175-506: Elinor Mavor (born c. 1936) was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from early 1979 until late 1981. She had done illustrations and production work for several magazines, working for Arthur Bernhard. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare , a restaurant trade magazine. When Ted White resigned from Bernhard's UPD in November 1978, Mavor became the editor of both Bernhard's science fiction and fantasy magazines. She had read
350-719: A commencement speech entitled "A Left-handed Commencement Address" at Mills College in Oakland, California . It is listed as No. 82 in American Rhetoric ' s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century, and was included in her nonfiction collection Dancing at the Edge of the World . Le Guin died on January 22, 2018, at her home in Portland, at the age of 88. Her son said that she had been in poor health for several months, and stated that it
525-480: A "Correspondence Corner" and a "Collectors' Corner" to appeal to fans, and introduced a "Meet the Authors" feature, though on at least one occasion the featured author was a pseudonym, and the biographical details were invented. An illustrated back cover was tried, and soon became standard. In 1939 Palmer acquired Isaac Asimov 's first sale, " Marooned off Vesta ". In the 1940s, several writers established themselves as
700-621: A 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the primary theme of loyalty in The Left Hand of Darkness . Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships. Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in
875-619: A Discussions section and issued Amazing Stories Annual . The annual sold out, and in January 1928, Gernsback launched a quarterly magazine, Amazing Stories Quarterly , as a regular companion to Amazing . It continued on a fairly regular schedule for 22 issues. Gernsback was slow to pay his authors and creditors; the extent of his investments limited his liquidity. On 20 February 1929 his printer and paper supplier opened bankruptcy proceedings against him. It has been suggested that Bernarr Macfadden , another magazine publisher, maneuvered to force
1050-756: A March issue was released in PDF format, and in March 2006 Paizo announced that it would no longer publish Amazing . In September 2011, the trademark for Amazing Stories was acquired by Steve Davidson . Two online issues appeared, in July and August 2012, followed by another in 2014. Davidson relaunched print publication of Amazing Stories with the Fall 2018 issue with Ira Nayman as editor. In 2022 Davidson stepped down as publisher for personal reasons and former Creative Director, Kermit Woodall, took over as publisher. Gernsback's editorial in
1225-602: A boycott of Ultimate's magazines until Cohen agreed to make payments. Cohen agreed to pay a flat fee for all stories, and then in August 1967 this was changed to a graduated rate, depending on the length of the story. Harry Harrison had acted as an intermediary in Cohen's negotiations with SFWA, and when Wrzos left in 1967, Cohen asked Harrison to take over. SF Impulse , which Harrison had been editing, had folded in February 1967, so Harrison
1400-592: A catastrophic global flood. Gender and sexuality are prominent themes in a number of Le Guin's works. The Left Hand of Darkness , published in 1969, was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction , and is the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity , who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. Which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Gethen
1575-614: A ceiling of five cents per word. Browne managed to get promises of new stories from many well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon . He produced a dummy issue in April 1950, and planned to launch the new incarnation of Amazing in April 1951, the 25th anniversary of the first issue. However, the economic impact of the Korean War , which broke out in June 1950, led to budget cuts. The plans were cancelled, and Ziff-Davis never revived
1750-511: A city inhabited by descendants of criminals. Always Coming Home , set in California in the distant future, examines a warlike society, resembling contemporary American society, from the perspective of the Kesh, its pacifist neighbors. The society of the Kesh has been identified by scholars as a feminist utopia, which Le Guin uses to explore the role of technology. Scholar Warren Rochelle stated that it
1925-438: A clear preference for action and adventure stories, could not stomach the work of some of the early pulp writers such as Harry Bates . The first Shaver Mystery story, "I Remember Lemuria", by Richard S. Shaver , appeared in the March 1945 issue. Shaver claimed that all the world's accidents and disasters were caused by an ancient race of deros (short for "detrimental robots") who lived in underground cities. This explanation for
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#17328764295112100-481: A copy of the April 1927 issue of Amazing , he submitted it to Sloane, and it appeared in the August–October 1928 issues. It was such a success that Sloane requested a sequel before the second installment had been published. It was also in the August 1928 issue that "Armageddon – 2419 AD", by Philip Francis Nowlan , appeared; this was the first appearance of Buck Rogers in print. Sloane took over full control of
2275-483: A delicate balance, which is disrupted by somebody in each of the first three novels. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining. Another prominent Taoist idea is the reconciliation of opposites such as light and dark, or good and evil. A number of Hainish novels, The Dispossessed prominent among them, explored such
2450-409: A desire for novels, which Amazing did not have room to run. The novel series did not last; only one, Henry Slesar 's 20 Million Miles to Earth , appeared. However, in response to readers' interest in longer fiction, Ziff-Davis expanded Amazing by 16 pages, starting with the March 1958 issue, and the magazine began to run complete novels. Fairman left to edit Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine at
2625-562: A fantasy companion to Amazing , in May 1939, also under Palmer's editorship. Palmer quickly managed to improve Amazing's circulation, and in November 1938, the magazine went monthly again, though this did not last throughout Palmer's tenure: between 1944 and 1946 the magazine was bimonthly and then quarterly for a while before returning to a longer-lasting monthly schedule. In September 1943, Richard Shaver , an Amazing reader, began to correspond with Palmer, who soon asked him to write stories for
2800-433: A few science fiction stories each year. Some upmarket "slick" magazines such as McClure's , which paid well and were aimed at a more literary audience, also carried scientific stories, but by the early years of the 20th century, science fiction (though it was not yet called that) was appearing more often in the pulp magazines than in the slicks. In 1908, Hugo Gernsback published the first issue of Modern Electrics ,
2975-481: A good deal of science fiction but knew nothing about the world of science fiction magazines. For the first few issues Mavor used the pseudonym of "Omar Gohagen", as she was unsure whether a woman editor could be accepted by the readership. Her tenure saw the magazines display more sophisticated page layout, but she was unable to make the magazines successful. In 1980, Fantastic was merged with Amazing ; and in May 1982, TSR, Inc. acquired Amazing from Bernhard, who
3150-622: A larger reality. —Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin refused a Nebula Award for her story " The Diary of the Rose " in 1977, in protest at the Science Fiction Writers of America 's revocation of Stanisław Lem 's membership. Le Guin attributed the revocation to Lem's criticism of American science fiction and willingness to live in the Eastern Bloc , and said she felt reluctant to receive an award "for
3325-555: A later reprinting of " Winter's King ", which was first published in 1969. "Coming of Age in Karhide" was later anthologized in the 2002 collection The Birthday of the World , which contained six other stories featuring unorthodox sexual relationships and marital arrangements. She also revisited gender relations in Earthsea in Tehanu , published in 1990. This volume was described as a rewriting or reimagining of The Tombs of Atuan , because
3500-489: A magazine aimed at the scientific hobbyist. It was an immediate success, and Gernsback began to include articles on imaginative uses of science, such as "Wireless on Saturn" (December 1908). In April 1911, Gernsback began the serialization of his science fiction novel, Ralph 124C 41+ , but in 1913 he sold his interest in the magazine to his partner and launched a new magazine, Electrical Experimenter , which soon began to publish scientific fiction. In 1920, Gernsback retitled
3675-437: A man whose dreams can modify reality. One writer influenced by this was James Tiptree, Jr. , who later wrote that "after first plowing into the first pulpy pages of the 1971 Amazing in which Lathe came out, my toe-nails began to curl under and my spine hair stood up". White's willingness to experiment led to Amazing running more stories with sexual content than other magazines. One such story, White's own "Growing Up Fast in
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#17328764295113850-636: A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. As a child she had been interested in biology and poetry, but had been limited in her choice of career by her difficulties with mathematics. Le Guin undertook graduate studies at Columbia University , and earned a Master of Arts degree in French in 1952. Soon after, she began working towards a PhD , and won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from 1953 to 1954. In 1953, while traveling to France aboard
