Plot summary
Early in the 21st century, the Ares makes the first landing on Mars, in the Mare Cimmerium. A week later, Dick Jarvis, the ship's American chemist, sets out to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis' rocket gives out, and he crash-lands. He starts walking back to the Ares. Just after crossing into the Mare Chronium, Jarvis sees a tentacled creature attacking a large birdlike creature. He notices that the latter has a bag around its neck, and recognizing it as an intelligent being, rescues it. The creature refers to itself as Tweel. Tweel accompanies Jarvis on his journey, during which it manages to pick up some English, while Jarvis is unable to make any sense of Tweel's language. At first, Tweel travels in tremendous, city-block-long leaps, but then walks alongside Jarvis.
Upon reaching Xanthus, a desert region outside the Mare Cimmerium, Jarvis and Tweel find a line of small pyramids tens of thousands of years old made of silica bricks, each open at the top. As they follow the line, the pyramids slowly become larger and newer. At the end of the line, they find a pyramid that is not open at the top. Then, a creature with gray scales, one arm, a mouth and a pointed tail pushes its way out of the top of the pyramid, pulls itself several yards along the ground, then plants itself in the ground by the tail. It removes bricks from its mouth at ten-minute intervals and uses them to build another pyramid around itself. Jarvis realizes that the creature is silicon-based rather than carbon-based; neither animal, vegetable nor mineral, but a little of each. The bricks are the creature's waste.
As the two approach a canal cutting across Xanthus, Jarvis is feeling homesick for New York City, thinking about Fancy Long, a woman he knows from the cast of the Yerba Mate Hour show. When he sees Long standing by the canal, he goes toward her, but is stopped by Tweel. Tweel takes out a gun that fires poisoned glass needles and shoots Long, who vanishes, replaced by one of the tentacled creatures that Jarvis rescued Tweel from. Jarvis realizes that the tentacled creature, which he names a dream-beast, lures in its prey by planting illusions in their minds.
As Jarvis and Tweel approach a city on the canal bank, they are passed by a barrel-like creature with four legs, four arms, and a circle of eyes around its waist. The barrel creature is pushing an empty cart; it ignores them as it goes by. Another goes by. Jarvis stands in front of the third, which stops. Jarvis says, "We are friends," and the cart creature replies, "We are v-r-r-riends," before pushing past him. The cart creatures all repeat the phrase as they go by. The creatures return to the city with their carts full of stones, sand, and chunks of rubbery plants. Jarvis and Tweel follow the cart creatures into a network of tunnels. They get lost, and he and Tweel find themselves in a domed chamber near the surface. There they find the cart creatures depositing their loads beneath a wheel that grinds the stones and plants into dust. Some of the cart creatures also step under the wheel themselves and are pulverized. Beyond the wheel is a shining crystal on a pedestal. When Jarvis approaches it, he feels a tingling in his hands and face, and a wart on his left thumb dries up and falls off. He speculates that the crystal emits some form of radiation that destroys diseased tissue, but leaves healthy tissue unharmed.
The cart creatures suddenly attack Jarvis and Tweel, who retreat up a corridor which leads outside, but the cart creatures corner them. Tweel stays by Jarvis' side rather than escape. Then an auxiliary rocket from the Ares lands. Jarvis boards the rocket, while Tweel bounds away into the Martian horizon. Back at the Ares, he tells his story to the other three crew members. Captain Harrison expresses regret that they do not have the healing crystal. Jarvis admits that the cart creatures attacked him because he took it; he takes it out and shows it to the others.
