Tweel (also referred to as a "Tweerl", the exact pronunciation of the word is said to be impossible for humans) 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.
Asimov described Tweel as being the first creation in science fiction to fulfill John W. Campbell's request for "(...)a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." According to Jacques Baudou, Tweel is the first non-anthropomorphic thinking creature represented in american science fiction.[1]
Appearance
Tweel's appearance is described as follows:
The Martian wasn't a bird, really. It wasn't even bird-like, except at first glance. It had a beak, alright, and a few feathery appendages, but the beak wasn't really a beak. It was somewhat flexible; I could see the tip bend from side to side; it was almost like a cross between a beak and a trunk. It had four toed feet, and four fingered things--hands, you'd have to call them, a little roundish body, and a long neck ending in a tiny head--and that beak.
--A Martian Odyssey, paragraph 24.
Illustration of the Egyptian god Thoth, revealed by Weinbaum to be based on millennia-old visits to Earth by Tweel's species.
Species
In the second story in the series, Valley of Dreams, Tweel's species is revealed to be known as the Thoth: Tweel shows its human companions an ancient Martian mural portraying its species surrounded by what are recognizably ancient Egyptians. When one human describes the mural as resembling the Egyptian god Thoth, Tweel's response is "Yes! Yes! Yes! Thoth! Yes!"; the humans then realize that Martians - collectively known as "Thoth" - visited ancient Egypt, where they gave humans the gift of writing and were perceived as gods.
The Thoth are neither animal nor plant, but something else altogether, which humans could consider to be in-between a plant and an animal judging by the standards set by life which has evolved on planet Earth. The Thoth do not sleep, nor eat or drink. For a few hours each Martian day, they stick their beaks into the Martian soil. They gain nutrients from the soil, in a similar way to how the roots of a plant gain nutrients from the ground. The Thoth reproduce asexually, with two members of the species making contact for a small amount of time until an infant "buds" between the two.
The creatures are highly active and agile, and usually travel in tremendous, city-block-long leaps through the thin Martian air and also aided by the weak Martian gravity. These leaps end with the long beak buried in the ground, as the secondary function of this beak is to stop the creature. They can leap up the Martian cliffs and across valleys with ease. However, they can also move slowly by walking. Upon seeing Jarvis (the human protagonist), trudge along, Tweel walks beside him.
Although the Thoth are more or less humanoid in appearance, their physiology is remarkably different from that of humans; one example of this would be the fact that their brain in located in the chest, and not the head. The Thoth have feather-like appendages that protect them from the chilly Martian nights very well, but these are retracted and invisible during the day. Different members of this species have different-coloured feathers; Tweel's feathers are orange. The Thoth also have sharp retractable claws, but they are very rarely exposed, and only used for defense. The Thoth have an exceptionally unassuming and friendly nature, but are also formidable opponents when backed into a corner.
Psychology and intelligence
Tweel is a very intelligent creature, despite the fact that he thinks very differently from humans. When Jarvis, the story's protagonist, draws the first four inner planets and the sun in the sand, Tweel successfully identifies Mars as the fourth planet, and the Earth as the third. He therefore is civilized, but he thinks differently from humans, for he jumps directly into the circle in the sand that represents the sun on its beak, which he does not consider unusual at all.
The Thoth communicate in distinct forms of whistles, clicks, and shrills, and also have a system of writing for which they use a mysterious kind of leathery paper. The human protagonist explains this system of writing merely looks like circles and spirals, but yet is too complicated for humans to translate, and is far too alien for humans to grasp. The language of the Thoth is also exceptionally complex, with no one word for anything—every time something is described, it will never be described in the same way any two times. The human protagonist, Jarvis, cannot grasp even a faint light of this language. The central alien, Tweel, is able to grasp various words in the human's language, English, such as "breet" (supposed to be "breathe") to designate living creatures, "no breet" for inanimate objects, "rock" to indicate silicon-based life forms, "one one two" to indicate a rudimentary level of intelligence, and "two two four" for a higher level of intelligence. With these smatterings of human language, Tweel puts forward advanced ideas and concepts, thus proving he is intelligent. Tweel does however find it incredibly strange and even funny that humans use the same words for the same purpose more than once, whereas he does not.