4025-481: A more sober cover for the September 1928 issue, but it sold poorly, and so the lurid covers continued. The combination of poor quality fiction with garish artwork has led some critics to comment that Gernsback created a "ghetto" for science fiction, though it has also been argued that the creation of a specialized market allowed science fiction to develop and mature as a genre. Among the regular writers for Amazing by
4200-438: A notion of what science fiction should be. The result was the debut of more significant writers in her magazines than anywhere else at that time: she published the first stories of Ursula K. Le Guin , Roger Zelazny , Piers Anthony and Thomas M. Disch , among many others. Award-winning stories published during Goldsmith's editorship include Zelazny's " He Who Shapes ", a novella about the use of dream therapy to cure phobias. It
4375-495: A paperback and sold as a single low-cost volume. City of Illusions was published as a standalone volume, indicating Le Guin's growing name recognition. These books received more critical attention than Le Guin's short stories, with reviews being published in several science fiction magazines, but the critical response was still muted. The books contained many themes and ideas also present in Le Guin's better known later works, including
4550-400: A possible sale of Amazing . Jonathan Post, of Emerald City Publishing, believed he had concluded a deal with Bernhard, and began to advertise for submissions, but the negotiations failed. Bernhard also approached George H. Scithers , who declined, but put Bernhard in touch with Gary Gygax of TSR . On 27 May 1982 TSR, Inc. acquired the trademarks and copyrights of Amazing Stories . Scithers
4725-488: A process of reconciliation. In the Earthsea universe, it is not the dark powers, but the characters' misunderstanding of the balance of life, that is depicted as evil, in contrast to conventional Western stories in which good and evil are in constant conflict. Although Le Guin is primarily known for her works of speculative fiction, she also wrote realistic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several other literary forms, and as
4900-533: A redesign and investment; he made the same suggestions to Bernhard in early October. According to White, Bernhard not only said no, but told him he would not receive a salary until the next issue was turned in. In late 1978 White resigned, and returned all manuscripts in his possession to their authors, even if copy-edited and ready for publication. White claimed Bernhard had told him to do this, though Bernhard denied it. Elinor Mavor took over as editor in early 1979. She had worked for Bernhard as an illustrator and in
5075-417: A replacement. Cohen secured White's agreement and then fired Malzberg; White assumed control with the May 1969 issue. When White took over as editor, Amazing' s circulation was about 38,500, only about 4% of which were subscribers (as opposed to newsstand sales). This was a very low ebb for subscriptions; Analog , by comparison, sold about 35% of its circulation through subscriptions. Cohen's wife mailed out
5250-496: A result her work is difficult to classify. Her writings received critical attention from mainstream critics, critics of children's literature, and critics of speculative fiction. Le Guin herself said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin's transgression of conventional boundaries of genre led to literary criticism of Le Guin becoming " Balkanized ", particularly between scholars of children's literature and speculative fiction. Commentators have noted that
5425-474: A secretary until the birth of her daughter Elisabeth in 1957. A second daughter, Caroline, was born in 1959. Also in that year, Charles became an instructor in history at Portland State University , and the couple moved to Portland, Oregon , where their son Theodore was born in 1964. They would live in Portland for the rest of their lives, although Le Guin received further Fulbright grants to travel to London in 1968 and 1975. Le Guin's writing career began in
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5600-493: A sequel " Anniversary " and Asimov's comments. She soon began to publish some of the better new writers. Cordwainer Smith 's "Golden the Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh!" appeared in April; and by the middle of the following year she had managed to attract stories from Robert Sheckley , Alan E. Nourse , Fritz Leiber , Gordon R. Dickson , Robert Bloch , and James Blish . The changes she made were enough to bring Robert A. Heinlein back as
5775-471: A slave society. In 2000 she published The Telling , which would be her final Hainish novel, and the next year released Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind , the last two Earthsea books. The latter won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2002. From 2002 onwards several collections and anthologies of Le Guin's work were published. A series of her stories from the period 1994–2002
5950-416: A special celebratory 600th issue in early 2000. The science fiction trade journal Locus commented in an early review that distribution of the magazine seemed to be weak. The title proved unable to survive: the last issue of this version was dated Summer 2000. The title was then acquired by Paizo Publishing , who launched a new monthly version in September 2004. The February 2005 issue was the last printed;
6125-543: A specialist magazine for science fiction spawned an entire genre publishing industry. The letter columns in Amazing , where fans could make contact with each other, led to the formation of science fiction fandom, which in turn had a strong influence on the development of the field. Writers whose first story was published in the magazine include John W. Campbell , Isaac Asimov , Howard Fast , Ursula K. Le Guin , Roger Zelazny , and Thomas M. Disch . Overall, though, Amazing itself
6300-553: A stable of reliable contributors to Amazing . These included David Wright O'Brien and William P. McGivern , both of whom wrote an immense amount for Ziff-Davis, much of it under house names such as Alexander Blade . John Russell Fearn became a prolific contributor, using the pseudonyms "Thornton Ayre" and "Polton Cross". Palmer also encouraged long-time science fiction writers to return, publishing pulp authors such as Ed Earl Repp and Eando Binder . This policy did not always meet with approval from Amazing' s readers, who, despite
6475-526: A story about political intolerance from a group that had just displayed political intolerance". Le Guin once said she was "raised as irreligious as a jackrabbit". She expressed a deep interest in Taoism and Buddhism , saying that Taoism gave her a "handle on how to look at life" during her adolescent years. In 1997, she published a translation of the Tao Te Ching . In December 2009, Le Guin resigned from
6650-438: A story on the back cover in order to hook readers into buying the magazine to finish the story. She also began a serial story in graphic format that used reader input to continue its plot. It was not a success and "thankfully", according to Mike Ashley, the experiment was terminated after only three episodes. Over time Mavor was to some extent able to reverse the negative perceptions of Amazing among established authors, but she
6825-409: A strong negative effect on circulation, which fell about 10% from 1969 to 1970. In 1972, White changed the title to Amazing Science Fiction , distancing the magazine slightly from some of the pulp connotations of "Amazing Stories". White worked at a low wage, and his friends often read manuscripts for free, but despite his efforts the circulation continued to fall. From near 40,000 when White joined
7000-637: A subscriber; he read the June 1961 issue, which, he wrote to her, "caused me to think I had been missing something". In September 1960, Amazing began to carry Sam Moskowitz 's series of author profiles, which had begun in Fantastic , the sister magazine. The following month the cover and logo were redesigned. In April 1961, the 35th anniversary of the first issue, Goldsmith ran several reprints, including by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs . Goldsmith had little previous experience with science fiction, and bought what she liked, rather than trying to conform to
7175-511: A variety of work in the second half of the 1970s. This included speculative fiction in the form of the novel The Eye of the Heron , which, according to Le Guin, may be a part of the Hainish universe. She also published Very Far Away from Anywhere Else , a realistic novel for adolescents, as well as the collection Orsinian Tales and the novel Malafrena in 1976 and 1979, respectively. Though
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7350-459: A world whose inhabitants were part human and part metal. Bunch, whose stories were "bewildering, exotic word pictures" according to Mike Ashley, had been unable to sell regularly elsewhere. The cover art for Amazing had been largely supplied by Ed Valigursky during the late fifties, but during the early sixties a much wider variety of artists appeared, including Alex Schomburg , Leo Summers and Ed Emshwiller . Frank Paul , who had painted all
7525-594: A younger audience. In 1985 she published the experimental work Always Coming Home . She wrote 11 children's picture books, including the Catwings series, between 1979 and 1994, along with The Beginning Place , an adolescent fantasy novel, released in 1980. Four more poetry collections were also published in this period, all of which were positively received. She also revisited Earthsea, publishing Tehanu in 1990: coming eighteen years after The Farthest Shore , during which Le Guin's views had developed considerably,
7700-430: Is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. [If] you like you can read [a lot of] science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that
