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<h1>ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE</h1>
<h3>VOL. I No. 1 JANUARY, 1930</h3>
<h2>W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher</h2>
<h2>HARRY BATES, Editor</h2>
<h2>DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor</h2>
<h3>COVER DESIGN<br/> H. W. WESSOLOWSKI</h3>
<p class="center"><i>Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "The Beetle Horde."</i></p>
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<p class="center"><i>On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month</i></p>
<blockquote><p>The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees:</p>
<p><i>That</i> the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid; by leading writers of the day and purchased
under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;</p>
<p><i>That</i> such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen;</p>
<p><i>That</i> each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;</p>
<p><i>That</i> an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="center"><i>The other Clayton magazines are:</i></p>
<p>ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
MONTHLY, WIDE WORLD ADVENTURES, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, FLYERS,
RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN NOVEL MAGAZINE, BIG
STORY MAGAZINE, MISS 1930, <i>and</i> FOREST AND STREAM</p>
<p class="center"><i>More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.</i></p>
<p>Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St., New
York, N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office at
New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Application for registration of
title as Trade Mark pending in the U.S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand
Group—Men's List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co.,
Inc., 25 Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave.,
Chicago.</p>
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<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#Introducing">EDITORIAL </SPAN></td><td>THE EDITOR </td><td align="right">7</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>An Introduction to a New and Unique Magazine.</i></p>
<table summary="story 1">
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#The_Beetle_Horde">THE BEETLE HORDE </SPAN></td><td>VICTOR ROUSSEAU </td><td align="right">8</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>Only Two Young Explorers Stand in the Way of the Mad Bram's Horrible Revenge—the
Releasing of His Trillions of Man-sized Beetles upon an Utterly Defenseless
World.</i> (Part One of a Two-part Novel.)</p>
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#The_Cave_of_Horror">THE CAVE OF HORROR </SPAN></td> <td>CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK </td><td align="right">32</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>Screaming, the Guardsman Was Jerked Through the Air. An Unearthly Screech Rang
Through the Cavern. The Unseen Horror of Mammoth Cave Had Struck Again!</i></p>
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#Phantoms_of_Reality">PHANTOMS OF REALITY </SPAN></td><td>RAY CUMMINGS </td><td align="right">46</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>Red Sensua's Knife Came up Dripping—and the Two Adventurers Knew that Chaos
and Bloody Revolution Had Been Unleashed in that Shadowy Kingdom of the Fourth
Dimension.</i> (A Complete Novel.)</p>
<table summary="story 4">
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#The_Stolen_Mind">THE STOLEN MIND </SPAN></td><td>M. L. STALEY </td><td align="right">75</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>What Would You Do, If, Like Quest, You Were Tricked, and Your Very Mind and
Will Stolen from Your Body?</i></p>
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#Compensation">COMPENSATION </SPAN></td><td>C. V. TENCH </td><td align="right">92</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>Professor Wroxton Had Disappeared—But in the Bottom of the Mysterious Crystal
Cage Lay the Diamond from His Ring!</i></p>
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#Tanks">TANKS </SPAN></td><td>MURRAY LEINSTER </td><td align="right">100</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>Two Miles of American Front Had Gone Dead. And on Two Lone Infantrymen, Lost
in the Menace of the Fog-gas and the Tanks, Depended the Outcome of the War
of 1932.</i></p>
<table summary="story 7">
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<tr><td><SPAN href="#Invisible_Death">INVISIBLE DEATH </SPAN></td><td>ANTHONY PELCHER </td><td align="right">118</td></tr>
</table>
<p><i>On Lees' Quick and Clever Action Depended the Life of "Old Perk" Ferguson, the
Millionaire Manufacturer Threatened by the Uncanny, Invisible Killer.</i></p>
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<h2><SPAN name="Introducing" id="Introducing"></SPAN><i>Introducing</i>— <span class="smcap">Astounding Stories</span></h2>
<p>What <i>are</i> "astounding" stories?</p>
<p>Well, if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was
round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding"
story.</p>
<p>Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand
miles apart would be able to talk to each other through a little
wire—or without any wire at all—that would have been another.</p>
<p>Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines,
world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-story buildings, radio, metal that can
be made to resist gravity and float in the air—these would have been
other "astounding" stories.</p>
<p>To-day, time has gone by, and all these things are commonplace. That is
the only real difference between the astounding and the
commonplace—Time.</p>
<p>To-morrow, more astounding things are going to happen. Your children—or
their children—are going to take a trip to the moon. They will be able
to render themselves invisible—a problem that has already been partly
solved. They will be able to disintegrate their bodies in New York and
reintegrate them in China—and in a matter of seconds.</p>
<p>Astounding? Indeed, yes.</p>
<p>Impossible? Well—television would have been impossible, almost
unthinkable, ten years ago.</p>
<p>Now you will see the kind of magazine that it is our pleasure to offer
you beginning with this, the first number of <span class="smcap">Astounding Stories</span>.</p>
<p>It is a magazine whose stories will anticipate the super-scientific
achievements of To-morrow—whose stories will not only be strictly
accurate in their science but will be vividly, dramatically and
thrillingly told.</p>
<p>Already we have secured stories by some of the finest writers of fantasy
in the world—men such as Ray Cummings, Murray Leinster, Captain S. P.
Meek, Harl Vincent, R. F. Starzl and Victor Rousseau.</p>
<p>So—order your next month's copy of <span class="smcap">Astounding Stories</span> in advance!—<i>The Editor.</i></p>
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<h2><SPAN name="The_Beetle_Horde" id="The_Beetle_Horde"></SPAN>The Beetle Horde</h2>
<h3>A TWO-PART NOVEL</h3>
<h2><i>By Victor Rousseau</i></h2>
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<h3><i>Dodd and Tommy realised that they were powerless against the monstrous beetles.</i></h3>
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