or writing, or even science – it is an absolute delight and joy in the fantastic. This is a very important lesson in a way to generate excitement in a story.
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