As Barry Malzberg has said : Gernsback 's venality and corruption , his sleaziness and his utter disregard for the financial rights of authors , have been well documented and discussed in critical and fan literature . That the founder of genre science fiction who gave his name to the field 's most prestigious award and who was the Guest of Honor at the 1952 Worldcon was pretty much a crook ( and a contemptuous crook who stiffed his writers but paid himself $ 100K a year as President of Gernsback Publications ) has been clearly established . Jack Williamson , who had to hire an attorney associated with the American Fiction Guild to force Gernsback to pay him , summed up his importance for the genre : At any rate , his main influence in the field was simply to start Amazing and Wonder Stories and get SF out to the public newsstands — and to name the genre he had earlier called " scientifiction . " Frederik Pohl said in 1965 that Gernsback 's '' Amazing Stories '' published " the kind of stories Gernsback himself used to write : a sort of animated catalogue of gadgets " . Gernsback 's fiction includes the novel '' Ralph 124C 41 '' ; the title is a pun on the phrase " one to foresee for many " ( " one plus " ) . Even though '' Ralph 124C 41 '' has been described as pioneering many ideas and themes found in later SF work , it has often been neglected due to what most critics deem poor artistic quality . Author Brian Aldiss called the story a " tawdry illiterate tale " and a " sorry concoction " , while author and editor Lester del Rey called it " simply dreadful . " While most other modern critics have little positive to say about the story 's writing , '' Ralph 124C 41 '' is considered by science fiction critic Gary Westfahl as " essential text for all studies of science fiction . " Gernsback 's second novel , '' Baron Münchausen 's Scientific Adventures '' , was serialized in '' Amazing Stories '' in 1928
1952 Worldcon
10th World Science Fiction Convention
Hugo Gernsback