Thomas O'Conor Sloane (November 24, 1851 – August 7, 1940) was an American scientist, inventor, author, editor, educator, and linguist, perhaps best known for writing The Standard Electrical Dictionary and as the editor of Scientific American, from 1886 to 1896 and the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, from 1929 to 1938.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
Sloane was academically exceptional, graduating with an A.B. from the College of St. Francis Xavier in NYC in 1869 at only eighteen years of age. He then earned an E.M from Columbia University in NYC in 1872, an A.M. from the College of St. Francis Xavier in 1873, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Columbia University in 1876 and later, an LL.D. from the College of St. Francis Xavier.[9][10][11][12][13] It has also been stated that Sloane held a Ph.D. in chemistry, although beyond his extensive professional experience in the field of chemistry there does not seem to be evidence to support this.[14][15]
Early career
Sloane was employed as a chemist by the N.Y. Gas Light Co. in 1872 and in 1877 as chief engineer for Citizens' Gas Light Co. in Brooklyn.[10]
Self-recording photometer for gas power
Sloane's best known invention, introduced in 1878, was the self-recording photometer for gas power — the first instrument to mechanically register the illuminating power of natural gas.[16][17][18][19][11][20] He was granted a patent for the invention January 29, 1884.[21] In 1877, Sloane had described a new process for determining sulphur in natural gas.[17][9][11] He also served as a scientific expert in patent lawsuits.[22]
Works
Sloane was the author of The Standard Electrical Dictionary, first published in 1892, as well as Arithmetic of Electricity: A Practical Treatise on Electrical Calculations, Electricity Simplified: The Practice and Theory of Electricity, Questions and Answers About Electricity: A First Book for Students: Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, Electric Toy Making for Amateurs, How to Become a Successful Electrician, The Electrician's Handy Book, Practical Electricity, An Electrical Library, Elementary Electrical Calculations, A Manual of Simple Engineering Mathematics: Covering the Whole Field of Direct Current Calculations, Speed and Fun with Figures, Rapid Arithmetic: Quick and Special Methods in Arithmetical Calculation, Fortunes in Formulas for Home, Farm, and Workshop, Henley's Twentieth Century Book of Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets, Motion Picture Projection, Liquid Air and the Liquefaction of Gases, Home Experiments in Science, Rubber Hand Stamps and the Manipulation of India Rubber, Facts Worth Knowing and others; including translations into English of Saint Francis of Assisi: A Biography written by Johannes Jorgensen and The Electric Light: Its History, Production, and Applications by Alglave and Boulard.[23][24][25][26][27]
Sloane was also a prodigious contributor to many and various scientific and other publications such as the Encyclopædia Britannica, Annual Cyclopedia, Alden's Cyclopedia, The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Independent, The Times newspaper (London) and Popular Science.[29][11][30][31]
Scientific American
Sloane was the editor of Scientific American from 1886 to 1896,[1][3][9][32][33][11][34][35][36] contributing over fifty scientific articles to the magazine during his tenure.[37][38]
Sloane also served on the editorial staff of several other popular periodicals such as Everyday Engineering Magazine, Plumber and Sanitary Engineer, Youth's Companion, The Experimenter (formerly, Practical Electrics) and Science and Invention (formerly, The Electrical Experimenter).[39][11][9][40][41][42]
Seton Hall University
Sloane was a professor of natural sciences and higher mathematics at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, having first joined the faculty in 1883 and teaching there non-continuously through the 1890s.[16][9][10][11][43] In 1894, Sloane was elected to the Board of Trustees, while also continuing in his capacity as a member of the faculty.[16]
New Jersey State Board of Education
Sloane was a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education (1905–11) and lectured in its educational series for several years.[10][44][11]
Sloane was involved with Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories from the very beginning,[55][7][35][56] his editorial work at The Experimenter and Science and Invention magazines, published by Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing led to Sloane's involvement with Amazing Stories when Gernsback merged the two magazines, devoting the editorial and printing time, resources and distribution from The Experimenter to the newly created Amazing Stories and retaining Sloane to edit the magazine with Gernsback having the final say over the fiction content (see also, history of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950).[41][40][57][58] Sloane served as the managing editor for the first issue of Amazing Stories (April 1926)[55] and as the associate editor from the second issue (May 1926) on.[59][7][60] His role in the magazine production continued to grow and in 1929 when B. A. MacKinnon purchased Experimenter Publishing then sold it to Bernarr Macfadden, Sloane was named editor (November 1929 issue).[61][62][7][41][63][64][65][66][67][68] Of note, Sloane's managing editor at Amazing Stories was Miriam Bourne, in a time when women were particularly underrepresented in the science fiction publishing world; as well, Sloane and later, Raymond A. Palmer, advanced and expanded upon Gernsback's mandate for the magazine, actively publishing women SF writers, poets and science journalists, progressing the industry.[35][69][70][71][72]
