Episode 1147
The Thrill Book
Thu, 2020-Jun-25 01:08 UTC
Length - 2:45
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Thursday, 25 June 2020 is The Thrill Book.
The Thrill Book was a U. S. pulp magazine published by Street & Smith in 1919. It was intended to carry "different" stories: this meant stories that were unusual or unclassifiable, which in practice often meant the stories were fantasy or science fiction. The first eight issues, edited by Harold Hersey, were a mixture of adventure and weird stories. Contributors included Greye La Spina, Charles Fulton Oursler, J. H. Coryell, and Seabury Quinn. Hersey was replaced by Ronald Oliphant with the July 1 issue, probably because Street & Smith were unhappy with his performance.
Oliphant printed more science fiction and fantasy than Hersey had done, though this included two stories by Murray Leinster which Hersey had purchased before being replaced. The most famous story from The Thrill Book is The Heads of Cerberus, a very early example of a novel about alternate time tracks, by Francis Stevens. Oliphant was given a larger budget than Hersey, and was able to acquire material by popular writers such as H. Bedford-Jones, but he was able to produce only eight more issues before the end came. The last issue was dated October 15, 1919; it was probably cancelled because of poor sales, although a printers' strike at that time may have been a factor.
Although The Thrill Book has been described as the first American pulp to specialize in fantasy and science fiction, this description is not supported by recent historians of the field, who regard it instead as a stepping stone on the path that ultimately led to Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, the first true specialized magazines in the fields of weird fiction and science fiction respectively.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:08 UTC on Thursday, 25 June 2020.
For the full current version of the article, see The Thrill Book on Wikipedia.
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This has been Brian. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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