Influence
The story immediately established Weinbaum as a leading figure in the field. Isaac Asimov states that Weinbaum's "easy style and his realistic description of extraterrestrial scenes and life-forms were better than anything yet seen, and the science fiction reading public went mad over him." [2] The story "had the effect on the field of an exploding grenade. With this single story, Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world's best living science fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him." [3]
Before, aliens had been nothing more than plot devices to help or hinder the hero. Weinbaum's creations, like the pyramid-builder and the cart creatures, have their own reasons for existing. Also, their logic is not human logic, and humans cannot always puzzle out their motivations. Tweel itself was one of the first characters (arguably the first) who satisfied John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." [4]
According to Bud Webster, the creatures in "A Martian Odyssey" were the first aliens in science fiction that were truly alien, in contrast to previous depictions of Martians as monsters or basically human; [5] similarly, Alfred Bester noted that it "inspired an entire vogue for quaint alien creatures". [6]
In 1970, when the Science Fiction Writers of America voted on the best science fiction short stories before the creation of the Nebula Awards, "A Martian Odyssey" came in second to Asimov's "Nightfall", and was the earliest story to make the list. The chosen stories were published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964 .
Larry Niven included several references to "A Martian Odyssey" in his Rainbow Mars .
In 2002, the Peter Crowther-edited anthology Mars Probes included "A Martian Theodicy" by Paul Di Filippo, a "thoroughly disrespectful" sequel. [7]
Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell, Martin Pearson, and Darrell G. Raynor. A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States. Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, in the Late Pulpalignean Era, 1966 and '67", which is when he published her first two novels in Ace Double editions.
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's Islands of Space in the November issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences, although there are examples generally considered as "hard" science fiction such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, built on mathematical sociology. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the Moon. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was utopian fiction. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells's novel about an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the science fiction genre.
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction writer. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934; the alien Tweel was arguably the first character to satisfy John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." Weinbaum wrote more short stories and a few novels, but died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later.
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt. Within a few months of the bankruptcy, Gernsback launched three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly.
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Uranus has been used as a setting in works of fiction since shortly after its 1781 discovery, albeit infrequently. The earliest depictions portrayed it as having a solid surface, whereas later stories portrayed it more accurately as a gaseous planet. Its moons have also appeared in a handful of works. Both the planet and its moons have experienced a slight trend of increased representation in fiction over time.
"Valley of Dreams" is a science fiction short story by the American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, originally published in the November 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's second published story and is a sequel to his first story, "A Martian Odyssey".
"The Lotus Eaters" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the April 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. "The Lotus Eaters" was Weinbaum's fifth published story, and is a sequel to "Parasite Planet".
"The Mad Moon" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, first published in the December 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. As did his earlier stories "A Martian Odyssey" and "Parasite Planet", "The Mad Moon" emphasizes Weinbaum's alien ecologies. "The Mad Moon" was the only Weinbaum story set on Io.
Tweel is a fictional extraterrestrial from the planet Mars, featured in two short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The alien was featured in A Martian Odyssey, first published in 1934, and Valley of Dreams four months later. Weinbaum died of lung cancer soon after, and a third installment in the series never saw fruition. Tweel remains one of the most recognised aliens in early science fiction, and is said to be an inspiration for aliens in the works of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
Tweel is an airless tire design concept developed by the French tire company Michelin.
3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction is an anthology of fantasy and science fiction short stories, edited by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp. It was first published in both hardcover and paperback by Lothrop Lee & Shepard in 1972. It was the first such anthology assembled by the de Camps, preceding their later Tales Beyond Time (1973).
The Planetary series of stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum is a series of short stories, published in Wonder Stories and Astounding Stories in the 1930s, which are set upon various planets and moons of the Solar System.
Year's Best SF 5 is a science fiction anthology edited by David G. Hartwell that was published in 2000. It is the fifth in the Year's Best SF series.
The Red Peri is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1952 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 1,732 copies. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Amazing Stories, Astounding and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is a 2008 alternate history science fiction novel by American writer S. M. Stirling.
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum is a collection of science fiction stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum, published in 1974 as an original paperback by Ballantine Books as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. The volume included an introduction by Isaac Asimov and an afterword by Robert Bloch. Ballantine reissued the collection twice in the later 1970s; Garland Publishing published a library hardcover edition in 1983, and Sphere Books released a UK market edition in 1977, under the title A Martian Odyssey and Other Stories. The original edition placed third in the 1975 Locus Poll for best genre collection.
This is a bibliography of American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson.
