Showing results by author "Stanley G. Weinbaum" in All Categories

This superlative collection of futuristic tales explores ground-breaking supernatural themes from the founding heroes of the science fiction genre. The short story form is perfect for capturing the atmospheric tension of these legendary stories.

"A Martian Odyssey" (1949) is a science fiction classic by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The story is set in the early 21st century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing. The four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship's American chemist, sets out in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis' rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions.

Dr. Daniel Scott has invented a serum that enables the organism to adapt itself to overcome injuries and disease. He gets his chance to try his experimental drug on a dying tubercular patient named Kyra Zelas. Scott and his colleague Dr. Herman Bach are amazed when the girl recovers, but she soon begins to exhibit strange actions.

The short and meteoric career of Stanley G. Weinbaum produced many instantly hailed classics. None had the breadth of wonder, and adventure with philosophic insight as the trilogy of stories that feature Ham Hammond and Patricia Burlingame.

"A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum first appeared in 1934. It was Weinbaum's first published story, and remains his best known. It's publication immediately established Weinbaum as a leading figure in the field. One of the aliens in the story, "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.

A Venusian honeymoon could quickly end in disaster, when the newlyweds are attacked by savage night dwellers and catatonia inducing spores.English biologist Patricia Hammond with her new American husband Hamilton "Ham" Hammond, decide to explore the dark side of Venus to collect plant specimens. But what they find is a specimen far beyond their expectations, and it forces them to re-evaluate what it means to be "intelligent".

Secondo l'"Enciclopedia della Fantascienza" ""A Martian Odyssey" fu il primo tentativo di descrivere la vita su un altro pianeta come un complesso di equilibri biologici, ecologici ed etici, con approfondimento e credibilità, ben lontani dalla descrizione di mostri e mutazioni spesso demenziali che erano la linea generale seguita dagli altri autori del periodo." Tutto ciò vale anche per le altre storie interplanetarie di Stanley Weinbaum, che molti considerano fondamentali per l'evoluzione della fantascienza moderna, e in particolare per questo "I mangiatori di loto".