Thesis Out-takes

Writing a thesis is often as much about deciding what goes out as well as what goes in. One frame for deciding what goes in is to divide up your material into three categories: things that are 1) imperative, 2) good or 3) nice for your reader to know. And if the material isn't imperative, then perhaps it can go.

However, that kind of ruthless editing can leave you bemoaning the hours of work on something that doesn't make the final thesis cut - that is certainly the case with me. So I'm sharing an out-take from chapter three of my thesis, which looks at pulp science fiction magazines in the first half of the twentieth century. The material either summarises information available elsewhere, or falls into the 'nice' category - interesting, but not directly engaged with the arguments in the chapter. 

On 20 February 1929, Gernsback went into receivership and Amazing was sold to B.A. Mackinnon, then through another few companies to end up under the control of Macfadden Publishing in August 1931. Amazing survived the Depression, continuing regular monthly publication, though the Amazing Quarterly was only released irregularly. Astounding was more deeply affected by the Depression than Amazing: publication dropped to bi-monthly after June 1932, ceasing after January 1933, before a final one-off volume in March 1933.(Ashley, 2000, pp.76-77) The Depression influenced the content of the magazines as well as their publication. For example, the story ‘Two Thousand Feet Below’, in which the descendants of an ice-age tribe trapped in subterranean spaces plan world domination using heat rays and flames throwers, requires the united response of the US government, armed forces, and captains of industry to defeat (Astounding Stories, June 1932 pp. 311-335; September 1932 pp. 34-62; November 1932 pp. 191-219; January 1933, pp. 346-364). While this story can be seen as an estranged exploration of contemporary issues and the need for a multi-facet response to the Depression (the New Deal), other stories from the same era were more direct. Laurence Manning’s ‘The Moth Message’ (Wonder Stories December 1934) depicted the remaining descendents of an Atlantean mining colony left behind on Colorado mesa top after the end of Atlantis who are eventually persuaded to release their huge accumulated stash of gold bullion – which the narrator suggests will be use to relieve Great Depression. This story proposes a straightforward fictive redress of contemporary problems: Atlantis’s past legacy will ameliorate America’s current crisis. 

Ashley, M. (2000). The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950. Liverpool, University of Liverpool Press.