7875-653: Is considered a pioneer in the field, and was a director of the University of California Museum of Anthropology : as a consequence of his research, Le Guin was exposed to anthropology and cultural exploration as a child. In addition to myths and legends, she read such volumes as The Leaves of the Golden Bough by Elizabeth Grove Frazer , a children's book adapted from The Golden Bough , a study of myth and religion by her husband James George Frazer . She described living with her father's friends and acquaintances as giving her
8050-652: Is depicted as seeing beyond narrow choices the protagonists are presented with by society. In Gifts , Orrec and Gry realize that the powers their people possess can be used in two ways: for control and dominion, or for healing and nurturing. This recognition allows them to take a third choice, and leave. This wrestling with choice has been compared to the choices the characters are forced to make in Le Guin's short story " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ". Similarly, Ged helps Tenar in The Tombs of Atuan to value herself and to find choices that she did not see, leading her to leave
8225-568: Is particularly the case in those works written for a younger audience, such as Earthsea and Annals of the Western Shore . Le Guin wrote in a 1973 essay that she chose to explore coming-of-age in Earthsea since she was writing for an adolescent audience: "Coming of age ... is a process that took me many years; I finished it, so far as I ever will, at about age thirty-one; and so I feel rather deeply about it. So do most adolescents. It's their main occupation, in fact." She also said that fantasy
8400-448: Is well regarded by science fiction historians for her innovation, and the impact she had on the early careers of writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Roger Zelazny , but circulation lagged during her tenure. By 1964 Fantastic' s circulation was down to 27,000, with Amazing doing little better. The following March both Amazing and Fantastic were sold to Ultimate Publishing Company, run by Sol Cohen and Arthur Bernhard. Goldsmith
8575-584: The Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories , in addition to poetry, literary criticism , translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin
8750-671: The Queen Mary , Ursula met historian Charles Le Guin. They married in Paris in December 1953. According to Le Guin, the marriage signaled the "end of the doctorate" for her. While her husband finished his doctorate at Emory University in Georgia, and later at the University of Idaho , Le Guin taught French: first at Mercer University , then at the University of Idaho after their move. She also worked as
8925-474: The Authors Guild in protest over its endorsement of Google's book digitization project . "You decided to deal with the devil", she wrote in her resignation letter. "There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright ; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle." In a speech at the 2014 National Book Awards , Le Guin criticized Amazon and
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#17328764295119100-684: The Earthsea novels specifically received less critical attention because they were considered children's books. Le Guin herself took exception to this treatment of children's literature , describing it as "adult chauvinist piggery". In 1976, literature scholar George Slusser criticized the "silly publication classification designating the original series as 'children's literature ' ", while in Barbara Bucknall's opinion Le Guin "can be read, like Tolkien, by ten-year-olds and by adults. These stories are ageless because they deal with problems that confront us at any age." Fortunately, though extrapolation
9275-550: The Earthsea series, challenged the conventions of epic fantasies and myths. Many of the protagonists in Earthsea were dark-skinned individuals, in comparison to the white-skinned heroes more traditionally used; some of the antagonists, in contrast, were white-skinned, a switching of race roles that has been remarked upon by multiple critics. In a 2001 interview, Le Guin attributed the frequent lack of character illustrations on her book covers to her choice of non-white protagonists. She explained this choice, saying: "most people in
9450-534: The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters . Le Guin influenced many other authors, including Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie , David Mitchell , Neil Gaiman , and Iain Banks . After her death in 2018, critic John Clute wrote that Le Guin had "presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century", while author Michael Chabon referred to her as
9625-621: The Scott Meredith Literary Agency , and thought that he might be more amenable than Harrison to continuing the reprint policy. Malzberg took over in April, but immediately came into conflict with Cohen over the reprints, and then threatened to resign in October over a disagreement about artwork Malzberg had commissioned for a cover. Cohen contacted Robert Silverberg , then the president of SFWA, and told him (falsely) that Malzberg had actually resigned. Silverberg recommended Ted White as
9800-414: The "archetypal journey" of a protagonist who undertakes both a physical journey and one of self-discovery, cultural contact and communication, the search for identity, and the reconciliation of opposing forces. When publishing her story "Nine Lives" in 1968, Playboy magazine asked Le Guin whether they could run the story without her full first name, to which Le Guin agreed: the story was published under
9975-485: The "greatest American writer of her generation". Ursula Kroeber was born in Berkeley, California , on October 21, 1929. Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber , was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley . Le Guin's mother, Theodora Kroeber (born Theodora Covel Kracaw), had a graduate degree in psychology, but turned to writing in her sixties, developing a successful career as an author. Among her works
10150-404: The "white man conquers the universe" tradition. Several scholars state that the influence of mythology, which Le Guin enjoyed reading as a child, is also visible in much of her work: for example, the short story " The Dowry of Angyar " is described as a retelling of a Norse myth . The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. Her father Alfred Kroeber
10325-530: The 1976 edition of The Left Hand of Darkness . Several of her works have a premise drawn from sociology , psychology , or philosophy . As a result, Le Guin's writing is often described as "soft" science fiction , and she has been described as the "patron saint" of this sub-genre. A number of science fiction authors have objected to the term "soft science fiction", describing it as a potentially pejorative term used to dismiss stories not based on problems in physics, astronomy, or engineering, and also to target
10500-456: The Allies lost the second world war; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens... In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed. —Ursula K. Le Guin, in the introduction to
10675-404: The April issue was assembled by Sloane but published by Ziff-Davis. Bernard Davis , who ran Ziff-Davis's editorial department, attempted to hire Roger Sherman Hoar as editor; Hoar turned down the job but suggested Raymond A. Palmer , an active local science fiction fan. Palmer was hired that February, taking over editorial duties with the June issue. Ziff-Davis launched Fantastic Adventures ,
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#173287642951110850-816: The Atoms Failed" appeared in the January 1930 issue, and Fast's "Wrath of the Purple" was printed in the October 1932 issue. Raymond Palmer, who took over in 1938 after production of the magazine was moved to Chicago, was less interested in the educational possibilities of science fiction than Sloane had been. He wanted the magazine to provide escapist entertainment, and had no interest in scientific accuracy. His terse instruction—"Gimme Bang-Bang"—to one pulp writer sums up his approach. Palmer disposed of almost all of Sloane's accumulated inventory, instead acquiring stories from local Chicago writers he knew through his connections with science fiction fandom. He also added features such as
11025-666: The Case of M. Valdemar "; Gernsback put the names of all three authors on the cover. He also reprinted three more recent stories. Two came from his own magazine, Science and Invention ; these were "The Man from the Atom" by G. Peyton Wertenbaker and "The Thing from—'Outside ' " by George Allan England . The third was Austin Hall 's The Man Who Saved the Earth , which had appeared in All-Story Weekly . In
11200-650: The City", was criticized as pornographic by some of Amazing' s readers. Other stories, such as Rich Brown's "Two of a Kind", about the violent rape of a black woman and the subsequent death of her rapists, also led to controversy. White printed more conventional fiction as well, much of it high quality. The magazine was nominated for the Hugo award (a readers' award, named for Hugo Gernsback) for best editor three times during his tenure (1970, 1971 and 1972), finishing third each time. White's ability to attract new writers suffered because of
11375-522: The Dawn ", and Henry Kuttner 's "Or Else". Subsequent budget cuts meant that Browne was unable to sustain this level. As in the 1940s, Amazing gained a stable of writers who appeared frequently, though this time the quality of the writers was rather higher—it included Harlan Ellison , Robert Silverberg , and Randall Garrett —and the regular writers were not appearing only in Ziff-Davis magazines. This remained
11550-404: The Fall 2018 issue. Gernsback's initial editorial approach was to blend instruction with entertainment; he believed science fiction could educate readers. His audience rapidly showed a preference for implausible adventures, and the movement away from Gernsback's idealism accelerated when the magazine changed hands in 1929. Despite this, Gernsback had an enormous impact on the field: the creation of
