GERNSBACK, Hugo

(1884-1967)

   Luxembourg-born writer and editor who emigrated to the USA in 1904. Intensely interested in electricity and radio, he designed batteries and by 1906 was marketing a home radio set. In 1908 he launched his first magazine, Modern Electrics, where he later published his novel Ralph 124C 41+ (1911-12 Modern Electrics; fixup 1925). While deficient as fiction,the tale clearly shows his overriding interest in sf as a vehicle of PREDICTION, being a catalogue of the marvellous TECHNOLOGY of the 27thcentury. Modern Electrics later became Electrical Experimenter, for which he wrote a series of apocryphal scientific adventures of Baron Munchausen (sic): "How to Make a Wireless Acquaintance" (1915), "How Munchausen andthe Allies Took Berlin" (1915), "Munchausen on the Moon" (1915), "The Earth as Viewed from the Moon" (1915), "Munchausen Departs for the PlanetMars" (1915),"Munchausen Lands on Mars" (1915),"Munchausen is Taught Martian" (1915), "Thought Transmission on Mars" (1916), "Cities of Mars" (1916), "The Planets at Close Range" (1916), "Martian Amusements" (1916), "How the Martian Canals are Built" (1916) and "Martian Atmosphere Plants" (1917). The series was reprinted in AMZ in 1928. In 1920 another title-change brought into being SCIENCE AND INVENTION, in which HG regularly printed sf. The Aug 1923 issue was devoted to what he then termed "scientific fiction". The following year HG solicited subscriptions for an sf magazine to be called Scientifiction; but it was not until April 1926 that there appeared the first issue of AMAZING STORIES, the firsttrue sf magazine in English. HG was publisher and editor, although much of the actual editorial work was done by T. O'Conor SLOANE, his elderly associate editor. AMZ was an immediate commercial success, and in 1927 HG published AMAZING STORIES ANNUAL, which in turn spawned AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY. In 1929, however, his Experimenter Publishing Company wasforced into bankruptcy, almost certainly by Bernarr MACFADDEN, and HG lost control of the journals he had founded, though he immediately bounced back by founding another company and starting 4 more magazines: AIR WONDER STORIES, SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, Science Wonder Quarterly and SCIENTIFICDETECTIVE MONTHLY, the first 2 being amalgamated the following year as WONDER STORIES. His empire declined through the 1930s (though other projects prospered), with Scientific Detective Monthly (which changed its name to Amazing Detective Tales) lasting less than a year, WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY (as Science Wonder Quarterly had become) ceasing publication in1933, and Wonder Stories being sold in 1936 to become THRILLING WONDER STORIES. In 1939 he published 3 issues of an early sf COMIC, Superworld Comics, and in 1953 he published his last sf magazine, SCIENCE FICTION PLUS, with HG named as editor but with Sam MOSKOWITZ as managing editor; it ran for 7 issues. A rather different HG publication, Sexology, enjoyed more lasting success.Opinions vary on the beneficence of HG's influence on GENRE SF. Moskowitz has termed him the "Father of Science Fiction" (in"Hugo Gernsback: 'Father of Science Fiction'" in Explorers of the Infinite (1963)), while Brian W. ALDISS said of his emphasis on supposed scientific accuracy that it had "the effect of introducing a deadening literalism" into the field (in Trillion Year Spree by Aldiss and David WINGROVE (1986)). HG gave the genre a local habitation and a name; but he bestowed upon his creation a provincial dogmatism and an illiteracy that bedevilled US sf for years. The Science Fiction Achievement Awards are named theHUGOS in his honour; and he himself was given a special Hugo in 1960.

   MJE

   Other works: Ultimate World (1971).

   See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; AUTOMATION; BENELUX; CITIES; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; DEFINITIONS OF SF; DYSTOPIAS; FABULATION; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; HEROES; HISTORY OF SF; ILLUSTRATION; MACHINES; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; NEAR FUTURE; NUCLEAR POWER; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; ORIGIN OF MAN; POLITICS; POWER SOURCES; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; PSYCHOLOGY; PULP MAGAZINES; ROCKETS; SCIENTISTS; SPACE FLIGHT; SPACE OPERA; TRANSPORTATION; UTOPIAS; WEAPONS.