The Man From the Atom

This was one of the 6 science fiction stories published in the first issue (April 1926) of the first magazine devoted to science fiction, Amazing Stories, edited and published by Hugo Gernsback, now considered to be the father of the science fiction genre. He described this story in an inset panel: “In ‘Alice in the Looking Glass’, the beautiful play of fancy which gave immortal fame to a logician and mathematician, we read of the mysterious change in size of the heroine, the charming little Alice. It tells how she grew large and small according to what she ate. But here we have increase in size pushed to its utmost limit. Here we have treated the growth of a man to cosmic dimensions. And we are told of his strange sensation and are led up to a sudden startling and impressive conclusion, and are taken through the picture of his emotions and despair.” The reader with even the most basic knowledge of science will find this story flawed, incredible, perhaps ludicrous. But, after all, it’s fiction, more fantasy than science. Suspend your disbelief and let the story carry you where it will, across space and time, to love.