11725-505: The Hainish universe released by the Library of America . Other works from this period included Lavinia (2008), based on a character from Virgil 's Aeneid , and the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy, consisting of Gifts (2004), Voices (2006), and Powers (2007). Although Annals of the Western Shore was written for an adolescent audience, the third volume, Powers , received
11900-668: The Hugo Award again in 1973 for The Word for World Is Forest . The book was influenced by Le Guin's anger over the Vietnam War , and explored themes of colonialism and militarism : Le Guin later described it as the "most overt political statement" she had made in a fictional work. Le Guin continued to develop themes of equilibrium and coming-of-age in the next two installments of the Earthsea series, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore , published in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Both books were praised for their writing, while
12075-401: The June 1926 issue Gernsback launched a competition to write a short story to suit a cover drawn by illustrator Frank R. Paul, with a first prize of $ 250. The competition drew over 360 entries, seven of which were eventually printed in Amazing . The winner was Cyril G. Wates , who sold three more stories to Gernsback in the late 1920s. Two other entrants went on to become successful writers: one
12250-477: The March 1976 issue; as a result, the 50th anniversary issue had a cover date of June 1976. In 1977, Amazing and Fantastic lost $ 15,000, though Amazing' s circulation (at nearly 26,000) was as good as it had been for several years. Cohen looked for a new publisher to buy the magazines, but in September of the following year sold his half-share in the company to his partner, Arthur Bernhard. White had occasionally suggested to Cohen that Amazing would benefit from
12425-536: The Mother, Animus, and Anima, have also been identified in Le Guin's writing. the planetary forests featured in multiple Hainish works are described as a metaphor for the mind, and of Jungian "collective unconscious. Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin's world view, and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories. Many of Le Guin's protagonists, including in The Lathe of Heaven , embody
12600-584: The Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2009. In her final years, Le Guin largely turned away from fiction, and produced a number of essays, poems, and some translation. Her final publications included the non-fiction collections Dreams Must Explain Themselves and Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing , and the poetry volume So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018 , all of which were released after her death. Once I learned to read, I read everything. I read all
12775-451: The Taoist ideal of leaving things alone. The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in A Wizard of Earthsea is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. Taoist influence is evident in Le Guin's depiction of equilibrium in the world of Earthsea: the archipelago is depicted as being based on
12950-516: The Tombs with him. Alternative social and political systems are a recurring theme in Le Guin's writing. Critics have paid particular attention to The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home , although Le Guin explores related themes in a number of her works, such as in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". The Dispossessed is an anarchist utopian novel, which according to Le Guin drew from pacifist anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin , as well as from
13125-507: The Universe , which purported to be a history of the future from 1975 to 2575. With the change to digest size in 1953, Browne once again attempted to use higher-quality fiction. The first digest issue, dated April–May 1953, included stories by Ray Bradbury , Robert Heinlein , Richard Matheson , Theodore Sturgeon , and Murray Leinster . Further well-regarded stories appeared over the course of 1953, including Arthur C. Clarke 's " Encounter in
13300-403: The bankruptcy because Gernsback would not sell his titles to Macfadden, but this is unproven. Experimenter Publishing did not file any defence and was declared bankrupt by default on 6 March; Amazing survived with its existing staff, but Hugo and his brother, Sidney, were forced out as directors. Arthur H. Lynch took over as editor-in-chief, though Sloane continued to have effective control of
13475-543: The book review column, and a series of science articles by Gregory Benford and David Book. White also redesigned the look of the magazine, making it, in sf historian Mike Ashley's words, "far more modern and sophisticated". White was willing to print a variety of fiction, mixing traditional stories with more experimental material that was influenced by the British New Wave or by 1960s psychedelia . In 1971, he serialized Ursula K. Le Guin 's The Lathe of Heaven , about
13650-588: The book was grimmer in tone than the earlier works in the series, and challenged some ideas presented therein. It received critical praise, won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel, and led to the series being recognized among adult literature. Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the 1990s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with " The Shobies' Story " in 1990. These stories included " Coming of Age in Karhide " (1995), which explored growing into adulthood and
13825-457: The cancellation of the planned change to a slick format, news had reached the writing community of Amazing' s new approach, and Browne began to receive much better material than Palmer had been able to publish. The existing stable of Amazing writers, such as Rog Phillips and Chester S. Geier , were replaced by writers such as Fritz Leiber , Fredric Brown , and Clifford D. Simak . Browne also discovered several writers who went on to success in
14000-576: The companion magazines such as Fantastic Adventures . Joseph Wrzos, the new editor, persuaded Cohen that at least one new story should appear in each issue; there was sufficient inventory left over from Goldsmith's tenure for this to be done without acquiring new material. Readers initially approved of the policy, since it made available some well-loved stories from earlier decades that had not been reprinted elsewhere. Both of Wrzos's successors, Harry Harrison and Barry Malzberg, were unable to persuade Cohen to use more new fiction. When Ted White took over, it
14175-552: The content of Amazing when Gernsback left in 1929. He was infamous for his slow response to manuscripts, and when Astounding Stories was launched in January 1930, with better rates and faster editorial response, some of Sloane's writers quickly defected. Little of quality appeared in Amazing during Sloane's tenure, though "The Lost Machine", an early story by John Wyndham , appeared in April 1932, under Wyndham's real name of John Beynon Harris. John W. Campbell and Howard Fast sold their first stories to Sloane; Campbell's "When
14350-616: The control it exerted over the publishing industry, specifically referencing Amazon's treatment of the Hachette Book Group during a dispute over ebook publication . Her speech received widespread media attention within and outside the United States, and was broadcast twice by National Public Radio . Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in 1959, while her first published short story
14525-472: The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Le Guin has been credited with "[rescuing] anarchism from the cultural ghetto to which it has been consigned", and helping to bring it into the intellectual mainstream. Fellow author Kathleen Ann Goonan wrote that Le Guin's work confronted the "paradigm of insularity toward the suffering of people, other living beings, and resources", and explored "life-respecting sustainable alternatives". The Dispossessed , set on
14700-607: The course of their journeys on other planets. Le Guin's writing often examines alien cultures, and particularly the human cultures from planets other than Earth in the Hainish universe. In discovering these "alien" worlds, Le Guin's protagonists, and by extension the readers, also journey into themselves, and challenge the nature of what they consider "alien" and what they consider "native". Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive. The heterogeneous structure of The Left Hand of Darkness , described as "distinctly post-modern",
14875-541: The cover artist; Paul had produced many illustrations for the fiction in The Electrical Experimenter . Amazing was issued in the large bedsheet format, 8.5 × 11.75 in (216 × 298 mm), the same size as the technical magazines. It was an immediate success and by the following March reached a circulation of 150,000. Gernsback saw there was an enthusiastic readership for "scientifiction" (the term "science fiction" had not yet been coined), and in 1927 started
15050-464: The covers for the first few years of Amazing , contributed a wraparound cover for the April 1961 35th anniversary issue; this was his last cover art for a science fiction magazine. When Sol Cohen bought both Amazing and Fantastic in early 1965, he decided to maximize profits by filling the magazines almost entirely with reprints. Cohen had acquired second serial rights from Ziff-Davis to all stories that had been printed in both magazines, and also in
15225-431: The early 1930s. However, it became unprofitable to publish over the next few years. Circulation dropped to little more than 25,000 in 1934, and in October 1935 it switched to bimonthly (publishing every other month). By 1938, with Amazing 's circulation down to only 15,000, Teck Publications was having financial problems. In January, Ziff-Davis took over the magazine and shortly thereafter moved production to Chicago;