Civilization
The civilization of the Thoth is apparently old and ragged, much older than human beings, though its species still remains advanced in terms of intelligence. Vast ruined buildings are all that remains of their cities which evidently once thrived and housed millions (the architecture of the buildings is odd as the bases are small but widen out as they get higher). Much of their technology has since been lost to history as the limited natural resources of Mars were completely depleted long ago. Only a few hundred Thoth remain on the dying world.
It is hinted that devilish, imp-like creatures (described in another short story of Weinbaum's, The Mad Moon as "Slinkers") are the cause of their cities' demise. One Slinker is described either reading or eating a page of a book in a great Thoth library, before being scared off by Tweel.
The Thoth never developed nuclear power, but evidently had some other power source which has since been lost to them. It is suggested that Tweel's race travelled across the solar system at least 10,000 years ago, as Jarvis, Tweel's human partner and the protagonist of A Martian Odyssey describes seeing three eyes in the darkness inside a building - similar to the eyes of Triops Noctivians, a creature featured in a later story of Weinbaum's, Parasite Planet. The Thoth first visited the planet Earth when mankind was in the Stone Age. They were looked up to as gods by the Ancient Egyptians, to whom they gave the gift of writing.
A strange leathery substance of unknown origin is used by the Thoth to make bags and containers, and also to write on. The Thoth also have a device which the human protagonist notes resembles a continually burning piece of coal. This device is used as an energy and heat source, to make fires, and as a torch in dark areas. The Thoth also use chemicals and steam propulsion in weaponry. Tweel carries a bizarre firearm made from a transparent glass-like material, which fires poisoned splinters.
Potential sequel
Weinbaum had planned at least two sequels to A Martian Odyssey; the first, Valley of Dreams, was published four months later. Weinbaum died of lung cancer before finishing the second.
Questions are put forward in Valley of Dreams, which were most likely to be answered in the third part to the trilogy. For example, why would the Martians (who gain all their nutrients from soil the way plants do) need canals, since they do not drink water directly? It is hinted at (among other things) in Valley of Dreams that the Martians were gathering water for a higher creature that needed it.
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.
Alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether. It can be considered as a science-fiction subgenre of the invasion literature, expanded by H. G. Wells's seminal alien invasion novel The War of the Worlds.
"People Are Alike All Over" is episode 25 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
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.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a 1964 American science fiction film directed by Byron Haskin and produced by Aubrey Schenck that stars Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, and Adam West. It is a science fiction retelling of the classic 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures and filmed in Technicolor and Techniscope.
The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its opaque cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface—a "cosmic Rorschach test", in the words of science fiction author Stephen L. Gillett. The planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction.
No Man Friday is a British science fiction novel by Rex Gordon published in 1956. The reference in the original title is to Robinson Crusoe, and the story can be described as a science fiction robinsonade set on Mars. The similarity is made explicit by the first edition cover.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
The Martians, also known as the Invaders, are the race of extraterrestrials and the main antagonists from the H.G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. They are the main antagonists of the novel, and their efforts to exterminate the populace of the Earth and claim the planet for themselves drive the plot and present challenges for the novel's human characters. They are notable for their use of extraterrestrial weaponry far in advance of that of mankind at the time of the invasion.
"A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's second published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams". These are the only stories by Weinbaum set on Mars.
"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.
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.
A Martian Odyssey and Others is a collection of science fiction short stories by author Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1949 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 3,158 copies. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Wonder Stories, Astounding and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first Barsoom tale was serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in pulp magazine The All-Story from February to July 1912 and published compiled as a novel as A Princess of Mars in 1917. It features John Carter, a late-19th-century American Confederate veteran who is mysteriously transported from Earth to the dying world of Mars where he meets and romances the beautiful Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Ten sequels followed over the next three decades, further extending his vision of Barsoom and adding other characters.
Ancient astronauts have been addressed frequently in science fiction and horror fiction. Occurrences in the genres include:
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.
The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.
Speculative evolution is a subgenre of science fiction and an artistic movement focused on hypothetical scenarios in the evolution of life, and a significant form of fictional biology. It is also known as speculative biology and it is referred to as speculative zoology in regards to hypothetical animals. Works incorporating speculative evolution may have entirely conceptual species that evolve on a planet other than Earth, or they may be an alternate history focused on an alternate evolution of terrestrial life. Speculative evolution is often considered hard science fiction because of its strong connection to and basis in science, particularly biology.
References
↑ Jacques Baudou, Que sais-je: La science-fiction, Presses Universitaires de France, 2003, chapter 3
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
