Authentic Science Fiction, #57

[a:Edwin Charles Tubb 14053911 Edwin Charles Tubb https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (15 October 1919 – 10 September 2010) was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas, Tubb is best known for The Dumarest Saga (US collective title: Dumarest of Terra), an epic science-fiction saga set in the far future. [a:Michael Moorcock 16939 Michael Moorcock https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424079041p2/16939.jpg] wrote, “His reputation for fast-moving and colourful SF writing is unmatched by anyone in Britain.”Much of Tubb's work was written under pseudonyms including Gregory Kern, Carl Maddox, Alan Guthrie, Eric Storm and George Holt. He used 58 pen names over five decades of writing, although some of these were publishers' house names also used by other writers: Volsted Gridban (along with John Russell Fearn), Gill Hunt (with John Brunner and Dennis Hughes), King Lang (with George Hay and John W Jennison), Roy Sheldon (with H. J. Campbell) and Brian Shaw. Tubb's Charles Grey alias was solely his own and acquired a big following in the early 1950s.Authentic Science FictionAuthentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues under three editors: Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, and E.C. Tubb. The magazine was published by Hamilton and Co., and began in 1951 as a series of novels appearing every two weeks; by the summer it became a monthly magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine.Authentic published little in the way of important or ground-breaking fiction. The poor rates of pay—£1 per 1,000 words—prevented the magazine from attracting the best writers. During much of its life it competed against three other moderately successful British science fiction magazines, as well as the American science fiction magazine market. Hamilton folded the magazine in October 1957, because they needed cash to finance an investment in the UK rights to an American best-selling novel.As for the story itself, there were surprises in store when they set out to do what appeared to be a simple repair job. Spacemen land on a planet to fix their broken rocket. But an invisible force threatens their safety. A nice short story, with a little twist in the end. Worth reading if you like decent 50's sci-fi pulp.Get a copy here.