Stanley G. Weinbaum
Encyclopedia
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum (April 4, 1902 – December 14, 1935) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 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...

 author. His career in science fiction was short but influential. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey
A Martian Odyssey
"A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's first published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams"...

", was published to great (and enduring) acclaim in July 1934, but he would be dead from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 within eighteen months.

Life

Weinbaum was born in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 and attended school in Milwaukee. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

 in Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, first as a chemical engineering
Chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...

 major but later switching to English as his major, but contrary to common belief he did not graduate. On a bet, Weinbaum took an exam for a friend, and was later discovered; he left the university in 1923.

He is best known for the groundbreaking science fiction short story, "A Martian Odyssey
A Martian Odyssey
"A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's first published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams"...

", which presented a sympathetic but decidedly non-human alien, Tweel. Even more remarkably, this was his first science fiction story (in 1933 he had sold a romantic novel, The Lady Dances, to King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

, which serialized the story in its newspapers in early 1934). 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...

 has described "A Martian Odyssey" as "a perfect Campbellian science fiction story, before 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...

. Indeed, Tweel may be the first creature in science fiction to fulfil Campbell's dictum, 'write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man'." Asimov went on to describe it as one of only three stories that changed the way all subsequent ones in the science fiction genre were written. It is the oldest short story (and one of the top vote-getters) selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America for inclusion in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964.

Most of the work that was published in his lifetime appeared in either Astounding or 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...

. However, several of Weinbaum's pieces first appeared in the early fanzine
Science fiction fanzine
A science fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day...

 Fantasy Magazine (successor to Science Fiction Digest) in the 1930s, including an "Auto-Biographical Sketch" in the June 1935 issue. Despite common belief, Weinbaum was not one of the contributors to the multi-authored Cosmos serial in Science Fiction Digest/Fantasy Magazine. He did contribute to the multi-author story "The Challenge From Beyond", published in the September 1935 Fantasy Magazine. At the time of his death, Weinbaum was writing a novel, Three Who Danced. In this novel, the Prince of Wales is unexpectedly present at a dance in an obscure American community, where he dances with three of the local girls, choosing each for a different reason. Each girl's life is changed (happily or tragically) as a result of the unexpected attention she receives. In 1993, his widow, Margaret Hawtof Kay (b. 1906 in Waco, Texas), donated his papers to the Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...

 Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

. Included were several unpublished manuscripts, among them Three Who Danced, as well as other unpublished stories (mostly romance stories, but there were also a few other non-fiction and fiction writings, none of them science fiction).

A film version of his short story "The Adaptive Ultimate
The Adaptive Ultimate
"The Adaptive Ultimate" is a science fiction short story about an experimental medical treatment gone awry. It was written by Stanley G. Weinbaum and first published in the November 1935 issue of Astounding magazine under the pen name "John Jessel". It was collected in various editions of A...

" was released in 1957 under the title She Devil, starring Mari Blanchard
Mari Blanchard
Mari Blanchard was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in American films of the 1950s and early 1960s.-Career:In the late 1940s, Blanchard was a successful print model and film extra...

, Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (actor)
Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...

, and Albert Dekker
Albert Dekker
Albert Dekker was an American character actor and politician best known for his roles in Dr. Cyclops, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Wild Bunch. He is sometimes credited as Albert Van Dekker or Albert van Dekker...

. The story was also dramatized on television; a Studio One titled "Kyra Zelas" (the name of the title character) aired on September 12, 1949. A radio dramatization of "The Adaptive Ultimate" was done on the anthology show Escape in the 1950s, yet for some reason Weinbaum was not credited as the author. A crater
Impact crater
In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

 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...

 is named in his honor, and, on 18 July 2008, he won the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award.

Critical reception

Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...

 declared that "Weinbaum, more than any other writer, helped to take our field out of the doldrums of the early thirties and into the beginnings of modern science fiction." Everett F. Bleiler
Everett F. Bleiler
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...

, however, reported that although Weinbaum "was generally considered the most promising new s-f author of his day," his reputation is overstated. While "Weinbaum's style was more lively than that of his genre contemporaries, and he was imaginative in background details, . . . his work was ordinary pulp fiction, with routine plots, slapdash presentation, cardboard characterization, and much cliche of ideas. Alexei
Alexei Panshin
Alexis Adams Panshin is an American author and science fiction critic. He has written several critical works and several novels, including the 1968 Nebula Award-winning novel Rite of Passage and the 1990 Hugo Award winning study of science fiction The World Beyond the Hill .-Other works:Panshin...

 and Cory Panshin
Cory Panshin
Cory Panshin is an American science fiction critic and writer. She often writes in collaboration with her husband, Alexei Panshin. The Panshins won the Hugo award for Best Non-Fiction Book in 1990 for The World Beyond the Hill, a massive history of science fiction.-External links:* Cory Panshin's...

 concluded that "Time has swallowed what were once Weinbaum's particular virtues. What is left seems quaint and quirky."

