This post is brought to you by the upcoming Steel & Stone by M. D. Jackson. This Science Fiction adventure novel features two operatives of the Agency, Steel, rugged spy and adventurer and Marella Stone, at first his assignment, a woman he must keep alive even though the universe seems aligned against her. Later Steel must face off with a centipede of a killer bot that wants nothing more than to tear him apart. We get to meet Steel’s ship, Darling and later follow Stone as she goes far into space to explain the existence of three Niven Rings, where there shouldn’t even be one. This is space adventure that never lets up. The first adventure appeared in our anthology Ships of Steel.
It is a well known fact that many Pulp stories were written by the editors, after scouring the slush pile for good stories. When these did not appear, it was up to the editors to write them themselves. Many of the tales were adorned with House Names, sometimes almost as famous as real authors.
But this wasn’t the normal back in 1926 when Hugo Gernsback published the first All-Science Fiction Pulp, Amazing Stories. Hugo did write the odd piece like his clunky Ralph 124C 41+ A Romance of the Year 2660 (1925) and ten years earlier a series about Baron Munchausen but for the most part Hugo left the writing to others. His replacement, T. O’Conor Sloane, even more so. Gernsback’s assistant at Wonder Stories, Allen Glasser, did write stories but not often and under his own name.
Harry Bates/Desmond W. Hall (Astounding Stories January 1930 to March 1933)
The real pseudonymous editor, usually finding little to publish as Science Fiction was new to many writers, begins with Harry Bates. Bates, who would later pen some classic SF, was more familiar with the detective and cowboy Pulps he also edited for the Clayton chain. But Harry would persevere with Astounding Stories of Super-Science and use at least two pseudonyms. He, and his assistant editor, Desmond W. Hall, were the actual “Anthony Gilmore” that was a short-term mystery in SF circles. Early fans wondered “Who is Anthony Gilmore?” This debate helped sell Pulps but the editors’ motives certainly weren’t trying to create buzz. It was a way to supplement income. Clayton paid two cents a word, the best wage Science Fiction would see for some time. The proof of their intentions is the fact that they were also H. G. Winter, a writer nobody seemed to notice or care about. When Astounding went over to Street & Smith under F. Orlin Tremaine, these pseudo-authors disappeared.
For more on Hawk Carse, Anthony Gilmore’s famous hero, go here.
Ray A. Palmer (Amazing Stories 1938-1949/Fantastic Adventures 1939-1949)
Raymond Alfred Palmer is one of the most famous editors of Science Fiction, or perhaps infamous. A dwarfish figure who suffered a spinal injury as a teenager, Palmer engineered many attempts to make Amazing Stories the highest grossing SF magazine ever. This included legitimate attempts like publishing Edgar Rice Burroughs’ final stories but also less classy ones like trying to steal ERB’s mantle after his death (for more, go here), the bizarre Shaver Mysteries (with Richard S. Shaver), promoting the idea of flying saucers, to bullying authors. Palmer worked from Chicago rather than New York, and within his circle he was king. Some writers like William P. McGivern were not fond of him, while others remember him more kindly. His name was given to a DC superhero, the Atom, as an homage.
One of Ray’s attempts to carry on the Burroughs glamor was to publish ERB-like fiction, at first with Jongor written by Robert Moore Williams, but later by himself under the pseudonym J. W. Pelkie. He used many others in his magazines, avoiding his real name with George Bell, Henry Gade, G. H. Irwin, Lu Kella, Frank Patton, Wallace Quitman, A. R. Steber, Morris J. Steele, Robert N. Webster & Rae Winters.
Mort Weisinger – (Startling Stories/Thrilling Wonder Stories 1939)
When Mort Weisinger began as the twenty-one year old editor of Better Publications’ SF Pulps, he wrote the odd story but used his own name on them. But for some reason in 1939 he wrote a story for each magazine with “Turnabout” by Will Garth (Startling Stories, March 1939) and “Incident on Titan” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1941). Will Garth was first used with “The Whistler Moves In” (Popular Western, March 1938) by unknown author. The first famous SF writer to use the handle was Henry Kuttner in 1937. It was also used by Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Norman A Daniels and August Derleth. For more on Will Garth, go here.
Oscar J. Friend (Thrilling Wonder Stories/Startling Stories 1941-1944)
Mort Weisinger is famous as the first editor at Better Publications but Oscar J. Friend actually held the post longer. Oscar had several pseudonyms that he alone used such as O. F. Jerome, Owen Fox Jerome, Lee Owen and Ford Smith, used in fact before becoming an editor. He also used house names Frank Johnson and Ford Smith. Owen Fox Jerome began in 1931 in detective magazines but also appeared in Thrilling Wonder in 1942 while Ford Smith waited until 1944.
Frederik Pohl (Astonishing Tales/Super Science Stories 1940-1941 Assistant Editor 1941-1943)
As editor of two of the cheapest Pulps in SF, Frederik Pohl had to beg, borrow and steal stories. His begging got manuscripts from big writers like Robert A. Heinlein though they had to be published under the pseudonym “Lyle Monroe”, borrowing got him material from his friends at the Futurians like C. M. Kornbluth, and stealing, well, Pohl didn’t steal but he did write some of the stories himself under names like Elton V. Andrews, Paul Flehr, Warren F. Howard, Paul Dennis Lavond, James MacCreigh, Scott Mariner, Ernst Mason, Edson McCann & Charles Satterfield. Paul Dennis Lavond was used sometimes for story jams with other writers. (Sometimes he simply paid more.) For more on Paul Dennis Lavond, go here. For more on Pohl’s magazines, go here.
