Nathaniel Schachner (January 16, 1895 – October 2, 1955), who published under the names Nat Schachner and Nathan Schachner, was an American writer, historian, and attorney, as well as an early advocate of the development of rockets for space travel. A prominent author of historical works on figures from America's Revolutionary Era, Schachner also was a regular contributor to the genre leading up to and during the early years of what came to be referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction (c. 1938–1946). [1]
Best known for his biographies of American historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, and as the creator of the Grandfather paradox, Schachner began his writing career contributing short stories to leading "pulp magazines" that specialized in science fiction, horror, mystery, and adventure genres. During the heart of the Great Depression, he contributed more than fifty stories to magazines such as Astounding Stories , Terror Tales , Horror Stories , Dime Mystery Magazine , and Fantastic Adventures. He then turned to writing historical non-fiction and fiction, gaining recognition for his prodigious research.
Schachner, a practicing attorney, was a founder and officer of the American Interplanetary Society, which pioneered liquid fuel rocketry in the United States in the early 1930s. [2] Later known as the American Rocket Society, the organization eventually became part of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a professional society in the field of aerospace engineering that today has nearly 30,000 members world-wide. [3]
Following is a listing of Schachner's short fiction as published in magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. The links provide access to either the stories or information on them from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
Murray Leinster was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.
Hugh Barnett Cave was an American writer of various genres, perhaps best remembered for his works of horror, weird menace and science fiction. Cave was one of the most prolific contributors to pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, selling an estimated 800 stories not only in the aforementioned genres but also in western, fantasy, adventure, crime, romance and non-fiction. He used a variety of pen names, notably Justin Case under which name he created the antihero The Eel. A war correspondent during World War II, Cave afterwards settled in Jamaica where he owned and managed a coffee plantation and continued his writing career, now specializing in novels as well as fiction and non-fiction sales to mainstream magazines.
Frederick Orlin Tremaine was an American science fiction magazine editor, most notably of the influential Astounding Stories. He edited a number of other magazines, headed several publishing companies, and sporadically wrote fiction.
Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, who used the pseudonyms Marjorie Bowen, George R. Preedy, Joseph Shearing, Robert Paye, John Winch, and Margaret Campbell or Mrs. Vere Campbell, was a British author who wrote historical romances and supernatural horror stories, as well as works of popular history and biography.
Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.
Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, known as Hyatt Verrill, was an American zoologist, explorer, inventor, illustrator and author. He was the son of Addison Emery Verrill, the first professor of zoology at Yale University.
This is a bibliography of works by American writer John W. Campbell Jr.
Philip MacDonald was a British-born writer of fiction and screenplays, best known for thrillers.
Robert Sidney Bowen, Jr. was a World War I aviator, newspaper journalist, magazine editor and author who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died of cancer in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the age of 76. He is best known for his boys' series books written during World War II, the Dave Dawson War Adventure Series and the Red Randall Series. He also worked under the name R. Sidney Bowen and under the pseudonym James Robert Richard.
Arthur Leo Zagat (1896–1949) was an American lawyer and writer of pulp fiction and science fiction. Trained in the law, he gave it up to write professionally. Zagat is noted for his collaborations with fellow lawyer Nat Schachner. During the last two decades of his life, Zagat wrote short stories prolifically. About 500 pieces appeared in a variety of pulp magazines, including Thrilling Wonder Stories, Argosy, Dime Mystery Magazine, Horror Stories, Operator No. 5 and Astounding. Zagat also wrote the "Doc Turner" stories that regularly appeared in The Spider pulp magazine throughout the 1930s and the "Red Finger" series that ran in Operator #5, and wrote for Spicy Mystery Stories as "Morgan LaFay". A novel, Seven Out of Time, was published by Fantasy Press in 1949, the year he died. His more well known series is probably the Tomorrow series of 6 novelettes from Argosy collecting into 2 volumes by Altus Press in 2014.
Evelyn Charles Henry Vivian was the pseudonym of Charles Henry Cannell, a British editor and writer of fantasy and supernatural, detective novels and stories.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science, the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made Astounding the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's Legion of Space and John W. Campbell's "Twilight". At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go, giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, A. E. van Vogt's Slan, and several novels and stories by Robert A. Heinlein. The period beginning with Campbell's editorship is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Harl Vincent was the pen name of Harold Vincent Schoepflin, an American mechanical engineer and science fiction author. He was published regularly in science fiction pulp magazines.
The Best of Science Fiction, published in 1946, is an anthology of science fiction anthologies edited by American critic and editor Groff Conklin.
Science Fiction of the Thirties is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Damon Knight. It was first published in hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill in January 1976; a book club edition was issued simultaneously by the same publisher together with the Science Fiction Book Club, and a trade paperback edition by Avon Books in March 1977.
The Other Worlds is an anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and horror edited by Phil Stong. It was originally published by Wilfred Funk in 1941, with a lower-price edition following from Garden City Publishing a year later. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes it as "the first important sf Anthology".; it remains in the collection of nearly 200 academic libraries in 2015.
A New Dawn: The Don A. Stuart Stories of John W. Campbell, Jr. is an archival collection of science fiction stories by John W. Campbell, published in hardcover by NESFA Press in 2003. The volume was compiled and edited by James A. Mann. It includes all 16 stories published by Campbell under that pseudonym, as well as two Campbell/Stuart nonfiction pieces and an introduction by Barry N. Malzberg. Gary K. Wolfe declared that "the collected Stuart stories constitute a key document in the intellectual history of SF".
The Best of Edmond Hamilton is a collection of science fiction short stories by American author Edmond Hamilton, edited by his wife and fellow science fiction writer Leigh Brackett. It was first published in hardback by Nelson Doubleday in April 1977 and in paperback by Ballantine Books in August of the same year as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. The book was reissued in trade paperback and ebook editions by Phoenix Pick in November 2010. It has also been translated into German.
The Best of John W. Campbell is the title of two collections of science fiction short stories by American author John W. Campbell. The first, a British edition edited by George Hay, was first published in hardcover by Sidgwick & Jackson in February 1973, and in paperback by Sphere Books in November 1976. Sidgwick & Jackson later gathered together with The Far-Out Worlds of A. E. van Vogt (1968) into the omnibus volume Science Fiction Special 15 (1975), and with Brian N. Ball's Singularity Station (1973) and Poul Anderson's Orbit Unlimited (1961) into the omnibus volume Science Fiction Special 20 (1977). The second collection of this title, an American edition edited by Lester del Rey, was first published in hardcover by Nelson Doubleday in May 1976, and in paperback by Ballantine Books in June 1976 as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. The American edition was reprinted by Del Rey/Ballantine in February 1995, and has also been translated into German.
Dime Mystery Magazine was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications. Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length novel in each issue, but it was competing with Detective Novels Magazine and Detective Classics, two established magazines from a rival publisher, and failed to sell well. With the October 1933 issue the editorial policy changed, and it began publishing horror stories. Under the new policy, each story's protagonist had to struggle against something that appeared to be supernatural, but would eventually be revealed to have an everyday explanation. The new genre became known as "weird menace" fiction; the publisher, Harry Steeger, was inspired to create the new policy by the gory dramatizations he had seen at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. Stories based on supernatural events were rare in Dime Mystery, but did occasionally appear.