Planetary series

All of Weinbaum's nine interplanetary stories were set in a consistent Solar System that was scientifically accurate by 1930s standards. The birdlike Martians of "A Martian Odyssey" and "Valley of Dreams", for instance, are mentioned in "Redemption Cairn
Redemption Cairn
Redemption Cairn is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the March 1936 issue of Astounding Stories...

", and The Red Peri
The Red Peri
"The Red Peri" is a science fiction novella by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the November 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Sam Moskowitz has noted that Weinbaum planned to write a series of sequels to "The Red Peri" but died before he could do so.. "The Red Peri" is the only Weinbaum...

 and the Venusian trioptes of "Parasite Planet" and "The Lotus Eaters" are mentioned in "The Mad Moon
The Mad Moon
The Mad Moon is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the December 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. As was the case with his earlier stories "A Martian Odyssey" and "Parasite Planet", "The Mad Moon" showcases Weinbaum's talent for creating alien ecologies...

". In Weinbaum's Solar System, in accordance with the then-current near-collision hypothesis, the gas giants
Gas Giants
Gas Giants were a pop rock band from Tempe, Arizona, formed as a successor project to the Gin Blossoms. The group was known as The Pharaohs when they formed in 1997, but changed their name after their label, A&M Records, merged with Universal Records and the band changed hands, re-signing with...

 radiate heat, enough to warm their satellites to Earthlike temperatures, allowing for Earthlike environments on Io
Io (moon)
Io ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter and, with a diameter of , the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System. It was named after the mythological character of Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of the lovers of Zeus....

, Europa
Europa (moon)
Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...

, Titan
Titan (moon)
Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....

, and even Uranus
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...

. Mars is also sufficiently Earthlike to allow humans to walk its surface (with training in thin-air chambers) unprotected.

Van Manderpootz stories

Three short stories deal with Dixon Wells, a perpetually late playboy who runs afoul of the inventions of his friend and former instructor in "Newer Physics", Professor Haskel van Manderpootz, a supremely immodest genius who rates Einstein as his equal (or slight inferior). In "The Worlds of If", Wells tests an invention that reveals what might have been; in "The Ideal", the professor creates a device that can show the image of a person's ideal (in Wells' case, his perfect woman); the contrivance of "The Point of View" allows one to see the world from another's perspective. In all three, Wells finds and then loses the woman of his dreams.

Novels

  • The Lady Dances (King-Features Syndicate 1933) - This story (published under the name of "Marge Stanley") was published as a newspaper serial in early 1934 and is now available as a print-on-demand title.
  • The New Adam (Ziff-Davis 1939)
  • The Black Flame
    The Black Flame (novel)
    The Black Flame is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Stanley G. Weinbaum. It starts several hundred years after most of mankind is wiped out by a plague and tells the story of a family of immortals who seek to conquer the world with advanced science. The book is divided into two novels -...

    (Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and E. E. Smith...

     1948)
  • The Black Flame (Complete Restored Edition) (Tachyon Publications
    Tachyon Publications
    Tachyon Publications is an independent press specializing in science fiction and fantasy books. Founded in San Francisco in 1995 by Jacob Weisman, Tachyon books have tended toward high-end literary works, short story collections, and anthologies....

     1997; ISBN 0-9648320-0-3)
  • The Dark Other
    The Dark Other
    The Dark Other is a horror novel by Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1950 by Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. in an edition of 700 copies. The manuscript, written in the 1920s, was originally titled The Mad Brain.-Plot introduction:...

    aka The Mad Brain (Fantasy Publishing Company 1950)

Short stories

  • "A Martian Odyssey
    A Martian Odyssey
    "A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was Weinbaum's first published story, and remains his best known. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams"...

    " in 7/34 Wonder
  • "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...

    " in 11/34 Wonder
  • "Flight on Titan
    Flight on Titan
    Flight on Titan is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the January 1935 issue of Astounding Stories...

    " in 1/35 Astounding
  • "Parasite Planet
    Parasite Planet
    "Parasite Planet" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the February 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. It was Weinbaum's fourth published story, and the first to be set on Venus...

    " in 2/35 Astounding
  • "The Lotus Eaters
    The Lotus Eaters (Weinbaum)
    "The Lotus Eaters" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the April 1935 issue of Astounding Stories...

    " in 4/35 Astounding
  • "Pygmalion's Spectacles" in 6/35 Wonder
  • "The Worlds of If" in 8/35 Wonder
  • "The Challenge From Beyond" in 9/35 Fantasy Magazine (Weinbaum wrote the opening 800+ words of this multi-author story.)
  • "The Ideal" in 9/35 Wonder
  • "The Planet of Doubt
    The Planet of Doubt
    "The Planet of Doubt" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that was first published in the October 1935 issue of Astounding Stories...

