Charles R Tanner's "Tumithak of the Corridors" (novella, adventure, free)

While the ideas here are familiar, may be this was one of the stories that originated some of them? And there is obvious influence of H G Wells.

Story summary.

Shelks, of Venus, conquered earth thousands of years ago, driving humans into vast underground warrens that are now the natural habitat of humanity. Tumithak, hero of the story, is a human from these warrens who has vague dreams of humanity overcoming the shelks & reclaiming earth.

To this end, he will undertake a journey to the surface to slay a shelk. Story is mostly of his adventures during this journey.

See also.

1. A Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer": An intelligent rat from an "underground" rat colony will kill a "giant" (a man).
2. William Tenn's "Of Men & Monsters": Man living as rat-like pests in a world (earth?) now owned by giant aliens.

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, January 1932.
Download full text from The Writings of Charles R Tanner. [via James W Harris @ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B. 

S Fowler Wright's "Brain" (novelette, mad scientist, free)

I'm not sure I get the reason for the importance of this story - it made into "Adventures in Time & Space". It's not unreadable, but may be time has tempered its effect.

Story summary.

Self-centered & arrogant scientists have grabbed political power, & are the new rulers. Story is of a conflict between the president & another councillor eying the presidentship. A conflict that will end in disaster for the ruling clique.

A substantial part of story is of a couple of inventions by the incumbent president: a chemical whose injection turns you into a mental superman, & another that makes you love all creatures. And testing of it on a pig - the life of an intelligent pig that knows it's headed for butchers'!

Usurper wants government to approve the procurement of hundreds of newly born human babies for scientific research! He intends to remove the brains of these babies to put them into dogs, & to put dog brains into babies - to observe the effect! This part sounded a bit like Jonathan Swift's well known satire "A Modest Proposal" (download), but I guess you need a familiarity with English society of 1930s to get what he is satirizing.

Fact sheet.

First published: Author's collection "The New Gods Lead" (1932)?
Download full text from Internet Archive or here.
Rating: B.

"Wonder Stories Quarterly", Vol 3 No 4 (Summer 1932) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

It's one of the Hugo Gernsback's magazines, & scans in CBZ format are online at Crosseyed Cyclops. Looks like mostly planetary adventures.

Table of contents.

1. John Scott Campbell's "Beyond Pluto": "As exiles from earth they went into the great unknown, to meet mysteries of other world ..."
2. Frank A Kelly's "Exiles of Mars": "Lone protectors of a planet, they forced the thirst-maddened desert hoards ..."
3. John Bertin & Edward Morris' "Rebellion on Venus".
4. Laurence Manning's "The Voyage of the Asteroid": "As discoverers they ventured into space, to bow to the elements on an unknown world ..."
5. Raymond Gallun & John Michel's "The Menace from Mercury".
6. Al H Martin's "The Jovian Horde": "Bestial hordes from Jupiter, they came seeking blood & power ..."

See also.

1. Fiction from Wonder Stories.
2. Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.
3. Fiction from 1930s.

Free fiction: An old magazine & a few novels

All at Internet Archive in multiple formats.

1. Two novels, both apparently reprints, "selected by the editors of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine", & published under "Galaxy Science Fiction Novel" series: J Leslie Mitchell's "Three Go Back" (1932) (download) ("A powerful story mixed with science & sex"), & Edmond Hamilton's "City At Worlds End" (1951) (download).
2. Planet Stories, September 1951; download.
3. Fantastic Novels, July 1940; download: Includes a novel & a short story. Novel is Austin Hall & Homer Eon Flint's "The Blind Spot".

"Wonder Stories", Vol 4 No 3 (August 1932) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

It's one of the Hugo Gernsback's magazines, & scans in CBR format are online at Crosseyed Cyclops.

Table of contents.

1. Richard Tooker's "Tyrant of the Red World": "With ruthless power he would dominate the ne world ... But from the depths of that eerie planet ..."
2. Clarke Ashton Smith's "Flight into Super-Time": "Facing each other, the two mechanical monstrosities from alien parts of the universe ..."
3. A Rowley Hilard's "The Space Coffin": "Suspended between heaven & earth, he saw the stars go wheeling by ..."
4. George B Beattie's 'The Platinum "Planets"': "The solar system he combed in search of that priceless relic ... & when he found it ..."
5. [serial - part 2 of 3] Otfrid von Hanstein's "In the Year 8000": "Mercilessly he opened the switch to pour destruction upon the helpless city. But than fate entered."

Free fiction: Scans of 3 issues of "Wonder Stories" magazine (edited by Hugo Gernsback) + a Wonder Story anthology

Hugo Gernsback is the man after whom Hugo Awards are named.

Each issue is available at Crosseyed Cyclops as a CBR or CBZ file containing JPG files of individual pages.
Note for readers unfamiliar with these formats: I personally append ".rar" extension to these files, & extract the contained JPEGs with WinRAR. Extracted JPG files are named in a way that IrfanView can read them in original page order. There are also CBR & CBZ viewers out there (but I have never used any).

Neither the name nor publishing frequency appears to have been stable for this magazine - a fact reflected in individual issue titles blow. Stories appear to be mostly planetary adventures.

Links labeled "Download" below go to page containing the scans. Links on a specific issue go to my page that opens up its table of contents.

1. Download Wonder Stories, Vol 2 No 4 (September 1930) & Wonder Stories Quarterly, Vol 3 No 4 (Summer 1932).
2. Download Wonder Stories, Vol 4 No 3 (August 1932).

Download anthology: "Wonder Story Annual", Vol 2 No 1 (1953 Edition), edited by Samuel Mines. Includes fiction by big guns - Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Henry Kuttner, Jack Williamson, & Fredric Brown.

John W Campbell, Jr's "The Last Evolution" (short story, singularity, free)

While the story itself is unremarkable, there is one thing here that makes it noteworthy: it's probably among the earliest stories about singularity, decades before the term was coined. At least it's the earliest I've read.

Story summary.

Story is narrated by a ... robot or AI or something. Humans have built machines that can build better versions of themselves. But they still serve man.

That's when earth gets attacked by a huge alien armada - but aliens without self-improving machines. So these machines go into superfast evolution as defense. In the end, all humans will be dead before the machines can build something way beyond aliens' capability & throw them out.

So now these machines have inherited earth.

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, August 1932.
Rating: C.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or Manybooks; or MP3 from LibriVox. [via QuasarDragon]
Related: Stories of John Campbell.

Free fiction: More scans of Astounding Stories (all 1932 issues)

Image scans of "all 8 issues of Astounding Stories from 1932" are now up at Internet Archive.

Related posts:

1. Astounding, 1930 scans.
2. Astounding, 1931 scans + January & March 1933 scans.
3. Annotated table of contents of these scanned issues.