The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer's Amazing Pulp Journey

The rollicking true story of the legendary writer and editor who ruled over America’s fantasy and supernatural pulp journals in the mid-twentieth century, and shaped today’s UFO and sci-fi cultures: Ray Palmer. Meet Ray Palmer. A hustler, a trickster, and a visionary. The hunchbacked Palmer, who stood at just over four feet tall, was nevertheless an indomitable force, the ruler of his own bizarre sector of the universe. Armed with only his typewriter, Palmer changed the world as we know it – jumpstarting the flying saucer craze; frightening hundreds of thousands of Americans with “true” stories of evil denizens of inner earth; and reporting on cover-ups involving extraterrestrials, the paranormal, and secret government agencies. As editor for the ground-breaking sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories and creator of publications such as Other Worlds, Imagination, Fate, Mystic, Search, Flying Saucers, Hidden World, and Space Age, Palmer pushed the limits and broke new ground in science fiction publishing in the 1940s and 1950s—and was reviled for it by purists who called him “the man who killed science fiction.” In the first-ever biography devoted to the figure who molded modern geek culture, pulp scholar Fred Nadis paints a vivid portrait of Palmer—a brilliant, charming, and wildly willful iconoclast who helped ignite the UFO craze, convinced Americans of hidden worlds and government cover ups, and championed the occult and paranormal. Palmer overcame serious physical handicaps to become the most significant editor during the “golden age” of pulp magazines; he rebelled in his own inimitable way against the bland suburban vision of the American Dream; he concocted new literary genres; and he molded our current conspiracy culture decades before The X-Files claimed that the truth was out there.

Nadis, Fred

Humor & Entertainment

TarcherPerigee

Now in paperback, the rollicking, critically acclaimed true story of the legendary writer and editor who ruled over America's sci-fi, fantasy, and supernatural pulp journals in the mid-twentieth century: Ray Palmer. A finalist for the 2014 Locus Award in nonfiction. "Palmer could not have asked for a more sympathetic chronicler, or a better one, than Fred Nadis. His prose and his pronouncements are everything Palmer's practically never were: restrained, nuanced, intelligently considered. Nadis has a great story, and he relates it exquisitely." --Jerome Clark, Fortean Times "Fred Nadis's insightful biography demonstrates that Palmer is significant as well as intriguing." --Michael Saler, The Washington Post "One of science fiction's greatest gadflies gets his due in this lively and entertaining biography." --Publishers Weekly "The sci-fi pulps made a lasting imprint, as Fred Nadis shows in his entertaining "The Man From Mars"...Mr. Nadis does not take sides in what was once a civil war among the fans but reminds them that there was more than one mighty editor back in the Golden Age." -Tom Shippey, Wall Street Journal "The Man From Mars is smart and engrossing, and it expands our understanding of the nuts and carnival barkers who have done so much to cultivate America's homegrown mythology." --Jesse Walker, The American Conservative "Lucidly written and unfailingly lively, The Man from Mars is a biography worthy of its subject." --Fate magazine

Tarcher

Imagine a stage full of black cats emitting electrical sparks, a man catching bullets with his teeth, or an evangelist jumping on a transformer to shoot bolts of lightning through his fingertips. These and other wild schemes were part of the repertoire of showmen who traveled from city to city, making presentations that blended science with myth and magic.
In Wonder Shows, Fred Nadis offers a colorful history of these traveling magicians, inventors, popular science lecturers, and other presenters of “miracle science” who revealed science and technology to the public in awe-inspiring fashion. The book provides an innovative synthesis of the history of performance with a wider study of culture, science, and religion from the antebellum period to the present. 
It features a lively cast of characters, including electrical “wizards” Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison, vaudeville performers such as Harry Houdini, mind readers, UFO cultists, and practitioners of New Age science. All of these performers developed strategies for invoking cultural authority to back their visions of science and progress. The pseudo-science in their wonder shows helped promote a romantic worldview that called into question the absolute authority of scientific materialism while reaffirming the importance of human spirituality. Nadis argues that the sensation that these entertainers provided became an antidote to the alienation and dehumanization that accompanied the rise of modern America. 
Although most recent defenders of science are prone to reject wonder, considering it an ally of ignorance and superstition, Wonder Shows demonstrates that the public’s passion for magic and meaning is still very much alive. Today, sales continue to be made and allegiances won based on illusions that products are unique, singular, and at best, miraculous. Nadis establishes that contemporary showmen, corporate publicists, advertisers, and popular science lecturers are not that unlike the magicians and mesmerists of years ago.

Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, and Religion in America

Rutgers University Press

The story behind the elite scientists, technologists, SF enthusiasts, and billionaires who believe that humanity's destiny is to populate the stars . . . Does humanity have a destiny "in the stars?" Should a species triggering massive extinctions on its own planet instead stay put? This new book traces the waxing and waning of interest in space settlement through the decades, and offers a journalistic tour through the influential subculture attempting to shape a multiplanetary future. What motivates figures such as billionaires Elon Musk and Yuri Milner? How important have science fiction authors and filmmakers been in stirring enthusiasm for actual space exploration and settlement? Is there a coherent motivating philosophy and ethic behind the spacefaring dream? Star Settlers&nbsp;offers both a historical perspective and a journalistic window into a peculiar subculture packed with members of the scientific, intellectual, and economic elite. This timely work captures the extra-scientific zeal for space travel and settlement, places it in its historical context, and tackles the somewhat surreal conceptions underlying the enterprise and prognoses for its future.

Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses, and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe

Science & Math

Astronomy & Space Science

Pegasus Books

Since the late 1990s, artist Tony Oursler (born 1957) has amassed a vast personal archive of objects and ephemera relating to magic, the paranormal, film, television, phantasmagoria, pseudoscience and technology. For Oursler, the archive functions as an open visual resource, historical inquiry and--most intriguingly--a family history. One of the collection's many digressions records the friendship between the artist's grandfather Charles Fulton Oursler--a famous early 20th-century author and publisher--and magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, and a historic interaction with Arthur Conan Doyle, who, beyond his Sherlock Holmes series, was an important advocate for spiritualism and the paranormal. This publication features up to 1,500 objects from Oursler's collection, including photographs, prints, historic manuscripts, rare books, letters and objects. Additional topics include stage magic, thought photography, demonology, cryptozoology, optics, mesmerism, automatic writing, hypnotism, fairies, cults, the occult, color theory and UFOs.

Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler

Arts & Photography

Steinmeyer, Jim

Bear, Jordan

Joseph, Branden

Turner, Christopher

O'Rourke, Stephanie

Beckman, Karen

Individual Artists

JRP|Ringier

Now in an English-only edition published for two parallel exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art and Bard College, Imponderable features highlights from the incredible magic and occult collection of New York–based artist Tony Oursler (born 1957). Since the late 1990s, Oursler has been amassing a vast personal archive of objects and ephemera relating to magic, the paranormal, film, television, phantasmagoria, pseudoscience and technology. For Oursler, the archive functions as an open visual resource, historical inquiry and―most intriguingly―a family history. One of the collection’s many digressions records the friendship between the artist’s grandfather Charles Fulton Oursler (a famous early 20th-century author and publisher) and magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, and a historic interaction with Arthur Conan Doyle, who, beyond his Sherlock Holmes series, was an important advocate for spiritualism and the paranormal. This beautifully produced publication features up to 1,500 objects from Oursler’s collection, including photographs, prints, historic manuscripts, rare books, letters and objects. Additional topics include stage magic, thought photography, demonology, cryptozoology, optics, mesmerism, automatic writing, hypnotism, fairies, cults, the occult, color theory and UFOs. Thirteen essays by renowned art historians, science specialists and international scholars provide a deep insight into this unique material.

Santa Barbara Literary Journal: Volume 9: Space Sirens

Literature & Fiction

Talley, Max

Reed, John R.

Webb, Silver

Eidt, Jack

De Voe, M. M.

Musicant, Shira

Rodenborn, Michelle

Short Stories & Anthologies

Independently published

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