Sloane took over full control of the content of "Amazing" when Gernsback left in 1929. He was infamous for his slow response to manuscripts, and when "Astounding Stories" was launched in January 1930, with better rates and faster editorial response, some of Sloane's writers quickly defected. Little of quality appeared in "Amazing" during Sloane's tenure, though "The Lost Machine", an early story by John Wyndham, appeared in April 1932, under Wyndham's real name of John Beynon Harris. John W. Campbell and Howard Fast sold their first stories to Sloane; Campbell's "When the Atoms Failed" appeared in the January 1930 issue, and Fast's "Wrath of the Purple" was printed in the October 1932 issue.