Sloane was one of several stockholders owning significant shares in the Experimenter Publishing Company, Inc., New York, NY.[73][74][75]
Sloane also managed to publish a story, "The Universal Merry-Go-Round" by Roger Bird in the April 1933 edition of Amazing Stories that science fiction historian Mike Ashley refers to as "what could arguably be called the worst story ever published in an American sf magazine....This story is so bad as to be compulsive reading, and no plot summary can do it justice."[83][99] On the other hand, he published the only stories of the equally unknown W. K. Sonneman, who science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz considered to be a "writer among writers" and a "'master' of science fiction."[100]
Professor Jameson
Sloane published the first Professor Jameson story by Neil R. Jones, "The Jameson Satellite," launching the series and publishing the next eleven stories.[101] The series was among the most popular in the science fiction pulp magazines of the 1930s and Isaac Asimov credits it as being an influence on his own science fiction writing.[102][103][104][105][106] Frederik Pohl was also a fan of the Professor Jameson stories which have become the longest surviving series in science fiction.[107]
Buck Rogers
Sloane was the associate editor of Amazing Stories when the first Buck Rogers story, a novella, "Armageddon - 2419 A.D." by Phillip Francis Nowlan was published in the August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories.[108] By early 1929, Buck Rogers was appearing as a syndicated comic strip and inspired the creation of Flash Gordon, John Carter of Mars and others. "The Airlords of Han," a sequel, was published in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories. In 1960, these two novellas were combined into one novel, titled Armageddon 2419 A.D.(no longer included the dash in the title).
The first space opera
Sloane was the associate editor of Amazing Stories when the first space opera, "The Skylark of Space" by E. E. "Doc" Smith was published in the August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories.[109] Science fiction historians Sam Moskowitz and Joe Sanders state that Sloane, while associate editor, accepted "The Skylark of Space" for publication.[110][111] As editor, Sloane published the second installment, "Skylark Three," as a three-part serial in the August to October 1930 issues of Amazing Stories.[112] Smith's novel, Spacehounds of IPC, serialized in the August, September, and October 1931 issues of the magazine, introduced the term "tractor beam" to the popular culture.
The scholarly octogenarian
Much discussion by science fiction fans and historians has surrounded assigning credit during the Gernsback era to the various editors of Amazing Stories for publishing first works by writers during this early period of the genre, who then went on to become giants of science fiction, based on the chronology of their job title on the masthead of Amazing Stories. Additionally, the octogenarian Sloane[113][62][114][35][115][116][117][118][119][83][104] has been criticized for routinely taking an inordinate amount of time to respond to writers anxious to hear back from Amazing Stories on the status of their submission, such as with Simak's work[95][96][120][117] or that of Malcolm Afford[83] and Raymond Z. Gallun,[121][122] and on one occasion famously losing a manuscript, Invaders from the Infinite by John W. Campbell, Jr. (later found, Sloane published it in Amazing Stories Quarterly).[117][77][78][123] Some context provides a measure of insight regarding these matters. Science fiction historian Mike Ashley writes in The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 (Liverpool University Press, 2000): "Essentially Sloane was the editor. He read the new fiction and moulded the magazine's contents, leaving the gimmickry and ideas to Gernsback."[124] During the subsequent transition of Amazing Stories' ownership, Ashley writes: "Gernsback was no longer its editor. Although Miriam Bourne was by now Managing Editor, Arthur Lynch was brought in as Editor-in-Chief. However the main job was done by Sloane. The change came with the May 1929 issue, and by the November 1929 issue Sloane was fully in charge."[125] Science fiction historians Peter Nicholls and John Clute support Ashley's work in their book The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (Granada, 1979) by stating that Sloane "carried much responsibility for the actual running of the magazines [Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly], though they were in the overall charge of, successively, Hugo Gernsback and Arthur Lynch. He succeeded to the editorship...in 1929."[126][8] Eric Davin in Pioneers of Wonder (Prometheus Books, 1999) states "and T. O'Conor Sloane, Amazing's associate editor (who handled the actual editorial chores)...."[127]Alexei Panshin, writing in Fantastic Stories and with Cory Panshin in SF in Dimension: A Book of Explorations, states that Sloane had been "editor-in-fact" for Gernsback.[128][62] This is also treated by science fiction historian Gary Westfahl, writing in DePauw University's journal Science Fiction Studies.[129]
