Astoundingly Awesome Tales

Radio & Media · Source: Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 (Bethesda Game Studios / Obsidian Entertainment); Independent Fallout Wiki (fallout.wiki)

Overview

Astoundingly Awesome Tales is the Fallout universe's premier pre-War pulp fiction magazine, publishing lurid stories of science fiction, horror, and adventure that have delighted and educated wasteland readers for generations. Its issues are among the most common and most useful magazines found across the post-war world.

History & Background

The magazine was a mainstay of pre-War newsstands, specializing in sensational tales of mutants, robots, aliens, and mad science that anticipated the very horrors the wasteland would later produce. Its writers spun wildly imaginative yarns that now read as dark prophecy, from stories of subterranean monsters to atomic apocalypses. The magazine's mass-market popularity ensured that thousands of issues survived the war, making it a fixture of scavenged libraries from the Capital Wasteland to the Commonwealth and Appalachia.

Content & Format

Each issue of Astoundingly Awesome Tales is a digest-sized collection of short stories, typically featuring a cover story such as The Legend of the Deathclaw or The Horror of the Glowing Sea, rendered in dramatic pulp illustration style. In gameplay, the magazines grant bonuses to combat performance, with different issues improving damage, critical hits, or special attacks against specific enemy types. The stories themselves are often quoted in-game, adding texture to the wasteland's mythology.

Wasteland Significance

Astoundingly Awesome Tales serves as the wasteland's most widespread repository of speculative fiction, and its stories have shaped how survivors understand the mutated world around them. Its tales of monsters and machines often blur the line between fiction and reality, with some wastelanders treating the magazine's contents as gospel. The magazine's ubiquity makes it a shared cultural reference point across regions and factions.

Notable Appearances

Astoundingly Awesome Tales appears as a collectible magazine in Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76, with issues found across all four major wastelands. Its stories and cover art are frequently referenced in quests, terminal entries, and environmental details throughout the series.

Tags: media, magazine, astoundingly-awesome-tales, pulp-fiction, fallout-3, fallout-new-vegas, fallout-4, fallout-76, collectibles, horror, science-fiction