Editing Hugo Gernsback (section)

== Fiction ==
[[Frederik Pohl]] said in 1965 that Gernsback's ''Amazing Stories'' published "the kind of stories Gernsback himself used to write: a sort of animated catalogue of gadgets".<ref name="pohl196510">{{ cite magazine | last = Pohl  | first = Frederik  | date = October 1965  | title = The Day After Tomorrow  | department = Editorial  | url = https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v24n01_1965-10#page/n3/mode/2up  | magazine = Galaxy Science Fiction  | pages = 4–7 }}</ref> Gernsback's fiction includes the novel ''[[Ralph 124C 41+]]''; the title is a pun on the phrase "one to foresee for many" ("one plus"). Even though ''Ralph 124C 41+'' has been described as pioneering many ideas and themes found in later SF work,<ref>{{cite book| title=The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction |first= Gary |last= Westfahl |publisher= Liverpool University Press |year= 1999 | page= 135}}</ref> it has often been neglected due to what most critics deem poor artistic quality.<ref>{{cite book| title=Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Volume 3: Lest Darkness Fall | first1= T. A. |last1= Shippey |first2= A. J. |last2= Sobczak |publisher= Salem Press |year= 1996 | page= 767}}</ref> Author [[Brian Aldiss]] called the story a "tawdry illiterate tale" and a "sorry concoction",<ref>Aldiss, Brian W., ''Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction'' (1973), Doubleday and Co., pp. 209–10</ref> while author and editor [[Lester del Rey]] called it "simply dreadful."<ref>{{cite book| title=The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction |first= Gary |last= Westfahl |publisher= Liverpool University Press |year= 1999 | page= 92}}</ref> While most other modern critics have little positive to say about the story's writing, ''Ralph 124C 41+'' is considered by science fiction critic [[Gary Westfahl]] as "essential text for all studies of science fiction."<ref>{{cite book| title=The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction |first= Gary |last= Westfahl |publisher= Liverpool University Press |year= 1999 | page= 93}}</ref>

Gernsback's second novel, ''Baron Münchausen's Scientific Adventures'', was serialized in ''Amazing Stories'' in 1928.

Gernsback's third (and final) novel, ''Ultimate World'', written {{circa|1958}}, was not published until 1971. Lester del Rey described it simply as "a bad book", marked more by routine social commentary than by scientific insight or extrapolation.<ref>{{cite magazine| title=Reading Room |first= Lester |last= del Rey |magazine=[[If (magazine)|If]] |date= June 1972 |page= 111}}</ref> [[James Blish]], in a caustic review, described the novel as "incompetent, pedantic, graceless, incredible, unpopulated and boring" and concluded that its publication "accomplishes nothing but the placing of a blot on the memory of a justly honored man."<ref>"Books", ''[[F&SF]]'', January 1973, p. 47</ref>

Gernsback combined his fiction and science into ''Everyday Science and Mechanics'' magazine, serving as the editor in the 1930s.