The 1941 Retro Hugo Awards (Part 7 Novels)

All of our 1941 Retro Hugo Award coverage is indexed here.

I have to confess that I’ve got a fair amount of reading to do in order to get everything “novel” under my belt from 1940.  I’ve read a few of the more recognizable stories – the Heinlein, the van Vogt, some of the Hamilton, Smith’s epic, the Wellman.  My Hubbard reads have been conflicted by my desire to not fund a certain non-church, but if there is any year that could possible justify breaking that embargo, 1940 is it:  Final Blackout is generally considered both a golden age classic and perhaps the best story Hubbard turned out.  Typewriter In the Sky is an early example of alternate realities and the “author as god” concept.

Absent the reading I still need to do, I think the stand-outs in this list are Slan, Gray Lensman and If This Goes On… (though I’ve only read that in the fix-up Revolt in 2100).

I can see a fair number of folks looking to the Oz story;  Brer Rabbit for the fact that the rabbit’s tactics have been employed in SF tales almost from the beginning; Captain Future – although beloved by many, these novels remain firmly in the pulp era and I doubt that any discerning audience today will do anything but give them short shrift;  the same could be said for Lensman, but there’s more nostalgia associated with Smith than there seems to be for Hamilton…and far more associated with Jack Williamson, but his inclusion will depend, I think, on the quality of the Weird Tales story included here.

This is not presented as a complete and comprehensive list of all of the novel length SF/F/H published in 1940.  The ISFDB.org magazine indexes were used, as were google searches for “novels published in 1940 and the WorldCat database.  Suggestions and additions will be gratefully received.

Black World Raymond A. Palmer


Brer Rabbit Again Agnes Murray Iverach; Joel Chandler Harris; G M Richardson


Calling Captain Future  by Edmond Hamilton

Captain Future’s Challenge  by Edmond Hamilton

Captain Future and the Space Emperor by Edmond Hamilton

Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard

Gray Lensman  by Edward E. Smith

If This Goes On …by Robert A. Heinlein

The Indigestible Triton by L. Ron Hubbard

A Million Years in the Future by Thomas P. Kelley

On the Knees of the Gods by J. Allan Dunn

The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson

Slan by A. E. van Vogt

The Spark of Allah by Marian O’Hearn

Sons of the Deluge by Nelson S. Bond

The Time-Wise Guy by Ralph Milne Farley

The Tommyknocker by Thomas Calvert McClary

Steve Davidson

Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.

Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.