Donald A. Wollheim (Stirring Science Stories/Cosmic Stories 1941-1942)
DAW, like Pohl was an editor in the bargain basement of Science Fiction. He, too, had to write much of his material for big writers found the quarter cent a word rate beneath them. Donald appeared as Martin Barrow, Graham Conway, Arthur Cooke, Millard Verne Gordon, David Grinnell, Wallace Baird Halleck, Martin Pearson, Karl Valons, Allen Warland, Braxton Wells, W. Malcolm White, Willy the Wisp, Lawrence Woods and X. For more on DAW’s stories go here.
Wilbur S. Peacock (Planet Stories 1942-1945/Jungle Stories – 1944-1945) worked for Fiction House, a Pulp chain that offered quarterly adventures like Sea Stories, Fight Stories, etc. This included Jungle Stories, which was an Edgar Rice Burroughs kinda jungle magazine with much fantastic material in it, and the classic Planet Stories, that published Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury and Gardner F. Fox. One of its editor was Wilbur Scott Peacock, who occasionally assumed an alias to fill pages. He appeared as John Peter Drummond, fake author of the Ki-Gor series, Garold S. Hatfield? & Wilbur Scott.
Sam Merwin Jr. (Thrilling Wonder Stories/Startling Stories 1945-1951)
Sam Merwin was an editor for most of his career but in 1953 he left that job to become a freelance writer for a few years. Pseudonyms included Jacques Jean Ferrat which he used at Fantastic Universe ( a rival publication), K. Robert Howard, Matt Lee, Glenn Llewellyn, Merv Samwinn, C. K. M. Scanlon, Carter Sprague & Amanda Welldon. Of these Carter Sprague interests me the most. Merwin used it in his own magazines but also at other publications. It was his exclusive nom de plum. It sounds like a combination of L.Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter but those two Conan pastichers didn’t get together until 1966. Merwin used it in the 1950s.
Paul W. Fairman (Amazing Stories 1956-1958/Fantastic 1956-1958)
Paul Fairman raised pseudonymous SF to its greatest heights. While he used Robert Arnette, Jerome Buxton, Paul Daniels, John Denver, Clee Garson, E. K. Jarvis, Ivar Jorgensen, Robert Eggert Lee & F. W. Paul himself, he also hired Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett to produce 50,000 words of stories each month, and never even read them. Others like Henry Slesar and Milton Lesser did likewise. The stories then appeared under pseudonyms and real names. This disregard for the quality of the material brought the magazines to a low point that made SF fans desert the line. For more on “Empire of Evil”, go here.
Robert A. W. Lowdnes (Science Fiction Quarterly 1941-1943/1951-1958/Future Science Fiction 1941-1942/1950-1960)/Dynamic Science Fiction 1952-1954)
Lowdnes was another editor trying to publish on a shoestring. When one magazine failed, he started another. This meant he had to write much of the contents himself. But he had learned it well, writing for fellow editors Fred Pohl and Donald A. Wollheim. He appeared as E. E. Clement, Arthur Cooke, Lewis Fell, Ph.D., Carol Grey, Carl Groener, Tod Harding, Henry Josephs, Mal Kent, Mallory Kent, John Lackland, Paul Dennis Lavond, John MacDougal, Wilfred Owen Morley, Richard Morrison, Robert Morrison, Ward Raymond, Satyricus, Michael Sherman, Peter Michael Sherman, Jay Tyler & The Vagrant. Later in the 1960s, he would become an important reprint publisher.
Howard C. Browne (Amazing Stories 1950-1956/Fantastic Adventures–Fantastic 1950-1956-
Howard C. Browne may be the saddest of them all. Taking over after Ray A. Palmer, Browne tried to make Fantastic the premier SF magazine, buying only from big writers. But this gambit failed, and he fell back into old habits like using pseudonyms. He wrote under Alexander Blade, William Brengle, H. B. Carleton, Lawrence Chandler, John Evans, Lee Francis, Ivar Jorgensen, Boris O’Hara, and John X. Pollard. But his most famous ghosting job was for Mickey Spillane. Spillane had promised him a story but missed the deadline. Browne wrote “The Veiled Woman” himself and put Spillane’s name on it. (The author was upset but admitted his part in it.) Browne would later get Cleve Cartmill to do a similar ghost job for Leslie Charteris and The Saint. For more go here.
Conclusion
Now you might ask, these men had to publish under pseudononyms and nom de plums, so what? For many, it may not have mattered. Mort Weisinger left Pulps for comic books and became the man who drove Batman and Superman’s careers along with Julius Schwartz. Donald A. Wollheim would be the editor that gave us The lord of the Rings in paperback, edited at Avon and later ACE books, and finally created his own line of SF paperbacks, DAW Books. What fiction they left behind them was quickly forgotten.
But for the editors who went on to writing careers, like Frederik Pohl, this is another matter. Pohl had written many stories but they had appeared mostly as the work of James MacCreigh. As he shifted from being a literary agent to becoming a full time writer this meant he had to establish himself as “Fred Pohl”, which he did as an editor of collections like the Star paperbacks. After this he became the writer behind such novels as Gateway, Man Plus and many other classics of later decades. None of the nine stories to be reprinted in The Early Pohl (1976) originally appeared under his own name. So while writers like Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein established their reputations in the 1930s and 1940s, Pohl had to wait until the 1950s, even though he was a contemporary. Such is the plight of the lonely editor…
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