Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a companion publication, Super Science Stories. The budget for Astonishing was very low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his membership of the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The final issue was dated April of that year. The magazine was never regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but despite the low budget it published some well-received material. Science fiction critic Peter Nicholls comments that "its stories were surprisingly good considering how little was paid for them", and this view has been echoed by other historians of the field. (more...)
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1002:
St. Brice's Day massacre: King Ethelred II ordered the massacre of all Danes in England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethelred_the_Unready
1927:
The Holland Tunnel, connecting New York City's Manhattan with Jersey City, New Jersey, under the Hudson River, opened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Tunnel
1965:
The steamship SS Yarmouth Castle burned and sank about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, killing about 90 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle
1970:
The Bhola tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone
1992:
The High Court of Australia ruled in Dietrich v The Queen that although there is no absolute right to have publicly funded counsel, in most circumstances a judge should grant any request for an adjournment or stay when an accused is unrepresented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_v_The_Queen
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
pernoctation (n): 1. An overnight stay; action (or instance) of abiding through the night at a location. 2. The action (or an instance) of walking about at night, especially as a vigil or watch http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pernoctation
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the slave of as many masters as he has vices. --Augustine of Hippo http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo