Astounding Stories, July, 1931
July 1931: the golden age of pulp science fiction burns hot in this anthology of interplanetary adventure and technological marvel. The standouts pulse with the era's magnificent absurdities: alien invasions, time-bending paradoxes, machines that rise against their masters, and a sailor's catastrophic encounter with a mysterious island linked to Mars. Ray Cummings concludes his serialized epic "The Exile of Time," while Jack Williamson delivers planetary menace from Planet 4. These are stories written when scientists wore lab coats and dreamed of Mars canals, when every new invention might save or destroy civilization. The prose is purple, the science is dubious by modern standards, and absolutely nothing is restrained. If you want to understand where modern science fiction came from, you start here, with these wild, earnest tales of humanity confronting the infinite.
