I was surprised when I ran across the first issue of
Science Fiction Plus (Mar 1953)
and saw
Hugo Gernsback, Editor, staring back at me from the top-right corner of the
cover. Somehow I assumed that
Wonder Stories was his last foray into what he called
scientifiction, or even that he’d died when that magazine became
Thrilling Wonder
Stories in 1936. But, no, here he was again, albeit for only seven issues (Mar-Dec 1953)
and with Sam Moskowitz behind the scenes.
That first issue had this Otto Binder story in
which a farmer takes two archaeologists, Stoddard and Jackson, to a time capsule that’s so
unusual it couldn’t possibly have been buried by any known civilization. They take it to
the Archeological Institute where their boss instructs them to clean up the outside
apparently believing that they’ll stop once it’s clean.
That thing has been buried for untold centuries perhaps. Millions of days. What would one
more day matter? All right, go ahead, you two eager-beavers. But
you’re getting the dirty work, scraping off that mold.