Editing Hard science fiction (section)

==History==
[[File:Science fiction plus 195312.jpg|thumb|[[Frank R. Paul]]'s cover for the last issue (December 1953) of ''[[Science-Fiction Plus]]''<ref>Ashley (2005), p. 381.</ref>|left]]

Stories revolving around scientific and technical consistency were written as early as the 1870s with the publication of [[Jules Verne]]'s ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas]]'' in 1870, among other stories. The attention to detail in Verne's work became an inspiration for many future scientists and explorers, although Verne himself denied writing as a scientist or seriously predicting machines and technology of the future.{{cn|date=April 2024}}

[[Hugo Gernsback]] believed from the beginning of his involvement with science fiction in the 1920s that the stories should be instructive,<ref>Ashley (2000), p. 50.</ref> although it was not long before he found it necessary to print fantastical and unscientific fiction in ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' to attract readers.<ref>Ashley (2000), p. 54.</ref> During Gernsback's long absence from science fiction (SF) publishing, from 1936 to 1953, the field evolved away from his focus on facts and education.<ref>Ashley (2004), p. 252.</ref><ref name=":0" /> The [[Golden Age of Science Fiction]] is generally considered to have started in the late 1930s and lasted until the mid-1940s, bringing with it "a quantum jump in quality, perhaps the greatest in the history of the genre", according to science fiction historians [[Peter Nicholls (writer)|Peter Nicholls]] and Mike Ashley.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/golden_age_of_sf|title=Golden Age of SF|last1=Nicholls|first1=Peter|last2=Ashley|first2=Mike|date=April 9, 2015|website=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |publisher=Gollancz|access-date=June 15, 2016}}</ref>

However, Gernsback's views were unchanged. In his editorial in the first issue of ''[[Science-Fiction Plus]]'', he gave his view of the modern SF story: "the fairy tale brand, the weird or fantastic type of what mistakenly masquerades under the name of Science-Fiction today!" and he stated his preference for "truly scientific, prophetic Science-Fiction with the full accent on SCIENCE".<ref name=":0">Lawler (1985), pp. 541–545.</ref> In the same editorial, Gernsback called for [[United States patent law|patent reform]] to give [[science fiction authors]] the right to create patents for ideas without having [[patent model]]s because many of their ideas predated the technical progress needed to develop [[specifications]] for their ideas. The introduction referenced the numerous [[Precognition|prescient]] technologies described throughout ''[[Ralph 124C 41+]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/Science_Fiction_Plus_v01n01_1953-03_Gorgon776|title=Science Fiction Plus v01n01|date=March 1953 }}</ref>