15400-502: The end of 1958, and his place was taken by Cele Goldsmith . Goldsmith had been hired in 1955 as a secretary and became assistant editor to help cope with the additional work created when Ziff-Davis launched two short-lived magazines, Dream World and Pen Pals , in 1956. Ziff-Davis were not confident of Goldsmith's abilities as an editor, so when Fairman left, a consultant, Norman Lobsenz, was hired to work with her. She performed well and Lobsenz's involvement soon became minimal. Goldsmith
15575-429: The end of the 1920s were several who were influential and popular at the time, such as David H. Keller and Stanton Coblentz , and some who would continue to be successful for much longer, most notably Edward E. Smith and Jack Williamson . Smith's The Skylark of Space , written between 1915 and 1920, was a seminal space opera that found no ready market when Argosy stopped printing science fiction. When Smith saw
15750-423: The experience of the other . The experiences of Ishi, in particular, were influential on Le Guin, and elements of his story have been identified in works such as Planet of Exile , City of Illusions , and The Word for World Is Forest and The Dispossessed . Several scholars have commented that Le Guin's writing was influenced by Carl Jung , and specifically by the idea of Jungian archetypes . In particular,
15925-400: The experimental work Always Coming Home (1985). Social and political themes, including race, gender, sexuality, and coming of age were prominent in her writing. She explored alternative political structures in many stories, such as in the philosophical short story " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas " (1973) and the anarchist utopian novel The Dispossessed (1974). Le Guin's writing
16100-672: The exploration of death as a theme in The Farthest Shore also drew praise. Her 1974 novel The Dispossessed again won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best novel, making her the first person to win both awards for each of two books. Also set in the Hainish universe, the story explored anarchism and utopianism . Scholar Charlotte Spivack described it as representing a shift in Le Guin's science fiction towards discussing political ideas. Several of her speculative fiction short stories from
16275-696: The famous fantasies – Alice in Wonderland , and Wind in the Willows , and Kipling . I adored Kipling's Jungle Book . And then when I got older I found Lord Dunsany . He opened up a whole new world – the world of pure fantasy. And ... Worm Ouroboros . Again, pure fantasy. Very, very fattening. And then my brother and I blundered into science fiction when I was 11 or 12. Early Asimov , things like that. But that didn't have too much effect on me. It wasn't until I came back to science fiction and discovered Sturgeon – but particularly Cordwainer Smith . ... I read
16450-459: The feelings of the protagonist are not directly separated from the narration, making the narrator seem sympathetic to the characters, and removing the skepticism towards a character's thoughts and emotions that are a feature of more direct narration. Cadden suggests that this method leads to younger readers sympathizing directly with the characters, making it an effective technique for young-adult literature. A number of Le Guin's writings, including
16625-399: The field, publishing first stories by Walter M. Miller , Mack Reynolds , John Jakes , Milton Lesser and Charles Beaumont , all within nine months in late 1950 and early 1951. Browne was disappointed by the cancellation of the planned slick version, and to some extent reverted to Palmer's policy of publishing sensational fiction. In 1952, for example, he serialized the anonymous Master of
16800-405: The first issue asserted that "not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are also always instructive". He had always believed that "scientifiction", as he called these stories, had educational power, but he now understood that the fiction had to entertain as well as to instruct. His continued belief in the instructional value of science fiction was not in keeping with
16975-509: The following year, and Browne, his successor, "was determined to make sure that the lunatics were no longer in charge of the asylum", in the words of science fiction historian Mike Ashley. Browne had acquired some good-quality material in the process of planning the launch of a new slick version of Amazing , and when the plan was abandoned this material appeared in the continuing pulp version. This included "Operation RSVP" by H. Beam Piper , and " Satisfaction Guaranteed " by Isaac Asimov. Despite
17150-415: The following year, and in 1949 he resigned from Ziff-Davis to edit that and other magazines. Howard Browne , who had been on a leave of absence from Ziff-Davis to write fiction, took over as editor and began by throwing away 300,000 words of inventory that Palmer had acquired before he left. Browne had ambitions of moving Amazing upmarket, and his argument was strengthened by Street & Smith , one of
17325-423: The general attitude of the public towards pulp magazines, which was that they were "trash". The first issue of Amazing contained only reprints, beginning with a serialization of Off on a Comet , by Jules Verne . In keeping with Gernsback's new approach, this was one of Verne's least scientifically plausible novels. Also included were H. G. Wells 's " The New Accelerator ", and Edgar Allan Poe 's " The Facts in
17500-582: The genre as a child. Authors Le Guin describes as influential include Victor Hugo , William Wordsworth , Charles Dickens , Boris Pasternak , and Philip K. Dick . Le Guin and Dick attended the same high-school, but did not know each other; Le Guin later described her novel The Lathe of Heaven as an homage to him. She also considered J. R. R. Tolkien and Leo Tolstoy to be stylistic influences, and preferred reading Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges to well-known science-fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein , whose writing she described as being of
17675-485: The idea. Browne's interest in Amazing declined when the project to turn it into a slick magazine was derailed. Although he stayed involved with Fantastic Adventures , another Ziff-Davis magazine, he left the editing work on Amazing to William Hamling and Lila Shaffer. In December 1950, when Ziff-Davis moved their offices from Chicago to New York, Hamling stayed behind in Chicago, and Browne revived his involvement with
17850-475: The influence Goldsmith had on their early careers; Le Guin called her in 1975 "as enterprising and perceptive an editor as the science fiction magazines ever had". Goldsmith's open-minded approach meant that Amazing and Fantastic published some writers who did not fit into the other magazines. Philip K. Dick 's sales to magazines had dropped, but his work began to appear in Amazing , and Goldsmith also regularly published David R. Bunch 's stories of Moderan,
18025-472: The issue before, was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo award. Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( / ˈ k r oʊ b ər l ə ˈ ɡ w ɪ n / KROH -bər lə GWIN ; née Kroeber ; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction , including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe , and
18200-507: The late 1950s, but the time she spent caring for her children constrained her writing schedule. She would continue writing and publishing for nearly 60 years. She also worked as an editor, and taught undergraduate classes. She served on the editorial boards of the journals Paradoxa and Science Fiction Studies , in addition to writing literary criticism herself. She taught courses at Tulane University , Bennington College , and Stanford University , among others. In May 1983, she delivered
18375-541: The latter two were set in the fictional country of Orsinia, the stories were realistic fiction rather than fantasy or science fiction. The Language of the Night , a collection of essays, was released in 1979, and Le Guin also published Wild Angels , a volume of poetry, in 1975. Between 1979, when she published Malafrena , and 1994, when the collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea was released, Le Guin wrote primarily for
18550-796: The latter volume, Le Guin won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel , becoming the first woman to do so. Several more works set in Earthsea or the Hainish universe followed; others included books set in the fictional country of Orsinia , several works for children, and many anthologies. Cultural anthropology , Taoism , feminism , and the writings of Carl Jung all had a strong influence on Le Guin's work. Many of her stories used anthropologists or cultural observers as protagonists, and Taoist ideas about balance and equilibrium have been identified in several writings. Le Guin often subverted typical speculative fiction tropes, such as through her use of dark-skinned protagonists in Earthsea, and also used unusual stylistic or structural devices in books such as
18725-446: The longest established and most respected publishers, who shut down all of their pulp magazines in the summer of 1949. The pulps were dying, largely as a result of the success of pocketbooks , and Street & Smith decided to concentrate on their slick magazines. Some pulps struggled on for a few more years, but Browne was able to persuade Ziff and Davis that the future was in the slicks, and they raised his fiction budget from one cent to
18900-431: The low rates he paid: one cent per word, as compared to three or five cents per word at the leading competitive magazines. To compensate, White cultivated new writers whose experimental work was not selling elsewhere. He made a deal in 1971 with Gordon Eklund , who was hesitating to become a full-time writer because of the financial risks. White agreed to buy anything Eklund wrote, on condition that Eklund himself believed it
