Amazing Stories, the first magazine devoted exclusively to the publication of what came to be called science fiction, debuted on U.S. newsstands in March 1926 with its April 1926 issue. Publisher Hugo Gernsback launched the title with a cover by Frank R. Paul illustrating Jules Verne's 1877 tale "Off On a Comet," which was reprinted in part inside.

The issue was priced at $0.25, equivalent to about $4.60 in today's money. Gernsback created Amazing Stories in 1926 to cultivate a fan culture, having previously published multiple radio magazines and sold radio gear.

Gernsback called the magazine's contents "scientifiction." Under the all-caps headline A NEW SORT OF MAGAZINE, he wrote a mission statement in the first issue defining the term. "By 'scientifiction,' I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story," Gernsback wrote, describing the form as "A charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision."

The first issue reprinted Wells' story "The New Accelerator" and Poe's tale "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." The first year of the magazine was mostly devoted to reprinting material that had previously appeared elsewhere, including content from Gernsback's magazine Science and Invention, which was previously called Electrical Experimenter. Verne had published Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in the 1860s and 1870s, and Wells had published The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds in the 1890s.

Steve Davidson, who has served as publisher of Amazing Stories since 2011, described the early form of the genre. "The genre used to focus on the big, dumb, fascinating object, and [the characters] were just around to witness that," Davidson said.

The Hugo Awards, named in honor of Gernsback, are presented at WorldCon, the World Science Fiction Convention.