T. O'Conor Sloane

[39][11][9][40][41][42] 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.

[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.

[76][62][77][78][79][80][81][70][82][83][84][85][86][87][36] Sloane published a first science fiction story by Howard Fast, early work by Neil R. Jones, Charles R. Tanner, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Edmond Hamilton, Harold Vincent Schoepflin (Harl Vincent), David H. Keller, Miles J. Breuer, Stanton A. Coblentz, George Henry Weiss (Francis Flagg), Alfred Johannes Olsen (Bob Olsen) and Leslie Francis Silberberg (Leslie F. Stone), one of the first women writing science fiction pulp;[88][89][90][35] and as associate editor was directly involved in the publication of first stories by Philip Francis Nowlan, Jack Williamson, Alpheus Hyatt Verrill and many other important science fiction writers, including Clare Winger Harris, one of the first women writing science fiction and who is credited with being the first woman to publish stories using her own name in science fiction magazines.

[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.

[109] Science fiction historians Sam Moskowitz and Joe Sanders state that Sloane, while associate editor, accepted "The Skylark of Space" for publication.

[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.

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).

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.

"[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.

"[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.

[129] 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.

[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.

[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] In 1938, publisher Ziff-Davis bought the magazine and moved its production from New York City to Chicago, naming Raymond A. Palmer as Sloane's successor.

[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.