The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast - Vintage Sci-Fi Short Stories

Alone in a world buried by endless snow and ice the last man on Earth drifts through a twilight of silence and memory. Time has lost all meaning... The Coming of the Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

The year was 1926 and although there had been science fiction stories in magazines, there had never been an entire magazine devoted to science fiction. Hugo Gernsback was the man who would change the course of science fiction with the birth of Amazing Stories magazine which began publishing in April 1926. In case you were wondering the Hugo Award is named after this sci-fi pioneer. The first two magazines were filled with reprints, stories that had already been published, by Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allen Poe among others.

G. Peyton Wertenbaker's short story The Man From the Atom appeared in that first issue but it too was a reprint, having been previously published 8 months earlier in Science and Invention magazine which was also published by Gernsback.

Wertenbaker was born in New Castle, Delaware in 1907, he wrote a handful of sci-fi stories and then turned his attention to other pursuits, literary and otherwise. He served on the editorial board of Fortune magazine from 1933 to 1938, and became a contributing editor to Time Magazine in 1939. During World War Two he served as an air combat intelligence officer in the Pacific. In 1958 he joined NASA as a speechwriter, eventually becoming chief historian of the Aerospace Medical Division. The story you are about to hear was the first original paid story to appear in Amazing Stories in June 1926 on page 232, The Coming of the Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker…

Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Of all the irksome, frustrating, maddening discoveries—was there no way of keeping it discovered? Forever by Robert Sheckley.

When you've been to Mars, when you've struggled with men and ships and supplies like some tremendous Herculean figure in the morning of the world, you'll never really feel at home on Earth... Lake of Fire by Frank Belknap Long. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

We don’t usually tease the next episode before sharing the story you’re about to hear—but today, we’re making an exception. Next time on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, we’ll introduce you to the teenager who wrote the very first original story—not a reprint—ever purchased by the world’s first truly complete science fiction magazine, nearly 100 years ago. You won’t want to miss it.

Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system. Close enough to dream about visiting, colonizing, or even finding life, yet alien enough to be mysterious. Mars gave writers a new place to dream big, play with ideas of civilization, survival, and human nature under alien skies. Such is the story you are about to hear. We will find our story on page 49 in the May 1950 issue of Planet Stories Magazine, Lake of Fire by Frank Belknap Long…

Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The Coming of the Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker.

Pauker had killed ten men to get eight million dollars. Now his flight to Mars would insure his safety from justice. Or would it? Eight Million Dollars From Mars! by Winston Marks. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

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A curious antique dealer discovers a strange crystal egg that reveals eerie glimpses of an alien world teeming with life. As he obsesses over its mysteries, he begins to question whether the visions are mere reflections—or a window into something watching him back. Todays story was first published in The New Review, in May 1897, The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells.

Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Pauker had killed ten men to get eight million dollars. Now his flight to Mars would insure his safety from justice. Or would it? Eight Million Dollars From Mars!by Winston Marks.

Something is wrong with Dad… Charlie knows it, but no one believes him. Is it all in his head, or has something terrifying taken his father’s place? The Father Thing by Philip K. Dick. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

Philip K. Dick, what a mind. It has been said that Dick believed he was living in two timelines simultaneously, one as himself in 1970s California and another as a persecuted Christian in ancient Rome. These bizarre experiences fueled his paranoia but also deepened the philosophical depth of his later works. Today’s story is one of his earlier works, published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine in December 1954 on page 105, The Father Thing by Philip K. Dick…

Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, A curious antique dealer discovers a strange crystal egg that reveals eerie glimpses of an alien world teeming with life. As he obsesses over its mysteries, he begins to question whether the visions are mere reflections—or a window into something watching him back. The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells