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| "The Day After the Day the Martians Came" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Frederik Pohl | |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Dangerous Visions |
| Publication type | Anthology |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Publication date | 1967 |
"The Day After the Day the Martians Came" is a 1967 short story by American writer Frederik Pohl, first published in Harlan Ellison's anthology Dangerous Visions .
The action takes place entirely within the lobby of a Florida hotel, one day after a NASA spacecraft carrying several live Martians returns to Earth. Their assignments completed, a large group of journalists are loitering in the hotel's bar waiting to check out. Jaded and blasé, the reporters pass the time by playing poker and telling Martian jokes (ordinary ethnic jokes with Martians swapped in for their normal targets, such as Poles.) Except for the windfall profits the hotel has made, Mr. Mandala, the hotel's small-minded manager, views the discovery of the Martians with indifference. After the last of the reporters has left, he remarks to one of his black bellhops - whom he is accustomed to treat with condescension - that the Martians mean nothing, to which the bellhops gnomically replies that they mean a great deal to him.
The story was adapted (under the same title) by Marvel Comics in Worlds Unknown #1, May, 1973, illustrated by Ralph Reese. [1]
A follow-up, "Sad Solarian Screenwriter Sam," was published in the June 1972 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It followed a day in the life of an ambitious Hollywood screenwriter, suddenly inspired to capitalize on the media hype surrounding the arrival of the Martians by pitching a film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels. The pitch fails due to screenwriter not having taken a sufficient interest in the nature of the actual Martians (who are not very telegenic.)
After a nearly fifteen-year interval, Pohl revisited the setting in the mid-80s. Five new short stories set in the same milieu were published in Asimov's, MF&SF, and Omni between 1986 and 1987:
In 1988, the seven existing stories, three previously-unpublished ones ("The Missioner," "The Beltway Bandit," and "Across the River"), and nine interstitial vignettes written in a quasi-journalistic style were combined into a fix-up novel, The Day the Martians Came.
Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner.
Frederik George Pohl Jr. was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led.
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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine, first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single-column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".
The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946, was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction literature appeared. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are, in this scheme, a transitional period. Robert Silverberg, who came of age in the 1950s, saw that decade as the true Golden Age. According to historian Adam Roberts, "the phrase Golden Age valorises a particular sort of writing: 'Hard SF', linear narratives, heroes solving problems or countering threats in a space-opera or technological-adventure idiom."
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"The Secret Sense" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov published in Cosmic Stories in March 1941. It takes place against the background of an ancient and highly developed culture living in large underground cities on Mars.
Super Science Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine published by Popular Publications from 1940 to 1943, and again from 1949 to 1951. Popular launched it under their Fictioneers imprint, which they used for magazines, paying writers less than one cent per word. Frederik Pohl was hired in late 1939, at 19 years old, to edit the magazine; he also edited Astonishing Stories, a companion science fiction publication. Pohl left in mid-1941 and Super Science Stories was given to Alden H. Norton to edit; a few months later Norton rehired Pohl as an assistant. Popular gave Pohl a very low budget, so most manuscripts submitted to Super Science Stories had already been rejected by the higher-paying magazines. This made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but Pohl was able to acquire stories for the early issues from the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and aspiring writers.
Michael Joseph Cassutt is an American television producer, screenwriter, and author. His notable TV work includes producing or writing, or both, for The Outer Limits, Eerie, Indiana, Beverly Hills, 90210, and The Twilight Zone. In addition to his work in television, Cassutt has written over thirty short stories, predominately in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He has also published novels, including the 1986 The Star Country, the 1991 Dragon Season, the 2001 Red Moon and the 2011 Heaven's Shadow, in collaboration with David S. Goyer. In addition, Cassutt contributes non-fiction articles to magazines and is the author of the non-fiction book, The Astronaut Maker, a biography of NASA legend George W. S. Abbey (2018).
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The 1986 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the fourteenth volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1986, followed by a hardcover edition issued in August of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art by Vincent Di Fate was replaced by a new cover painting by Ron Walotsky.
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a companion publication, Super Science Stories. After nine issues Pohl was replaced by Alden H. Norton, who subsequently rehired Pohl as an assistant. The budget for Astonishing was very low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his membership in the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The final issue was dated April of that year.
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The Best of Lester del Rey is a collection of science fiction short stories by American author Lester del Rey. It was first published in paperback by Del Rey/Ballantine in September 1978 as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction, with a Science Fiction Book Club hardcover edition following in December of the same year. It was reprinted by Del Rey Books in March 1986, February 1995, and June 2000. The book has been translated into German.
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