19075-438: The magazine Science and Invention , and through the early 1920s he published much scientific fiction in its pages, along with non-fiction scientific articles. Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics in 1921. In 1924, he changed its name to The Experimenter , and sent a letter to 25,000 people to gauge interest in the possibility of a magazine devoted to scientific fiction; in his words, "the response
19250-504: The magazine's contents. The receivers, Irving Trust, sold the magazine to Bergan A. Mackinnon on 3 April. In August 1931, Amazing was acquired by Teck Publications, a subsidiary of Bernarr Macfadden's Macfadden Publications . Macfadden's deep pockets helped insulate Amazing from the financial strain caused by the Great Depression . The schedule of Amazing Stories Quarterly began to slip, but Amazing did not miss an issue in
19425-457: The magazine, the circulation fell to about 23,000 in October 1975. White was unwilling to continue with the very limited financial backing that Cohen provided, and he resigned in 1975. Cohen was able to convince White to remain; White promised to stay for one more year, but in the event remained as editor until late 1978. Amazing raised its price from 75 cents to $ 1.00 with the November 1975 issue. The schedule switched to quarterly beginning with
19600-429: The magazine. In 1952, Browne convinced Ziff-Davis to try a high-quality digest fantasy magazine. Fantastic , which appeared in the summer of that year, focused on fantasy rather than science fiction and was so successful that it persuaded Ziff-Davis to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest in early 1953 (while also switching to a bimonthly schedule). Circulation fell, however, and subsequent budget cuts limited
19775-461: The magazine. Shaver responded with a story called "I Remember Lemuria ," published in the March 1945 issue, which was presented by Palmer as a mixture of truth and fiction. The story, about prehistoric civilizations, dramatically boosted Amazing' s circulation, and Palmer ran a new Shaver story in every issue, culminating in a special issue in June 1947 devoted entirely to the Shaver Mystery, as it
19950-435: The magazines' back issues, although Wrzos did get Cohen to agree to print one new story every issue. Cohen was also producing reprint magazines such as Great Science Fiction and Science Fiction Classics , but no payment was made to authors for any of these reprints. This brought Cohen into conflict with the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), a professional writers' organization formed in 1965. Soon SFWA called for
20125-433: The misogyny and hierarchy present in the authoritarian society of Urras is absent among the anarchists, who base their social structure on cooperation and individual liberty. The Eye of the Heron , published a few years after The Dispossessed , was described as continuing Le Guin's exploration of human freedom, through a conflict between two societies of opposing philosophies: a town inhabited by descendants of pacifists, and
20300-467: The most important events in the history of science fiction". For the first year, Amazing contained primarily reprinted material. It was proving difficult to attract new, high-quality material, and Gernsback's slowness at paying his authors did not help. Writers such as H.P. Lovecraft , H.G. Wells , and Murray Leinster all avoided Amazing because Gernsback took so long to pay for the stories he printed. The slow payments were probably known to many of
20475-465: The name "U. K. Le Guin". She later wrote that it was the first and only time she had experienced prejudice against her as a woman writer from an editor or publisher, and reflected that "it seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important." In subsequent printings, the story was published under her full name. Le Guin's next two books brought her sudden and widespread critical acclaim. A Wizard of Earthsea , published in 1968,
20650-539: The other active pulp writers, which would have further limited the volume of submissions. New writers did appear, but the quality of their stories was often weak. Frederik Pohl later said that Gernsback's magazine published "the kind of stories Gernsback himself used to write: a sort of animated catalogue of gadgets". Gernsback discovered that the audience he had attracted was less interested in scientific invention stories than in fantastical adventures. A. Merritt 's The Moon Pool , which began serialization in May 1927,
20825-586: The period, including her first published story, were later anthologized in the 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters . The fiction of the period 1966 to 1974, which also included The Lathe of Heaven , the Hugo Award-winning " The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas " and the Nebula Award-winning " The Day Before the Revolution ", constitutes Le Guin's best-known body of work. Le Guin published
21000-454: The portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". Le Guin initially defended her writing; in
21175-405: The power and status of the female protagonist Tenar are the inverse of what they were in the earlier book, which was also focused on her and Ged. During this later period she commented that she considered The Eye of the Heron , published in 1978, to be her first work genuinely centered on a woman. Le Guin explores coming of age , and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings. This
21350-473: The prince Arren, respectively. A Wizard of Earthsea is frequently described as a Bildungsroman , in which Ged's coming of age is intertwined with the physical journey he undertakes through the novel. To Mike Cadden the book was a convincing tale "to a reader as young and possibly as headstrong as Ged, and therefore sympathetic to him". Reviewers have described the ending of the novel, wherein Ged finally accepts
21525-404: The production department of several of his magazines, though not for Amazing . She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare , a restaurant trade magazine. Mavor had read a good deal of science fiction but knew nothing about the world of science fiction magazines when she took over. She was not confident that a woman would be accepted as the editor of a science fiction magazine, so she initially used
21700-410: The pseudonym "Omar Gohagen" for both Amazing and Fantastic , dropping it late in 1980. Circulation continued to fall, and Bernhard refused to consider Mavor's request to undertake a subscription drive. Instead, in late 1980, Bernhard decided to merge the two magazines. Fantastic' s last independent issue was in October; thereafter the combined magazine returned to a bimonthly schedule. At the same time
21875-408: The reprints and made the magazine respected again: Amazing was nominated for the prestigious Hugo Award three times during his tenure in the 1970s. Several other owners attempted to create a modern incarnation of the magazine in the following decades, but publication was suspended after the March 2005 issue. A new incarnation appeared in July 2012 as an online magazine. Print publication resumed with
22050-415: The same fiction. Gernsback's habit of publishing the full address of all his correspondents meant that the letter column allowed fans to correspond with each other directly. Science fiction fandom traces its beginnings to the letter column in Amazing and its competitors, and one historian of the field, author Lester del Rey , has commented that the introduction of this letter column "may have been one of
22225-501: The same level of quality. When Elinor Mavor took over, in early 1979, she had no experience with science fiction magazines, and was unaware of the history of bad feeling within the science fiction community about the poor payments for reprinted stories. She was given an extremely limited budget to work with, and had few stories on hand to work with initially, and as a result her first issues contained several reprints. Mavor experimented in her first year with some new ideas, such as starting
22400-784: The setting Le Guin chose for a number of her works. Several of her protagonists are anthropologists or ethnologists exploring a world alien to them. This is particularly true in the stories set in the Hainish universe , an alternative reality in which humans did not evolve on Earth, but on Hain. The Hainish subsequently colonized many planets, before losing contact with them, giving rise to varied but related biology and social structure. Examples include Rocannon in Rocannon's World and Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness . Other characters, such as Shevek in The Dispossessed , become cultural observers in
22575-467: The shadow as a part of himself, as a rite of passage . Scholar Jeanne Walker writes that the rite of passage at the end was an analogue for the entire plot of A Wizard of Earthsea , and that the plot itself plays the role of a rite of passage for an adolescent reader. Each volume of Annals of the Western Shore also describes the coming of age of its protagonists, and features explorations of being enslaved to one's own power. The process of growing up
22750-462: The shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea is seen as the Shadow archetype from Jungian psychology, representing Ged's pride, fear, and desire for power. Le Guin discussed her interpretation of this archetype, and her interest in the dark and repressed parts of the psyche, in a 1974 lecture. She stated elsewhere that she had never read Jung before writing the first Earthsea books. Other archetypes, including
