The Startling Return of Fun for Friday!

[morganminstrel]

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!

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

I love that story! I've got it in one of those best of SF collections and I seem to recall my father said I had to read it, so I did :)

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

You should check out "Valley of Dreams"--it continues the story of Tweel and his interactions with "Tick."

I've been reading through what of Weinbaum's stuff i've found online and it's all pretty great and fairly sophisticated--especially considering it was being published back in the Gernsback era!