Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930

Astounding/Analog #1

by Harry Bates (Editor)

Vol 1, No. 1

No science fiction library would be complete without Astounding Stories of Super-Science, a highly influential pulp magazine of both sci-fi and horror from the early 1930s!

In issue Volume 1, Number 1 from January, 1930, you’ll find:

Part One of “The Beetle Horde” by Victor Rousseau

“The Cave of Horror” by Captain S.P. Meek

“Phantoms of Reality” by Ray Cummings

“The Stolen Mind” by M.L. Staley

“Compensation” by C.V. Tench

“Tanks” by Murray Leinster

“Invisible Death” by Anthony Pelcher

【 Jan. 1930 → NEXT ISSUE 】

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook, Adventure

506 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 1930

About the author

Hiram Gilmore "Harry" Bates III (October 9, 1900 – September 1981) was an American science fiction editor and writer. His short story "Farewell to the Master" (1940) was the basis of the well-known science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_B...

see also under the following pen-names:
Anthony Gilmore (with D.W. Hall)
A.R. Holmes
H.G. Winter (with D.W. Hall)

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Megan Baxter]

Hey guys! Did you realize that the Gutenberg Project has old science fiction? It does! (I don't know why this surprised me, but it did.) So, hey, why not read some of them and review them? Not to poke fun at the old science fiction, although there might be a little of that. No, I'm more interested in looking at what this old science fiction tells us about the worlds that were being imagined at the time. What did they think about science? Gender? Race? The eventual fate of the world?

This issue is one of them. I'll be reviewing the stories one by one on my blog.

"The Beetle Horde" by Victor Rousseau

"The Cave of Horror by Capt. S.P. Meek

"Phantoms of Reality" by Ray Cummings

"The Stolen Mind" by M.L. Staley

"Compensation" by C.V. Tench

"Tanks" by Murray Leinster

[Pepón · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can find the magazine for free at Gutenberg in text form, or as audiobook in LibriVox. The stories are a bit dated, taking into account they were written before the II World War, but that makes them also interesting. For example, their fascination with vibrations, that is, waves, is something our own scientists are beginning to see as fundamental to matter and energy, even to space itself. So, still three stars, but worth reading.

[Tell Tale Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this from the Project Gutenburg file. This is the start of the 90th anniversary of the oldest continually published science fiction magazine. I have been reading Analog science 1979 and have loved the magazine as well as a lot of the stories that were published in it in the past. I have some issues from the 1940s, but never read these from the first year. The fiction is not up to today’s standards, but if you can overlook that and tolerate some attitudes from when this was published, you will find some good sf adventure stories. My favorite is Tanks by Murray Leinster.
-Gregory Kerkman

[Romuald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of old sci-fi stories. The Cave Of Horror was my favourite, closely followed by Compensation, Tanks (this one is rather a war strategy story than sci-fi, nonetheless very exiting) and Invisible Death. Love the language and those authentic 1930s ideas of how they perceived upcoming future - sometimes a little bit too childish or simplistic but all the stories nonetheless did engage me in their storyline to a good extent.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following are my reviews of the stories read within.

The Atom-Smasher
Study the atom! Marvel at its amazing structure! Add a time machine to the mix! Travel in the fourth dimension to the Paleolithic Age! Be amazed at the wonders of Atlantis! But what is Lucius, the inventor of the time machine, really up to? Will there be a good, or evil result? Follow the thrilling adventures of Lucius, Miles, and just plain James in this shocked tale of curiosity and science. Okay, well, I found this to be an entertaining short story to read. It was a little slow, but worth the time to read. 🪐 🚀 Recommended.

Brigands of the Moon
Not bad. Not bad at all. It was enjoyable to read. 🪐 🚀 Recommended.

The Jovian Jest
This short story tells of an extraterrestrial object that lands on Earth, rife with all the wild and amusing speculation of what it could be and what impact it might have on its population. This was entertaining. 🪐 🚀 Recommended.

Murder Madness
The world is a scary place, with evil afoot. The world reels in horror when a Secret Service man was discovered to be a raging homicidal maniac, whose fingers wriggled about like little snakes as he horrifically screamed with bloodcurdling abandon. To make the current events more terrifying, a total of seven – count ‘em: seven – Secret Service men completely and indisputably disappear. Poof! What will the brave and tenacious Bell discover when he valiantly travels to find The Master? Yes, The Master, the powerful, mysterious, and diabolical octopus whose fiendish and unholy power threatens an entire continent! 🪐 🚀 Recommended.

In this issue are the original pages (scanned, not reformatted for digital books) that not only offer the following stories, but all the advertisements from days long gone. Illustrations throughout, plus a section devoted to letters from readers. These old timey science fiction stories are fun to read, and these are no exception. Sometimes I find them curious, sometimes frightening as a parallel to today’s world, and once in awhile the imagination of the author is so wonderful that the tale leaves me speechless.