22925-690: The siblings all became interested in reading while they were young. The Kroeber family had a number of visitors, including well-known academics such as Robert Oppenheimer ; Le Guin would later use Oppenheimer as the model for Shevek, the physicist protagonist of The Dispossessed . The family divided its time between a summer home in the Napa Valley , and a house in Berkeley during the academic year. Le Guin's reading included science fiction and fantasy: she and her siblings frequently read issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories and Astounding Science Fiction . She
23100-442: The situation after Browne's departure in 1956 and through Paul Fairman's tenure. Cele Goldsmith 's tenure as editor began with the opportunity to showcase two very well-established writers: E.E. Smith and Isaac Asimov . Smith's The Galaxy Primes was serialized from March to May 1959. Asimov's first published story " Marooned off Vesta " had appeared in the March 1939 Amazing , and Goldsmith reprinted it in March 1959 along with
23275-417: The story " Alpha Ralpha Boulevard ", and it just made me go, "Wow! This stuff is so beautiful, and so strange, and I want to do something like that." —Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin read both classic and speculative fiction widely in her youth. She later said that science fiction did not have much impact on her until she read the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith , and that she had sneered at
23450-552: The story quality in both Amazing and Fantastic . Fantastic began to print science fiction as well as fantasy. Circulation increased as a result, but Browne, who was not a science fiction aficionado, once again lost interest in the magazines. Paul W. Fairman replaced Browne as editor in September 1956. Early in Fairman's tenure, Bernard Davis decided to try issuing a companion series of novels, titled Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novels . Readers' letters in Amazing had indicated
23625-459: The subscription copies from home, and Cohen had never tried to increase the subscriber base as this would have increased the burden on his wife. White worked hard to increase the circulation despite Cohen's lack of support, but met with limited success. One of his first changes was to reduce the typeface to increase the amount of fiction in the magazine. To pay for this he increased the price of both Fantastic and Amazing to 60 cents, but this had
23800-483: The title was changed to Amazing Science Fiction Stories . Bernhard cut Mavor's salary after the merger, as she was editing only one magazine. Despite this, she stayed with Amazing , but was unable to prevent circulation from dropping again, down to only 11,000 newsstand sales in 1982. Shortly after the merger, Bernhard decided to retire, and approached Edward Ferman , the editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction , and Joel Davis, at Davis Publications, among others, about
23975-441: The twin planets of Urras and Anarres , features a planned anarchist society depicted as an "ambiguous utopia". The society, created by settlers from Urras, is materially poorer than the wealthy society of Urras, but more ethically and morally advanced. Unlike classical utopias, the society of Anarres is portrayed as neither perfect nor static; the protagonist Shevek finds himself traveling to Urras to pursue his research. Nonetheless,
24150-489: The work of robots named deros, which led to dramatically increased circulation but widespread ridicule. Amazing switched to a digest size format in 1953, shortly before the end of the pulp-magazine era. It was sold to Sol Cohen's Universal Publishing Company in 1965, which filled it with reprinted stories but did not pay a reprint fee to the authors, creating a conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America . Ted White took over as editor in 1969, eliminated
24325-447: The world aren't white. Why in the future would we assume they are?" Her 1985 book Always Coming Home , described as "her great experiment", included a story told from the perspective of a young protagonist, but also included poems, rough drawings of plants and animals, myths, and anthropological reports from the matriarchal society of the Kesh, a fictional people living in the Napa valley after
24500-439: The world of Earthsea . These stories were largely ignored by critics. Ace Books released Rocannon's World , Le Guin's first published novel, in 1966. Two more Hainish novels, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions were published in 1966 and 1967, respectively, and the three books together would come to be known as the Hainish trilogy. The first two were each published as half of an "Ace Double": two novels bound into
24675-409: The world's ills, coming towards the end of World War II, struck a chord with Amazing' s readership. Palmer received over 2,500 letters, instead of the usual 40 or 50, and proceeded to print a Shaver story in every issue. The June 1947 issue was given over entirely to the Shaver Mystery. From March 1948 the Shaver Mystery was dropped as a regular feature of the magazine, at Ziff's insistence. Palmer left
24850-402: The writing of women or other groups under-represented in the genre. Le Guin suggested the term "social science fiction" for some of her writing, while pointing out that many of her stories were not science fiction at all. She argued that the term "soft science fiction" was divisive, and implied a narrow view of what constitutes valid science fiction. The influence of anthropology can be seen in
25025-512: Was Ishi in Two Worlds (1961), a biographical volume about Ishi , an Indigenous American who had been studied by Alfred Kroeber. Ishi was the last known member of the Yahi tribe after the rest of its members died or (mostly) were killed by white colonizers. Le Guin had three older brothers: Karl , who became a literary scholar, Theodore, and Clifton. The family had a large book collection, and
25200-610: Was Clare Winger Harris , whose story, " The Fate of the Poseidonia ", took third place in the competition, and was published in the June 1927 issue as by "Mrs. F.C. Harris". The other notable entrant was A. Hyatt Verrill , with The Voice from the Inner World , which appeared in July 1927. A letter column, titled Discussions soon appeared, and became a regular feature with the January 1927 issue. Many science fiction readers were isolated in small communities, knowing nobody else who liked
25375-500: Was "An die Musik", in 1961; both were set in her fictional country of Orsinia . Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels, all set in Orsinia, which were rejected by publishers on the grounds that they were inaccessible. Some of her poetry from this period was published in 1975 in the volume Wild Angels . Le Guin turned her attention to science fiction after a lengthy period of receiving rejections from publishers, knowing that there
25550-483: Was "The Man From the Atom (Sequel) " by G. Peyton Wertenbaker in the second issue, May 1926. In the August issue, new stories (still a minority) were noted with an asterisk in the table of contents. The editorial work was largely done by Sloane, but Gernsback retained final say over the fiction content. Two consultants, Conrad A. Brandt and Wilbur C. Whitehead, were hired to help find fiction to reprint. Frank R. Paul , who had worked with Gernsback as early as 1914, became
25725-413: Was "neither a matriarchy nor a patriarchy: men and women just are". "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a parable depicting a society in which widespread wealth, happiness, and security, comes at the cost of the continued misery of a single child, has also been read as a critique of contemporary American society. The Word for World is Forest explored the manner in which the structure of society affects
25900-603: Was a Hainish universe story exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex. The book was Le Guin's first to address feminist issues, and according to scholar Donna White, it "stunned the science fiction critics"; it won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win these awards, and a number of other accolades. A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness have been described by critic Harold Bloom as Le Guin's masterpieces. She won
26075-429: Was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults, but was asked to write a novel targeted at this group by the editor of Parnassus Press, who saw it as a market with great potential. A coming of age story set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, the book received a positive reception in both the U.S. and Britain. Her next novel, The Left Hand of Darkness ,
26250-416: Was a good story. The result was that much of Eklund's fiction appeared in Amazing and Fantastic over the next few years. Amazing' s reputation had been for formulaic science fiction almost since it began, but White was able to take the magazine to a higher standard than any other editor except Cele Goldsmith, and gave Amazing a respected position in the field. His successors were not able to maintain
26425-511: Was a market for writing that could be readily classified as such. Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in 1962 in Fantastic Science Fiction , and seven other stories followed in the next few years, in Fantastic or Amazing Stories . Among them were " The Dowry of Angyar ", which introduced the fictional Hainish universe , and " The Rule of Names " and " The Word of Unbinding ", which introduced
26600-448: Was an early success; there was little or no scientific basis to the story, but it was very popular with Amazing' s readers. The covers, all of which were painted by Paul, were garish and juvenile, leading some readers to complain. Raymond Palmer, later to become an editor of the magazine, wrote that a friend of his was forced to stop buying Amazing "by reason of his parents' dislike of the cover illustrations". Gernsback experimented with
