Plot summary
The story is framed as a one-sided conversation between two people, with Charley doing all of the talking. Charley recounts how he had fallen into a similar conversation with another man in a bar years before, and that man had told him to go to Acme Travel Bureau, a small travel agency located on the 200 block of West 42nd Street in New York City, and hint to the proprietor that he would like to "escape" from Earth and its ever-growing list of problems.
42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square in Midtown. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection. The street has held a special place in New Yorkers' imaginations since at least the turn of the 20th century, and is the site of some of New York's best known buildings, including the Headquarters of the United Nations, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, New York Public Library, Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Charley seeks out the travel agency and strikes up a conversation with the proprietor, who remains nameless. After taking some time to assess Charley, the proprietor of the travel agency confides that "just as a sort of little joke," he had printed up a travel brochure for a supposedly fictional planet named Verna, whose inhabitants had evolved some time prior to humans, but were physically very similar to humans. As opposed to the warlike ways displayed by humankind through the years, the Vernans had advanced to a peaceful society on an idyllic forested planet.
When the Vernans discovered Earth, they observed it for an unstated period of time, even going so far as to put one of their people on Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. In 1913, just before World War I erupted, they chose to go from passive observation to active intervention, picking a small number of humans over time to invite to Verna. In discussing the Vernans' motivations, the proprietor reasons to Charley, "If you saw a neighbor's house on fire, would you rescue his family if you could? As many as you could, at least?" Over time the Vernans opened branches of Acme Travel Bureau in every major city and invited people from all over the earth, including Ambrose Bierce and, speculates Charley, Judge Crater.
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman, politician, and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the top leaders of the executive branch. Members of a cabinet are usually called Cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a Cabinet varies: in some countries it is a collegiate decision-making body with collective responsibility, while in others it may function either as a purely advisory body or an assisting institution to a decision making head of state or head of government. Cabinets are typically the body responsible for the day-to-day management of the government and response to sudden events, whereas the legislative and judicial branches work in a measured pace, in sessions according to lengthy procedures.
World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
When Charley asks him, "when does it stop being a joke?", the proprietor tells him, "Now. If you want it to." He gives Charley a bus ticket and asks him for whatever money he has on him — "two five-dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change" — as payment, saying that he wouldn't need it on Verna and that it would help to pay the light bills and rent for Acme Travel. When Charley questions the price, the proprietor says that an identical ticket had sold earlier for $3,700 and another for $.06. The proprietor then directs him to Acme Depot, from which a bus will take him to the departure point. He arrives at a small bus station "on one of the narrow streets west of Broadway" occupied by a few other people. They all board a decrepit bus and drive out to rural Long Island, where they are deposited at a dilapidated barn and told to wait for departure to Verna.
Broadway is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 km) through the Bronx, exiting north from the city to run an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
Long Island is a densely populated island off the East Coast of the United States, beginning at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) from Manhattan Island and extending eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. The island comprises four counties in the U.S. state of New York. Kings and Queens Counties and Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County occupies the eastern two-thirds. More than half of New York City's residents now live on Long Island, in Brooklyn and Queens. However, many people in the New York metropolitan area colloquially use the term Long Island to refer exclusively to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, which are mainly suburban in character, conversely employing the term the City to mean Manhattan alone.
As he sits and waits in the dark barn, Charley descends into a rage after he concludes he has been played for a fool. He storms out of the barn, but just as he crosses the threshold, he looks back and briefly glimpses, in a flash of light, the planet Verna through the back window of the barn before the barn door slams shut. By the time he gets the barn door back open, the people he left in the barn are gone, taken to Verna. Returning to the travel agency some time later, Charley is greeted by the proprietor, who hands him his money and says, "You left this on the counter last time you were here. I don't know why."
The story ends with Charley telling his new acquaintance how to find Acme Travel, what to say, and how to act. He then emphasizes to the other person not to back out at the last minute, since no one gets another chance to emigrate to Verna, no matter which branch of Acme Travel they go to, because, in his words, "...I've tried. And tried. And tried."
Space Cadet is a 1948 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about Matt Dodson, who joins the Space Patrol to help preserve peace in the Solar System. The story translates the standard military academy story into outer space: a boy from Iowa goes to officer school, sees action and adventure, shoulders responsibilities far beyond his experience, and becomes a man. It was published as the second of the series of Heinlein juveniles and inspired the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet media empire, including the 1950s television series and radio show which made "Space Cadet" a household phrase whose meaning later shifted in popular culture.
"Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" is episode 64 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on May 26, 1961 on CBS.
Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy comedy-drama film based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, and Marion Cotillard. Other roles are performed by Steve Buscemi, Helena Bonham Carter, Matthew McGrory, Alison Lohman, and Danny DeVito among others.
Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue written by American author John Steinbeck. It depicts a 1960 road trip around the United States made by Steinbeck, in the company of his standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level, since he made his living writing about it. He wrote of having many questions going into his journey, the main one being, "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that he had concerns about much of the "new America" he witnessed.
Martian Through Georgia is a 1962 Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble, and Abe Levitow, and produced by Warner Bros., although it features none of the established Warner Bros. characters. It is a "one-off" tale of a sad and bored Martian who travels to Earth in search of happiness. He lands his spaceship in the state of Georgia, hence the title. Once there, he decides he must impart his knowledge upon Earthlings; indeed he believes this is what will bring him happiness. However, the people of Earth panic from the minute he lands, perceiving him as a monster. Ultimately, he realizes that he does not belong and returns home. The title is a pun on the song Marching Through Georgia.
"Time’s Arrow" comprises the 126th and 127th episodes overall, and 26th episode of the fifth season and first episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. A two-part episode of Star Trek: TNG, the first episode was a cliffhanger season finale for the fifth season and the second episode was the premiere for the sixth season.
Skulhedface is a 1994 movie directed by Melanie Mandl. It is yet another story in Gwar's grand storyline, and the third to be released on video.
Time and Again is a 1970 illustrated novel by American writer Jack Finney. The many illustrations in the book are real, though, as explained in an endnote, not all are from the 1882 period in which the actions of the book take place. It had long been rumored that Robert Redford would adapt the book into a movie. The project has never come to fruition. Though a film of this novel has never been made, a 1980 film, Somewhere in Time features a similar time travel technique. It is based on a 1975 Richard Matheson novel called Bid Time Return. The film concerns a young man unhappy with his life as a playwright. He meets a scientist named Dr. Finney whose time travel theory mimics Jack Finney's idea of self-hypnosis in the exact environment of the desired destination time. In July 2012, it was announced that Lionsgate studios optioned the film rights to the novel, with Doug Liman set to direct and produce.
The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by American writer Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes real-life Mill Valley, California being invaded by seeds that have drifted to Earth from space. The seeds, grown from plantlike pods, replace sleeping people with perfect physical duplicates with all the same knowledge, memories, scars, etc. but are incapable of human emotion or feeling. The human victims disappear forever.
"Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" is a 2007 comic book DC Comics story arc written by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Gary Frank, which features the character Superman and the return of the pre-"Crisis on Infinite Earths" Legion of Super-Heroes. It ran in Action Comics #858–863, this arc marked Geoff Johns' debut as a solo writer on Action, having previously written alongside Kurt Busiek and Richard Donner.
"Hostess" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1969 collection Nightfall and Other Stories.
Emphyrio is a science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance. It tells the story of a young man who overturns the foundations of his world.
The Hasty Hare is a 1952 Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Bugs Bunny. Marvin the Martian is assigned to capture an Earth creature, and the first one he comes across is Bugs. The title is a pun on the movie title The Hasty Heart.
"The Inspector's Teeth" is a science fiction short story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, part of his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It is the first (chronologically) set on Earth, and a linchpin tale in the sequence, showing how the interstellar political system forming the background of the rest of the series was established. It was first published in the magazine Astounding in the issue for April, 1950. It first appeared in book form in the collection The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens, published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers in 1953, and in paperback by Signet Books in 1971. It also appeared in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, and Anthropomorphic Aliens: An Interstellar Anthology. The story has been translated into Portuguese, Dutch, Italian and German.
Araminta Station is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance. It is the first part of the Cadwal Chronicles, a trilogy set in the Gaean Reach, the other two novels being Ecce and Old Earth and Throy.
"Verna" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock, and the 70th overall episode of the series. The episode was written by co-executive producer Ron Weiner and directed by series producer Don Scardino. It originally aired on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network in the United States on February 4, 2010. Former SNL cast member Jan Hooks guest stars as the title character of this episode.
The Eighth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is portrayed by Paul McGann.
Rudolph Fentz is the focal character of "I'm Scared", a 1951 science fiction short story by Jack Finney, which was later reported as an urban legend as if the events had truly happened. The story tells of a 19th-century-looking young man possessing items of that period who is found confused in the middle of 1908 Times Square before being hit by a car and killed, suggesting that he had, perhaps involuntarily, time travelled about a century forwards.
"Call Him Lord" is a novelette by the American writer Gordon R. Dickson. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in May 1966. In the story, the heir to a galactic empire tours a museum-like Earth, accompanied by a bodyguard who is a resident. Through ensuing events and conversations they judge each other.
