"A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Stanley G. Weinbaum

Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction author. His career in science fiction was short but influential...

 originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories

Wonder Stories

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...

. It was Weinbaum's first published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams

Valley of Dreams

Valley of Dreams is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the November 1934 issue of Wonder Stories...

". These are the only stories by Weinbaum set on Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

.

Plot summary

Early in the 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

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

, sets out south 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. Rather than sit and wait for rescue, Jarvis decides to walk back north to the Ares. Just after crossing into the Mare Chronium, Jarvis comes across a tentacled Martian

Martian

As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...

 creature attacking a large birdlike creature. He notices that the birdlike Martian is carrying a bag around its neck, and figuring it for an intelligent being, saves it from the tentacled monstrosity. The rescued creature refers to itself as Tweel. Tweel accompanies Jarvis on his trip back to the Ares, in the course of which it manages to pick up some English, although Jarvis is unable to make any sense of Tweel's language. At first, Tweel travels in tremendous, city-block-long leaps that end with its long beak buried in the ground, but upon seeing Jarvis trudge along, walks beside him.

Upon reaching Xanthus 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. By the time the pyramids are ten feet high, the travelers reach the end of the line and find a pyramid that isn't open at the top. As they watch, 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 starts excreting bricks from its mouth at ten-minute intervals and using them to build another pyramid around itself. Jarvis realizes that the creature is silicon

Silicon

Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...

-based rather than carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

-based; neither animal, vegetable nor mineral, but a little of each. The strange combination of a creature produces the solid substance silica and builds himself in with the By-product then sleeps for an unknown length of time.

As the two approach a canal

Martian canals

For a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were canals on Mars. These were a network of long straight lines that appeared in drawings of the planet Mars in the equatorial regions from 60° N. to 60° S. Lat., first observed by the Italian astronomer...

 cutting across Xanthus, Jarvis is feeling homesick for New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, thinking about Fancy Long, a woman he knows from the cast of the Yerba Mate

Yerba mate

Maté, yerba maté or erva maté , Ilex paraguariensis, is a species of holly native to subtropical South America in northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay...

 Hour television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 show. When he sees Long standing by the canal, he begins to approach 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 at their first meeting. Jarvis realizes that the tentacled creature, which he names a dream-beast, lures its prey by projecting illusions into 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 coppery cart; it pays no attention to Jarvis and Tweel as it goes by them. Another goes by, then a third. Jarvis stands in front of the third, which stops. Jarvis says, "We are friends," and the cart creature repeats the phrase from a diaphragm atop its body, "We are v-r-r-riends," before pushing past him. The next cart creature repeats the phrase as it goes by, and the next.

Eventually the cart creatures start returning from the city with their carts full of stones, sand, and chunks of rubbery plants. Jarvis stands in front of one and refuses to move. Eventually the cart creature tweaks his nose hard enough to make him jump aside and yell "Ouch". After that, every cart creature that passes by says "We are v-r-r-riends! Ouch!"

Jarvis and Tweel follow the cart creatures to their destination, a mound with a tunnel leading down below it. Jarvis soon becomes lost in the network of tunnels, and hours or days pass before 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

Radiation

In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...

 that destroys diseased tissue but leaves healthy tissue unharmed.

The cart creatures suddenly begin attacking Jarvis and Tweel, who retreat up a corridor which fortunately leads outside. The cart creatures corner them and, rather than save himself, Tweel stays by Jarvis' side facing certain death. The cart creatures are about to finish them off when an auxiliary rocket from the Ares lands destroying the creatures. Jarvis boards the rocket while Tweel bounds away into the martian horizon. The rocket returns with Jarvis to the Ares, and he tells his story to the other three. Jarvis is consumed with recalling the friendship and bond between Tweel and him when Captain Harrison expresses regret that they don't have the healing crystal. Jarvis, mind somewhere else, admits that the cart creatures were attacking 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

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

 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." 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."

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 can't always puzzle out their motivations. Tweel itself was one of the first characters (arguably the first) who satisfied John W. Campbell

John W. Campbell

John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...

's famous challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man."

In 1970, when the Science Fiction Writers of America voted on the best science fiction short stories of all time, "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

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 is a 1970 anthology of science fiction short stories, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is generally considered one of the best, if not the best, of the many science fiction anthologies...

.

Larry Niven

Larry Niven

Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...

 included several references to "A Martian Odyssey" in his Rainbow Mars

Rainbow Mars

Rainbow Mars is a science fiction short story collection by Larry Niven. It includes the five previously published Svetz stories and the novel, also called Rainbow Mars in which humans from Earth visit Mars and find it populated by the creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis,...

. In general, Niven's repeated creation of credible alien species with their own way of thinking, acting and reacting to humans clearly shows the influence of Weinbaum's Martians.

Collections

"A Martian Odyssey" appears in the following Stanley G. Weinbaum collections:

• The Dawn of Flame (1936)
• A Martian Odyssey and Others
  A Martian Odyssey and Others
  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...
  
  (1949)
• A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction (1962)
• A Martian Odyssey and Other Great Science Fiction Stories (1966)
• A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Tales (1974)
• The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum (1974)
• Interplanetary Odysseys (2006)

External links

• "A Martian Odyssey" A free HTML version of the story
• "A Martian Odyssey" at Project Gutenberg of Australia.
• A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum at BestScienceFictionStories.com - A review of the story and resources for finding it.