26775-430: Was available. He secured Cohen's agreement that the policy of printing almost nothing but reprinted stories would be phased out by the end of the year, and took over as editor with the September 1967 issue. By February 1968 Harrison decided to leave, as Cohen was showing no signs of abandoning the reprints. He resigned, and suggested Barry N. Malzberg to Cohen as a possible successor. Cohen knew Malzberg from his work at
26950-437: Was best suited as a medium for describing coming of age, because exploring the subconscious was difficult using the language of "rational daily life". The first three Earthsea novels together follow Ged from youth to old age, and each of them also follow the coming of age of a different character. A Wizard of Earthsea focuses on Ged's adolescence, while The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore explore that of Tenar and
27125-504: Was born in Berkeley, California , to author Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber . Having earned a master's degree in French, Le Guin began doctoral studies but abandoned these after her marriage in 1953 to historian Charles Le Guin. She began writing full-time in the late 1950s and achieved major critical and commercial success with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which have been described by Harold Bloom as her masterpieces. For
27300-461: Was called. Amazing soon drew ridicule for these stories. A derisive article by William S. Baring-Gould in the September 1946 issue of Harper's prompted William Ziff to tell Palmer to limit the amount of Shaver-related material in the magazine; Palmer complied, but his interest (and possibly belief) in this sort of material was now significant, and he soon began planning to leave Ziff-Davis. In 1947 he formed Clark Publications, launching Fate
27475-463: Was described as a "significant exploration of womanhood". Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Although The Left Hand of Darkness was seen as a landmark exploration of gender, it also received criticism for not going far enough. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, and
27650-491: Was enormously influential in the field of speculative fiction, and has been the subject of intense critical attention. She received numerous accolades, including eight Hugos , six Nebulas , and twenty-five Locus Awards , and in 2003 became the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America . The U.S. Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in 2000, and in 2014, she won
27825-732: Was fond of myths and legends, particularly Norse mythology , and of Native American legends that her father would narrate. Other authors she enjoyed were Lord Dunsany and Lewis Padgett . Le Guin also developed an early interest in writing; she wrote a short story when she was nine, and submitted her first short story to Astounding Science Fiction when she was eleven. The piece was rejected, and she did not submit anything else for another ten years. Le Guin attended Berkeley High School . She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1951, and graduated as
28000-468: Was forced into bankruptcy and lost control of the magazine in 1929. In 1938 it was purchased by Ziff-Davis , who hired Raymond A. Palmer as editor. Palmer made the magazine successful though it was not regarded as a quality magazine within the science fiction community. In the late 1940s Amazing presented as fact stories about the Shaver Mystery , a lurid mythos that explained accidents and disaster as
28175-413: Was given the choice of going with the magazines or staying with Ziff-Davis; she stayed, and Cohen hired Joseph Wrzos to edit the magazines, starting with the August and September 1965 issues of Amazing and Fantastic , respectively. Wrzos used the name "Joseph Ross" on the mastheads to avoid mis-spellings. Both magazines immediately moved to a bi-monthly schedule. Cohen had acquired reprint rights to
28350-404: Was initially forced to work primarily with newer writers. Early discoveries of hers include Michael P. Kube-McDowell , John E. Stith and Richard Paul Russo . In a notice published in her first issue, she asked readers for help in assembling news, reviews and fan information, and soon added columns that covered these areas. In 1981 Robert Silverberg began a series of opinion columns. The artwork
28525-563: Was likely she had had a heart attack . Private memorial services for her were held in Portland. A public memorial service, which included speeches by the writers Margaret Atwood , Molly Gloss , and Walidah Imarisha , was held in Portland on June 13, 2018. I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries – the realists of
28700-411: Was of high quality, including work by Stephen Fabian , and later by David Mattingly . After the merger with Fantastic , Mavor continued to draw well-known writers to the magazine, including Orson Scott Card , George R. R. Martin , and Roger Zelazny . Brad Linaweaver 's Moon of Ice , which appeared in March 1982, was nominated for a Nebula Award ; Martin's Unsound Variations , which had appeared
28875-409: Was on condition that the reprints be phased out. This took some time: for a while both Amazing and Fantastic continued to include one reprint every issue; with the May 1972 issue the transformation was complete, and all stories were new. As well as eliminating the reprints, White reintroduced features such as a letter column and "The Clubhouse", a fanzine review and fannish news column. He continued
29050-431: Was portrayed as a society without war, as a result of this absence of fixed gender characteristics, and also without sexuality as a continuous factor in social relationships. Gethenian culture was explored in the novel through the eyes of a Terran , whose masculinity proves a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Outside the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin's use of a female protagonist in The Tombs of Atuan , published in 1971,
29225-438: Was rarely an influential magazine within the genre after the 1920s. By the end of the 19th century, stories centered on scientific inventions, and stories set in the future, were appearing regularly in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories lent itself to tales of invention in the tradition of Jules Verne . Magazines such as Munsey's Magazine and The Argosy , launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried
29400-471: Was released in 2002 in the collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories , along with the novella Paradises Lost . The volume examined unconventional ideas about gender, as well as anarchist themes. Other collections included Changing Planes , also released in 2002, while the anthologies included The Unreal and the Real (2012), and The Hainish Novels and Stories , a two-volume set of works from
29575-503: Was retiring. By this time the circulation had dropped to only about 11,000. George H. Scithers took over as editor for TSR. In 1995 she wrote about some of her experiences at Amazing Stories in her introduction to Wayne Wightman's short story collection, Ganglion & Other Stories (published by Tachyon Publications ). Amazing Stories Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback 's Experimenter Publishing . It
29750-446: Was serialized in the January and February 1965 issues, and won a Nebula Award from the newly established Science Fiction Writers of America . Goldsmith often wrote long, helpful letters to her authors: Zelazny commented in a letter to her that "most of anything I have learned was stimulated by those first sales, and then I learned, and possibly even learned more, from some of the later rejections". Disch and Le Guin have also acknowledged
29925-500: Was set on the same planet as The Left Hand of Darkness . It was described by scholar Sandra Lindow as "so transgressively sexual and so morally courageous" that Le Guin "could not have written it in the '60s". In the same year she published the story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness , and followed it up with " Old Music and the Slave Women ", a fifth, connected, story in 1999. All five of the stories explored freedom and rebellion within
30100-515: Was such that the idea was given up for two years." In 1926, he decided to proceed, and ceased publication of The Experimenter to make room in his publishing schedule for a new magazine. The editor of The Experimenter , T. O'Conor Sloane , became the editor of Amazing Stories . The first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April. Initially the magazine focused on reprints; both classics such as Wells, Verne and Poe, and stories from other Gernsback magazines. The first original story
30275-520: Was taken on by TSR as editor beginning with the November issue. He was replaced by Patrick Lucien Price in September 1986, and then by Kim Mohan in May 1991. TSR ceased publication of Amazing with the Winter 1995 issue, but in 1997, shortly after they were acquired by Wizards of the Coast , the magazine was relaunched, again with Mohan as editor. This version lasted for only ten issues, though it did include
30450-420: Was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction . Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction . As of 2024, Amazing has been published, with some interruptions, for 98 years, going through a half-dozen owners and many editors as it struggled to be profitable. Gernsback
30625-651: Was unusual for the time of its publication. This was in marked contrast to the structure of (primarily male-authored) traditional science fiction, which was straightforward and linear. The novel was framed as part of a report sent to the Ekumen by the protagonist Genly Ai after his time on the planet Gethen, thus suggesting that Ai was selecting and ordering the material, consisting of personal narration, diary extracts, Gethenian myths, and ethnological reports. Earthsea also employed an unconventional narrative form described by scholar Mike Cadden as "free indirect discourse", in which
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