Astounding Stories

This issue of Astounding Stories plunges readers into the bold, perilous imagination of early science fiction, where interplanetary travel, strange dimensions, and lethal discoveries lie just beyond the edge of the known. Its lead adventure, "Monsters of Mars," begins with Allan Randall being drawn into a hidden experiment that may make space travel possible without a ship at all. Scientist Milton reveals a startling matter-transmission device, one that can convert living beings into vibrations, send them by radio, and restore them elsewhere. A successful guinea pig test has already proved the theory, and now Randall is swept into the first human leap to Mars. What follows is a tense journey into an alien civilization of crocodile-like beings, metal cities, and cone-shaped towers, culminating in a terrifying audience with the Martian Master, a grotesque triple-bodied ruler. The promise of exploration quickly turns to horror as the Earthmen learn they have walked into the opening stages of a Martian invasion of Earth. Elsewhere in the issue, other tales widen the sense of danger and wonder with robot threats, subterranean expeditions, frozen mysteries, and desperate encounters with monstrous life in hostile wildernesses. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.