    " in 10/35 Astounding
  • "The Adaptive Ultimate
    The Adaptive Ultimate
    "The Adaptive Ultimate" is a science fiction short story about an experimental medical treatment gone awry. It was written by Stanley G. Weinbaum and first published in the November 1935 issue of Astounding magazine under the pen name "John Jessel". It was collected in various editions of A...

    " in 11/35 Astounding (as by John Jessel)
  • "The Red Peri
    The Red Peri
    "The Red Peri" is a science fiction novella by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the November 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Sam Moskowitz has noted that Weinbaum planned to write a series of sequels to "The Red Peri" but died before he could do so.. "The Red Peri" is the only Weinbaum...

    " in 11/35 Astounding
  • "The Mad Moon
    The Mad Moon
    The Mad Moon is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the December 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. As was the case with his earlier stories "A Martian Odyssey" and "Parasite Planet", "The Mad Moon" showcases Weinbaum's talent for creating alien ecologies...

    " in 12/35 Astounding

Posthumous publications

  • "The Point of View" in 1/36 Wonder
  • "Smothered Seas" in 1/36 Astounding (with Roger Sherman Hoar writing as Ralph Milne Farley)
  • "Yellow Slaves" in 2/36 True Gang Life (with Roger Sherman Hoar writing as Ralph Milne Farley)
  • "Redemption Cairn
    Redemption Cairn
    Redemption Cairn is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that first appeared in the March 1936 issue of Astounding Stories...

    " in 3/36 Astounding
  • "The Circle of Zero" in 8/36 Thrilling Wonder
  • "Proteus Island" in 8/36 Astounding
  • "Graph" in 9/36 Fantasy Magazine
  • "The Brink of Infinity" in 12/36 Thrilling Wonder
  • "Shifting Seas" in 4/37 Amazing (anticipates discussions of climate change due to changes in the Gulf Stream
    Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
    Shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is a postulated effect of global warming.There is some speculation that global warming could, via a shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation, trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling, or lesser warming, in...

    )
  • "Revolution of 1950" 10-11/38 Amazing (with Roger Sherman Hoar writing as Ralph Milne Farley)
  • "Tidal Moon
    Tidal Moon
    "Tidal Moon" is a science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum and Helen Weinbaum that first appeared in the December 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories and was reprinted in the collection Interplanetary Odysseys . Sam Moskowitz stated that Stanley G...

    " in 12/38 Thrilling Wonder (with Helen Weinbaum, his sister)
  • "The Black Flame" in 1/39 Startling
  • "Dawn of Flame" in 6/39 Thrilling Wonder
  • "Green Glow of Death" in 7/57 Crack Detective and Mystery Stories
  • "The King's Watch", Posthumous Press, 1994, hardcover book, with Foreword and signed by Robert Bloch
    Robert Bloch
    Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...

     and tipped in photo of writers' group, The Milwaukee Fictioneers, to which Weinbaum and Bloch both belonged. (This story is a variant of "The Green Glow of Death" from 7/57 Crack Detective and Mystery Stories.)

Collections of stories and poetry

  • The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum
    The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum
    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. The volume included an introduction by Isaac Asimov and an afterword by Robert Bloch...

    , Ballantine
    Ballantine Books
    Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...

    , 1974
  • Lunaria and Other Poems, The Strange Publishing Company 1988
  • The Black Heart, Leonaur Publishing, 2006
  • Dawn of Flame: The Stanley G. Weinbaum Memorial Volume, Conrad H. Ruppert, 1936
  • Interplanetary Odysseys, Leonaur Publishing, 2006
  • A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Tales, Hyperion Press, 1974
  • 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...

    , Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and E. E. Smith...

    , 1949
  • A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction, Lancer
    Lancer Books
    Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...

    , 1962
  • Other Earths, Leonaur Publishing, 2006
  • The Red Peri
    The Red Peri (collection)
    The Red Peri is a collection of science fiction short stories by author Stanley G. Weinbaum. It was first published in 1952 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 1,732 copies...

    , Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press
    Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and E. E. Smith...

    , 1952
  • Strange Genius, Leonaur Publishing, 2006

External links

  • Stanley G. Weinbaum at Manybooks.net
    Manybooks.net
    Manybooks.net is a digital library that takes e-books from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and other free sources and converts them to file formats suitable for e-readers, such as PDF or ePub...

  • Planets of Peril: Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1930s Science Fiction at Forgotten Futures
    Forgotten Futures
    Forgotten Futures is a role-playing game created by Marcus Rowland to allow people to play in settings inspired by Victorian and Edwardian science fiction and fantasy...

    - all of his science fiction that is out of European copyright.
  • Past Masters: A Martian? Odd, I See (or a Taste of Milwaukee's Finest) by Bud Webster
    Bud Webster
    Clarence Howard "Bud" Webster is a science fiction and fantasy writer who is also known for his essays on both the history of science fiction and sf/fantasy anthologies as well. He is perhaps best known for the Bubba Pritchert series, which have won two Analytical Laboratory readers' awards from...

     at Grantville Gazette
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