Cover art
In 1933, Sloane experimented with a series of surreal cover art for Amazing Stories by artist A. Sigmond which science fiction historian Mike Ashley states were revolutionary for their time but were not warmly received by the readership.[83][106][130]Leo Morey was a prodigious producer of cover art for Amazing Stories; Hans Waldemar Wessolowski (Wesso) also produced cover art for the magazine.[106][131]
Space travel
Sloane's editorial essays for the March and July 1930 issues of Amazing Stories detail why he did not believe that space travel was possible.[62][132][133][134][135][136][106][137][35] His doubt in the matter was a scientific one, believing that the pilot of a rocket ship attaining escape velocity would be crushed by the g-force experienced.[132] It was not until the high-altitude and centrifuge tests of the late 1950s that this question was answered.[132]
Gernsback and Sloane
Gernsback and Sloane had a long and productive working relationship that began in 1920[138] and continued through Gernsback's departure from Amazing Stories.[139][140][141] Gernsback and Sloane believed that science fiction should promote science and technology and that the stories published in Amazing Stories should be as scientifically plausible as possible, with Sloane in particular emphasizing this.[142][143][62][144][137][145][146][147][148][149][117][150][35] Sloane may have collaborated with Gernsback in originating the term "scientifiction" which was superseded by "science fiction" to describe this genre, as suggested in part by the first issue of Amazing Stories.[151]
From 1929 to 1934, Sloane was the editor of Amazing Stories Quarterly, which had begun publication in 1928 with Sloane serving as the associate editor, it was the companion publication to Amazing Stories and the successor to Amazing Stories Annual; it ceased production in 1934.[157] Featuring a complete novel in each edition as well as short stories, Amazing Stories Quarterly published, particularly during the early 1930s, what science fiction historians Mike Ashley, Brian Stableford, Milton Wolf, Robert Silverberg and others regard to be important work in the genre and among the best early pulp science fiction novels.[158][159][160][130][161]
Sloane died in 1940 in South Orange, New Jersey.[20]
Bibliography
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
Arithmetic of Electricity: A Practical Treatise on Electrical Calculations
Electricity Simplified: The Practice and Theory of Electricity
Questions and Answers About Electricity: A First Book for Students: Theory of Electricity and Magnetism
Electric Toy Making for Amateurs
How to Become a Successful Electrician
The Electrician's Handy Book
Practical Electricity
An Electrical Library
Elementary Electrical Calculations
A Manual of Simple Engineering Mathematics: Covering the Whole Field of Direct Current Calculations
Speed and Fun with Figures
Rapid Arithmetic: Quick and Special Methods in Arithmetical Calculation
Fortunes in Formulas for Home, Farm, and Workshop
Henley's Twentieth Century Book of Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets
Motion Picture Projection
Liquid Air and the Liquefaction of Gases
Home Experiments in Science
Rubber Hand Stamps and the Manipulation of India Rubber
Facts Worth Knowing
References
^ abMarshall, William (1895). Seton Hall College. New York: Photo Engraving Co. pp. 72, 75, 84, 90, 93. Retrieved March 31, 2021. In 1886 he became editor of the Scientific American, which he continues to direct.
^ ab"Sloane, T O'Conor". encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia®, Columbia University Press. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
^"Series: Amazing Stories". isfdb.org. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
^"Vail P&S Sees Grandson Graduate". Columbia Daily Spectator. Vol. LXII, no. 132. New York: Columbia University. June 6, 1939. p. 1. Retrieved December 3, 2020. Other early graduates present at the Commencement include...T. O'Conor Sloane [18]'72 [School of] Mines [of Columbia College], of South Orange, N. J.,...
^ abBeck, Claire (August 1971). "Memo to Alexei Panshin". Fantastic: Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories. 20 (6): 124. Retrieved November 16, 2022. T. O'Conor Sloane was not a son-in-law of Thomas A. Edison. A son of T. O'Conor Sloane married a daughter of Edison. Sloane himself was an inventor, and I think he was one of the very first to receive a doctorate in electrical engineering.
^Bleiler, Everett (1998). Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years. Kent, Ohio & London, England: The Kent State University Press. p. 550. ISBN0873386043. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Sloane...with a doctorate in chemistry...
