The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer's Amazing Pulp Journey
It’s been something of a mystery why, of the great pulp-era science-fiction magazine editors, Raymond Palmer seems to have slipped through the cracks of history. Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell are familiar names, but Palmer, who edited the influential Amazing Stories in the 1930s and ’40s, is little known today. As Amazing Stories’ editor, he helped to establish space opera as a major sf genre; as editor of the magazines Fate and Search, he brought stories of UFO sightings and abductions to the public (there might not have been the mid-twentieth-century UFO craze if it hadn’t been for Ray Palmer). Later, Palmer published a series of allegedly true stories by mental patient Richard Shaver about an ancient alien race, a hollow earth, and mind control. Palmer’s unwavering belief in the truth of the Shaver stories and his fondness for conspiracy theories may have hurt his reputation, but this fascinating volume establishes that he was an important and highly influential player in the history of science fiction. Great reading for fans of the genre’s origins. --David Pitt