Startling". Samuel Mines took over from Merwin at the end of 1951, both at Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder. He argued against restrictions in science fiction themes, and in 1952 published Philip José Farmer's "The Lovers", a ground-breaking story about inter-species sex, in Startling. He followed this in 1953 with another taboo-breaking story from Farmer, "Mother", in Thrilling Wonder, in which a spaceman makes his home in an alien womb. In the December 1952 Thrilling Wonder, Mines published Edmond Hamilton's "What's It Like Out There?", a downbeat story about the realities of space exploration that had been considered too bleak for publication when it had originally been written in the 1930s. Sherwood Springer's "No Land of Nod", in the same issue, dealt with incest between a father and his daughter in a world in which they are the only two survivors. These stories were all well received by the readership. Influence on the field For a few years, Lasser was the dominant force in American science fiction. Under him, Wonder Stories was the best of the science fiction magazines of the early 1930s, and the most successful of all Gernsback's forays into the field. Lasser shaped a new generation of writers, who in many cases had no prior writing experience of any kind; Wonder Stories was part of a "forcing ground", according to Isaac Asimov, where young writers learned their trade. The magazine was less constrained by pulp convention than its competitors, and published some novels such as Eric Temple Bell's The Time Stream and Festus Pragnell's The Green Man of Graypec, which were not in the mainstream of development of the science fiction genre. As Thrilling Wonder the magazine was much less influential. Until the mid-1940s it was focused on younger readers, and by the time Merwin and Mines introduced a more adult approach, Astounding Science Fiction had taken over as the unquestioned leader of the field. Thrilling Wonder could not compete with John Campbell and the Golden Age of science fiction that he brought into being, but it did periodically publish good stories. In the end it was unable to escape its roots in the pulp industry, and died in the carnage that swept away every remaining pulp magazine in the 1950s. Publication details The editorial duties at Wonder Stories and its related magazines were not always performed by the person who bore the title of "editor" in