^ abcdMarshall, William (1895). Seton Hall College. New York: Photo Engraving Co. pp. 72, 75, 84, 90, 93. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
^ abMarquis, Albert, ed. (1908). Who's Who in America, Volume 5 (1908-1909 ed.). Chicago/London: A. N. Marquis & Company/Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. p. 1738. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
^ abDavis & Sanford (August 8, 1940). "Dr. T.O'C. Sloane, Scientist, Author". The New York Times. p. 19. Inventor of the Self-Recording Photometer for Gas Power Dies in South Orange. Wrote Technical Books. Ex-Associate Editor of Science and Invention Translated Foreign Works as Hobby.
^Sloane, Ph.D., T. O'Conor (September 1844). "Sun-Kinks". Popular Science Monthly. 25 (37): 652–653. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
^"Horseless Carriages". The Independent. 51/LI (2614–2626). New York: 546–549. January–December 1899.
^Palmer's Index to "The Times" Newspaper (Volume 3 ed.). Shepperton-On-Thames, England: Samuel Palmer/Richmond House. 1899. p. 20. Retrieved December 3, 2020. Liquid Air and the Liquefaction of Gasses, by T. O'Conor Sloane, 21 & 13 d
^"1925 Ad Chemical Institute of New York, Inc"(PDF). The Experimenter. 5 (1): 8. November 1925. Retrieved October 30, 2020. T. O'Conor Sloane, A.B., A.M., LL.D., Ph.D. Noted Instructor, Lecturer and Author. Formerly Treasurer American Chemical Society and a practical chemist with many well known achievements to his credit. Not only has Dr. Sloane taught chemistry for years but he was for many years engaged in commercial chemistry work
^Sloane, (T. O'Conor) (1924). Library of Congress: Copyright Office: Catalogue of Copyright Entries: Part 1, Group 2: Pamphlets, Leaflets ... (New Series, Volume 21, Nos. 7 & 8 ed.). Washington: Government Printing Office. p. 2099. Retrieved December 3, 2020. Standard chemistry course. Home course of study in practical chemistry. Lessons 12 - 16, 40. By T. O. Sloane in collaboration with J. Edmund Woods....Chemical Institute of New York, Inc., New York. 58558
^"1925 Ad Chemical Institute of New York, Inc"(PDF). The Experimenter. 5 (1): 8. November 1925. Retrieved October 30, 2020. BURIED TREASURE Can Still be found in CHEMISTRY, Good Chemists Command High Salaries and you can make yourself independent for life by unearthing one of chemistry's yet undiscovered secrets.
^Asimov, Isaac (1981). Asimov on Science Fiction (hardcover ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. pp. 96, 97. ISBN978-0-385-17443-5.
^Asimov, Isaac (1995). I. Asimov: A Memoir (Bantam paperback ed.). New York: Bantam / Doubleday. p. 280. ISBN978-0-553-56997-1. Retrieved April 19, 2020. The subject of book titles came up after T. O'Conor Sloane of Doubleday (who was the grandson of the man who succeeded Hugo Gernsback as editor of Amazing) suggested I prepare a book of short biographies...
^"The Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index". philsp.com. Galactic Central Publications. Retrieved December 3, 2020. Editors: Hugo Gernsback - Editor: Amazing, Apr 1926 – Apr 1929. T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. - Managing Editor: Amazing, Apr 1926. T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. - Associate Editor: Amazing, May 1926 – Oct 1929. Wilbur C. Whitehead - Literary Editor: Amazing, Jul 1926 – Apr 1929. C. A. Brandt - Literary Editor: Amazing, Jul 1926 – Nov 1931. Miriam Bourne - Associate Editor: Amazing, Oct 1928 – Oct 1929. Arthur H. Lynch - Editor-in-Chief: Amazing, May 1929 – Jun 1929. Arthur H. Lynch - Editorial Director: Amazing, Jul 1929 – Oct 1929. T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. - Editor: Amazing, Nov 1929 – Apr 1938. Miriam Bourne - Managing Editor: Amazing, Nov 1929 – Nov 1932. Wilbur C. Whitehead - Literary Editor: Amazing, Nov 1929 – Aug 1931.
^"Lloyd Arthur Eshbach Papers and Fantasy Press Archives". library.temple.edu. Temple University Libraries. Retrieved November 4, 2020. The collection includes 16 letters from Bourne [and one letter from Sloane] to Eshbach pertaining to stories submitted for publication in Amazing Stories.
