The Startling Return of Fun for Friday!

Have I got a treat for you guys today! Only one of the most influential science fiction stories ever written, have I got for you today! It's been called the first story featuring an alien (that wasn't a mindless monster) who, to quote John Campbell, "thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." (Read "person" for "man;" Campbell was writing in the late thirties when he wrote that.) Isaac Asimov referred to this story as one of the three most influential SF stories ever published. The nascent SFWA voted it by overwhelming majority into the "Science Fiction Hall of Fame" (an anthology devoted to work that should have deserved the Nebula had it existed when the stories were written).

Alright already, so what is it?

I'm talking about the story "A Martian Odyssey" by the great Stanley Weinbaum. First published in Wonder Stories in 1934, it was Weinbaum's first SF story and it is a doozy! In his all-to-brief writing career (he died in 1935 at the very young age of 33), he would go on to write some amazing and fun stuff, but nothing quite equalled the groundbreaking influence of this story. More than groundbreaking, it's a lot of fun! It's not too long either--check it out!

And hey, as an added bonus, here's the sequel that was published in November of the same year--"Valley of Dreams." It treads over a bit of the same ground, but is just as enjoyable. Both of these stories laid the foundation for what's referred to as Weinbaum's "Interplanetary Stories," a series about various human settlements/explorations of the solar system, all set in a consistant fictional "universe." Some sources claim he was at work on a third Martian story (only the two stories in this post were set on Mars) which would have cleared up the mysteries discovered in "Valley," when he passed away. Such a damn shame.

So, enjoy the stories! Most of Weinbaum's work is completely unavailable in print in this country, but a good deal of it is out there on the web, and it all seems to be out of copyright. Go, look! Enjoy!

It's that most wonderful time of the year....

(x-posted from excalibur_hamp)

Yes, it's that time...the weekend that is most special to a certain group of people, ex-Hamsters and Excaliburites all--it's Ravenloft weekend!

What is Ravenloft, I hear you cry. Well, (in this context, not in its official definition) it's essentially a tournament-style role playing game that a bunch of us started at Hampshire college in 1991. I wrote about those beginnings here. And this year is the 17th consecutive year that we have had a quorum of the circle of friends who started the thing (as well as many who joined in later on) get together to spend a night (and, these days, most of a day as well--we're old and can't stay up as late!) fighting the forces of darkness. (Not sure whether I'm referring to the game masters or the dice here.) And, for many of us, getting our butts handed to us by said forces.

Of course, we haven't always been using a D&D setting each year. We did the first, but we've varied (this year, for example, everyone will be kung fu fighting...and it might get a little bit frightning)....can anyone help reconstruct the general settings over the years? (We can start in the comments and I can post a follow-up later...) Also, I'm of the belief that the only person who can say they've taken part in every durn one, each year--or at least one per year in the times when we had competing games--is ronelyn. Am I wrong in this?

Ravenloft does survive at Hampshire as an event sponsored by what must be Fourth Wave (at least) Excalibur called "DeathFest," which name probably captures the spirit of the original tourney quite well. ("Have you killed any characters yet? Geeze, we have too many for the final battle!") And it's great to know an Excal tourney still goes on.

But Ravenloft? That's ours. Has been for seventeen years now. And I, for one, cannot wait until Saturday!