That cover is by Earle Bergey. (Was there ever any doubt?) I know his work was controversial at the time, but dang, I like his covers. This issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES contains stories by Henry Kuttner, Bryce Walton, George O. Smith, L. Sprague de Camp, and Will F. Jenkins twice, once under his most famous pseudonym Murray Leinster and once as William Fitzgerald. My old mentor Sam Merwin Jr. was the editor. Good stuff.
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THRILLING WONDER was a good magazine from the time Sam Merwin took over as editor and made it adult. I would say from 1946 to the end in the fifties. And if you like THRILLING WONDER then you have to read and collect STARTLING STORIES. It was basically the same with the same editor, writers, and artists. The letter columns were the same also, full of early fandom names and writers.
These are two of my favorite titles and they are still available for reasonable prices. They are must buys...
Bergey is one of my favorites. And that's a great lineup. I think I have it. Aboit tenyears ago I had a little extra income from summer teaching and bought as many pilps containing uncollected Kittner stories as I could afford/find.
Walker is correct. Thrilling Wonder and Startling were both top notch in this period, arguably as good or better than Astounding. I've got some of that run and would like to get the full set.
Gotta stop posting from my phone and just wait until I'm at a computer. Too many typos.
To elaborate on my earlier post. I was trying to find Kuttner stories that hadn't been reprinted at the time. Haffner Press has collected a lot of them ones I was looking for. But there are still some worthwhile gems in those pages. The thing about Thrilling Wonder and Startling was that they were fun. Yes, the stories were often serious, as Walker said, for adults. But that sense of having a good time while reading the magazine was always there. There's not enough of that these days.
I agree with Walker, both TWS and Startling are fine magazines to collect and read. And they are not all that expensive.
This cover is similar to the December 1939 MARVEL TALES. Not sure who the artist was on that, but it may have inspired Bergey...
One difference between TWS and STARTLING is that the "complete novels" in TWS tended to be much shorter. The Kuttners did about 6 or 7 "novels" like WAY OF THE GODS that have fallen through the reprint cracks over the years -- too long for most anthologies, too short to be published as actual novels, even in the days when a novel didn't have to be 500 pages long. Some of them have never been reprinted since their first appearance.
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