^ abc"Amazing Stories". University of Pennsylvania/Internet Archive. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
^Liptak, Andrew. "The Early Career of Leslie F. Stone". Kirkus. Kirkus Media LLC. Retrieved June 16, 2023. Upon learning that she was a woman, 'Gernsback accepted [that first story] quite amiably...Nor did T. O'Conor Sloane, dear man, have any qualms about women writers in his stable when he took over the Amazing Stories editorship, never turning down any story I submitted,' as quoted in Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction.
^Madle, Robert; Reinsberg, Mark (January–February 1940). "Science Fiction Spotlight". Fantascience Digest. 3 (1): 29. Retrieved November 16, 2022. Frederik Pohl sold an unsolicited poem to T. O'Conor Sloane almost immediately. In fact, Pohl had the acceptance slip three hours after commencement of writing! However, it was returned when Amazing was sold to Ziff-Davis. Pohl also has the slowness record. He wrote a poem, "Elegy to a Dead Planet, Luna" in February 1935, received an acceptance in May 1936, and it finally appeared in the October 1937 Amazing.
^ abEdwards, Malcolm J. (1993). "Campbell, John W(ood) Jr". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN0-312-09618-6.
^ ab"Campbell, John W, Jr". sf-encyclopedia.com. SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
^Pohl, Frederik (1976). The Early Pohl (First/Hardcover ed.). New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0385110143. Introduction...to T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D., editor of Amazing Stories, magnificently white-bearded and imposing, who was the buyer for my first sale...
^Moskowitz, Sam (January–February 1940). "Uncrowned Masters". Fantascience Digest. 3 (1): 13–14. Retrieved November 16, 2022. W. K. Sonneman . . . and all three [stories] appeared in the Sloane-edited Amazing Stories.
^Stone, Leslie. "The Human Pets of Mars". isfdb.org. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
^Jodell, Jennifer (December 2010). "Mediating Moore: Uncertain Origins and Indeterminate Identities in the Work of C. L. Moore". openscholarship.wustl.edu. St. Louis, Missouri: Washington University in St. Louis. p. 171. Retrieved November 16, 2020. Also, she made no attempt to conceal her gender. For example, early in her career, 'a Frank Paul drawing of her accompanied her story about a race of powerful alien females, 'Women with Wings' (Air Wonder Stories, May, 1930)…That same month…Amazing Stories editor T. O'Conor Sloane published Stone's, 'Through the Veil,' and, in his blurb, also referred to her as 'Miss Stone.' Her picture also accompanied three of her stories in Wonder Stories in 1931, 1932, and 1933 (Davin 102).
^Donawerth, Jane (1990). "Teaching Science Fiction by Women". The English Journal (subscription required). 79 (3): 39–46. doi:10.2307/819233. JSTOR819233.
^Moskowitz, Sam (January–February 1940). "Uncrowned Masters". Fantascience Digest. 3 (1): 13–14. Retrieved November 16, 2022. First of all, there is W. K. Sonneman. From the day I read his first story, 'Masterminds of Venus,' I knew that here was a writer among writers. A 'master' of science fiction. I actually believe that Sonneman is every bit as good a writer as Weinbaum, with possibilities of becoming even better. One cannot express the delight at reading a story like 'Greta, Queen of Queens' in a day when fans believe that no more great stories are to be had.
^Ashley, Mike (April 1989). "The Immortal Professor". Astro Adventures (7): 4–5. Retrieved November 16, 2022. 'The Jameson Satellite' eventually saw the light of day in the July 1931 Amazing Stories and was an instant hit with the readers . . . There would be twelve in all published in Amazing under editor T. O'Conor Sloane.
^Asimov, Isaac (1975). Before The Golden Age, Book 1. Greenwich, Ct: Fawcett Publications, Inc. p. 80. ISBN978-0449024102.
^Ashley, Mike (April 1989). "The Immortal Professor". Astro Adventures (7): 3.
^ abcJones, Neil. "Concerning Professor Jameson". famous-and-forgotten-fiction.com. Bob Gay and Dan Neyer. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
^Ashley, Mike. "The Immortal Professor"(PDF). professorjameson.net. Mike Ashley. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^ abcd"Amazing Stories". University of Pennsylvania/Internet Archive. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
^Ashley, Mike. "The Immortal Professor"(PDF). professorjameson.net. Mike Ashley. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^"Armageddon - 2419 A.D."Amazing Stories. 3 (5): 386, 389, 422–449. August 1928. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
^"The Skylark of Space". Amazing Stories. 3 (5): 386, 389, 390–417. August 1928. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
^Moskowitz, Sam (1959). Hugo Gernsback: Father of Science Fiction. New York: Criterion Linotyping & Printing Co. p. 15.
