“The annual awards for best science fiction are called ‘Hugos.’ A futuristic story by William Gibson in 1981 was called ‘The Gernsback Continuum.’ But except for a few markers like these, Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967) has mostly vanished from our cultural memory, which is a pity, because he was an extraordinary man, and his influence on our modern age – electrical, science-permeated, and full of wonders – was outsized.”