Hugo Gernsback

Sometimes called "the father of science fiction", Gernsback (1884-1967) was the publisher of the first SF magazine, Amazing Stories. Author of "Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660". The Hugo Awards were named after him.

Gernsback also had a particular vision of the future. He was the epitome of extrapolating current trends to the nth degree. 'Gernsbackian constructions' tend towards the baroque and impractical; examples (of which many are to be found in William Gibson's story The Gernsback Continuum in Burning Chrome) include:

• Cruise ship-sized air transport (blimps or prop aircraft)
• Enormous stilted cities
• Highways and/or railroads raised above the earth on insanely tall pylons
• ...anything from the Flash Gordon school of Architecture
• Huge formations of moving sidewalks in cities