^Sanders, Joe (1986). E. E. "Doc" Smith. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House. pp. 1, 9. ISBN0-916732-73-8.
^"Amazing Stories". University of Pennsylvania/Internet Archive. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
^Taurasi, James (June 1952). "Science Fiction's Editors". Other Worlds: Science Stories. 4 (19): 69, 72, 163. Retrieved November 15, 2022. He [Sloane] also has the honor of being the oldest man ever to edit a stf magazine. Born on November 24, 1851, he was 87 when he left Amazing.
^James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah, eds. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (hardback ed.). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37, 98, 293. ISBN978-0-521-81626-7. [Note: Sloane was in his late seventies when he became the editor of Amazing Stories and in his mid to late eighties upon his retirement from the magazine. He died a couple of years later in August 1940.]
^del Rey, Lester (1979). The World of Science Fiction: 1926-1976, The History of a Subculture. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 47, 62, 63, 114, 412. ISBN034525452X.
^Ashley, Mike (2000). The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 (Hardcover ed.). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 26–35. ISBN9780853238553.
^Ashley, Mike (2000). The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 (Hardcover ed.). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 26–35. ISBN9780853238553.
^Nicholls, Peter; Clute, John, eds. (1979). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (first/hardcover ed.). London/Manchester: Granada. ISBN9780385130004.
^ abBainbridge, William (1986). Dimensions of Science Fiction. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. pp. 58, 84, 235, 237, 238, 240. ISBN0-674-20725-4. Retrieved March 2, 2021. Gernsback's successor at Amazing was the aged but energetic T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph. D., son-in-law of Thomas A. Edison [sic]. While sharing completely Gernsback's belief that SF should promote science and technology, Sloane believed that space travel was impossible... (p. 58); Even T. O'Conor Sloane, an extreme hard science editor who wanted each story to be a schoolbook lesson, had to admit that the rules of physical science must be bent occasionally: 'To give life to science-fiction stories it is quite the accepted and acceptable thing to use what are really impossibilities and illogical to carry out the story. If the attempt was made to keep down to prosaic fact no one would read them.' (p.84)
^"Sloane, T. O'Conor". SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. SFE Ltd. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
^"The Experimenter"(PDF). The Experimenter. 5 (1): 9. November 1925. Retrieved October 30, 2020. T. O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D., Associate Editor
^Rogers, Alva (1964). A Requiem for Astounding (First ed.). Chicago: Advent:Publishers, Inc. p. 129. ISBN0-911682-08-2. Retrieved November 16, 2022. but they always seemed to be merely the updating of the approach to science fiction that Gernsback and T. O'Conor Sloane had in the Amazing of the twenties; that the ideal science fiction story is one that is related to known scientific facts and extrapolates from there.
^"Notes and Correspondence". Science Fiction Studies. 20, Part 2 (60). July 1993. Retrieved December 3, 2020. for in the 19th century science fiction had been infected by spiritualist concepts from which it has never been, and apparently will never be, able to free itself. Stone-Blackburn thinks this a good thing; I think it a bad thing, but, as the T. O'Conor Sloane, M.A., Ph.D., of SF scholarship, I am apparently one of the few materialists still alive. RDM
^Moskowitz, Sam (1974). The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom (Reprint of the edition published by Atlanta Science Fiction Organization Press, Atlanta: 1954 ed.). Westport, CT: Hyperion Press. pp. 8, 48, 221, 266. ISBN0-88355-160-8.
^"A New Sort of Magazine", Amazing Stories: The Magazine of Scientifiction, Gernsback, Hugo, and T. O'Conor Sloane, eds., issue 1, page 3, April 1926.
^"Astounding Science-Fiction v21n02, April 1938". sfmagazines.com. SF Magazines. March 17, 2018. Retrieved November 13, 2020. 1. Ray Palmer was just about to start, or had just started, at Ziff Davis, taking over the editorship of Amazing Stories from T. O'Conor Sloane (Palmer's first issue was the June 1938 issue).
^Wolfe, Milton; Ashley, Mike (1985). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 51–57. ISBN0-313-21221-X.
^"Amazing Stories Quarterly". sf-encyclopedia.com. SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
^Silverberg, Robert. "Reflections: A Relic of Antiquity"(PDF). asimovs.com. Dell Magazines. p. 7. Retrieved April 27, 2021. and the Quarterly in particular published some of the best science fiction of its day.