Wired.com presents the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. And here is your host, David Barr-Kirtley.

Hello and welcome to episode 182 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.

Our guest today is Fred Nadis, author of the non-fiction book The Man from Mars, Ray Palmer's

Amazing Pulper's Amazing Pulper journey.

Palmer was a key figure in early science fiction fandom and his tireless

promotion of the genre eventually landed him his dream job as the editor of

the Pulp Science Fiction magazine Amazing Stories. But Palmer earned the ire of many fans when he began

suggesting that some of the stories he published might actually be true. These were

the so-called Schaefer mystery stories about a subterranean race of evil

aliens.

Palmer's wild claims sold a lot of magazines,

but also caused science fiction fans to be associated with

UFO conspiracy theorists,

leading some fans to label Palmer,

the man who killed science fiction.

And now here's our interview with Fred Nadis.

All right, so we're here with Fred Nadis.

Welcome to the show.

Hi, great to be here.

Okay, so your book is about Ray Palmer, who is the editor of the Pulp Science Fiction magazine Amazing Stories,

but before he became an editor, Palmer was actually a major figure in early science fiction fandom.

So tell us about that.

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