Cirrus@Austlit

Popular and influential American science fiction magazine, which ran from January 1930 (under the title Astounding Stories of Super-Science) through to October 1960, when its title was changed to Analog. It underwent other minor name changes throughout its history. The longest-running continuously published science-fiction magazine, Astounding focuses on the science and technology aspects of science fiction ('hard science fiction').

Of the original incarnation of the magazine, Mike Ashley writes:

'It is with Astounding that science fiction's fate became sealed. Astounding was first and always a straight adventure pulp magazine. It had no intention of educating through science [...]. Whilst both Science Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories were publishing their share of poor science fiction, their ideals in the field had remained noble. Astounding's never were. Its aim was to tap into the popularity of science fiction and make what profit was possible'. (The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950, Liverpool University Press, 2000, p.69).

After the shift in publishers to Street & Smith in 1933, though, Ashley notes that the magazine gained an editor (F. Orlin Tremaine) who

'expanded Astounding to be a magazine with hardly any apparent editorial taboos. In addition Tremaine was a conscientious and skilled professional editor, and Street & Smith was one of the oldest and most venerable of all magazine publishers with a large distribution network and sound financial backing' (The Time Machines, p.85).