🟣 Media form: Kindle version.
🟢 Media form: Project Gutenberg .
🚀●▬●💫●💫●▬●🚀

[Bettie]

The Introduction:

What are "astounding" stories?

Well, if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding" story.

Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand miles apart would be able to talk to each other through a little wire—or without any wire at all—that would have been another.

Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines, world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-story buildings, radio, metal that can be made to resist gravity and float in the air—these would have been other "astounding" stories.

To-day, time has gone by, and all these things are commonplace. That is the only real difference between the astounding and the commonplace—Time.

To-morrow, more astounding things are going to happen. Your children—or their children—are going to take a trip to the moon. They will be able to render themselves invisible—a problem that has already been partly solved. They will be able to disintegrate their bodies in New York and reintegrate them in China—and in a matter of seconds.

Astounding? Indeed, yes.

Impossible? Well—television would have been impossible, almost unthinkable, ten years ago.

Now you will see the kind of magazine that it is our pleasure to offer you beginning with this, the first number of Astounding Stories.

It is a magazine whose stories will anticipate the super-scientific achievements of To-morrow—whose stories will not only be strictly accurate in their science but will be vividly, dramatically and thrillingly told.

Already we have secured stories by some of the finest writers of fantasy in the world—men such as Ray Cummings, Murray Leinster, Captain S. P. Meek, Harl Vincent, R. F. Starzl and Victor Rousseau.

So—order your next month's copy of Astounding Stories in advance!—The Editor.

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's interesting to see what people thought the future (to them, the year 2000) was going to look like, and I'm afraid I don't appreciate them as much as the people of the 1930s did because so many things presented have been disproven or are just so absurb.

The Beetle Horde, Part 1 : rated 2/5 - If this hasn't been made into a B-movie yet, I'd be surprised. Primitive human races living beneath the surface of the Earth, hyper-intelligent rhino-sized beetles, a mad scientist. It's got 50s drive-in movie feature written all over it. Rushed, overtly dramatic, and ridiculous love story included.

The Cave of Horrors : rated 3/5 - This one is probably my favorite out of the whole bunch. Short, sweet, to the point... something mysterious and hungry is lurking in a cave and a pair of scientists have to find out what the hell it is. Nice chilly horror moments.

Phantoms of Reality : rated 2/5 - This one starts off as a great sword-and-laser inter-dimensional travel story, but slowly turns into sub-par cliche fantasy novel.

The Stolen Mind : rated 1/5 - Exactly what it says it is with added twist, possess an evil mastermind in order to prevent him from selling blueprints for a Doomsday Device to the military. Potentially exciting, but gets caught up on itself and just ends up convoluted and weird.

Compensation : rated 1/5 - A friend of a scientist looks into the scientist's mysterious disappearance to discover that the scientist was destoryed by his own scientific breakthrough... and thusly the friend is charged with murder? I'm still trying to make sense of it.

Tanks : rated 2/5 - Pretty typical World War 1 story about the advancements of tanks. Educational, but not always interesting.

Invisible Death : rated 2/5 - Initially very exciting but gets bogged down a little towards the middle and the end. A murder mystery involving invisibility.

[Scott Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great collection of short science fiction pieces by a variety of early science fiction pillars such as Cummings, Meek and Leinster. This book was rich on the potential frightening aspects of the underground with stories like The Beetle Horde and the Cave of Horror. As a collection of stories, it is simple and easy to read.

[João Víctor · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories itself are ok, not great, but it's a fun little read. What makes it much better than solely the stories is the time they were written and the insight on how the saw the world and the science of the time, a period with still unexplored poles, giving wings to the imagination of the writers of what might be there, war tactics before World War II and the massive experimental tanks of WWI.

[Sandeep Ellawala · Rating 4 out of 5]

From start to end this was one hell of joyride for me. I not only read it, but kept on advising my friends to give it a shot as well. The collection of stories gave me the feeling of watching a series of The X Files. Highly recommended to any ardent fan of classic Science Fictions.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all some very enjoyable stories, although several of the endings seem rather hurried.

[Cindy DeLong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird! I'm not a Sci-fi girl!

[Red · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the golden age of sci fi stories and the magazines are no expectation. I enjoy these stories which range from the fantastic, to the bizarre.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoo-Ray Project Gutenberg! I can't wait to read more of the old issues of Astounding.

[Bill's Chaos · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were not very interesting. According to Wikipedia the editor Harry Bates aimed for straightforward action-adventure stories, with scientific elements only present to provide minimal plausibility.

I estimate that I will be about 140 years old when I catch up by reading 2 issues of Astounding/Analog per month. Since the more modern issues will be a lot more interesting I will skip many of the older issues. I will now jump ahead to 1938 when John W. Campbell became editor. Wikipedia says: "Campbell's editorial policy was targeted at the more mature readers of science fiction".