Stanley G. Weinbaum
Stanley G. Weinbaum | |
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romantic fiction | |
Notable works | "A Martian Odyssey" |
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum (April 4, 1902 – December 14, 1935) 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.
Life and career
Weinbaum was born in
He attended Riverside High School in Milwaukee.[2] He was granted admission to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison in July 1920.[2] He first majored in chemical engineering, then switched to English, 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.
Weinbaum is best known for his groundbreaking science fiction short story "
Most of the work that was published in Weinbaum's lifetime appeared in either
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 has received.
In 1993, Weinbaum's widow, Margaret Hawtof Kay, donated his papers to the
A film version of Weinbaum's short story "
Honors and awards
A
Critical reception
Lester del Rey 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."[9] H. P. Lovecraft stated that Weinbaum's writing was ingenious, and that he stood miles above the other pulp fiction writers in his creation of genuinely alien worlds, in contrast to Edgar Rice Burroughs and his "inane" stories of "egg-laying Princesses". Frederik Pohl wrote that before Weinbaum, science fiction's aliens "might be catmen, lizard-men, antmen, plantmen or rockmen; but they were, always and incurably, men. Weinbaum changed that. ... it was the difference in orientation – in drives, goals and thought processes – that made the Weinbaum-type alien so fresh and rewarding in science fiction in the mid-thirties."[10] According to Pohl, that Weinbaum's "revolutionary idea" was to "give some sort of three-dimensional reality to the characters", in contrast to Hugo Gernsback's "animated catalogue of gadgets".[11] Isaac Asimov wrote, "Weinbaum... had he lived, would surely be in first place in the list of all-time-favorite science fiction writers."[12]
Planetary series
All of Weinbaum's nine interplanetary stories are set in a consistent solar system that was scientifically accurate by the standards of his time. The avian, botanical
Van Manderpootz stories
Three of Weinbaum's 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 Albert 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.
Bibliography
Novels
- The Lady Dances (King-Features Syndicate 1933). This novel, published under the pen name "Marge Stanley", was published as a newspaper serial in early 1934 and is now available as a print-on-demand title.
- Ziff-Davis1939)
- The Black Flame (1939; Fantasy Press 1948)
- The Black Flame (ISBN 0-9648320-0-3)
- Fantasy Publishing Company1950)
Short stories
- "A Martian Odyssey" in 7/34 Wonder
- "Valley of Dreams" in 11/34 Wonder
- "Flight on Titan" in 1/35 Astounding
- "Parasite Planet" in 2/35 Astounding
- "The Lotus Eaters" 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 the science-fiction version of this round-robin story. The other four writers were Donald Wandrei, E. E. Smith, Harl Vincent and Murray Leinster)
- "The Ideal" in 9/35 Wonder
- "The Planet of Doubt" in 10/35 Astounding
- "The Adaptive Ultimate" in 11/35 Astounding (as by John Jessel)
- "The Red Peri" in 11/35 Astounding
- "The Mad Moon" 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" 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)
- "Revolution of 1950" 10-11/38 Amazing (with Roger Sherman Hoar writing as Ralph Milne Farley)
- "Tidal Moon" 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 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, Ballantine, 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, Fantasy Press, 1949
- A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction, Lancer, 1962
- Other Earths, Leonaur Publishing, 2006
- The Red Peri, Fantasy Press, 1952
- Strange Genius, Leonaur Publishing, 2006
References
- ISBN 1-57392-702-3.
- ^ a b "Stanley G. Weinbaum at UW Madison". University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- ^ Asimov, Isaac. "The Second Nova", introduction to The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum (Ballantine Books, 1974).
- ^ Asimov, Isaac. Asimov on Science Fiction. New York: Doubleday, 1981. pp. 221-2.
- Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2009-12-25.
- ^ "Escape - The Adaptive Ultimate". Escape and Suspense!. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
- ^ "Award". The Official Cordwainer Smith Website. Retrieved 2009-12-25.
- ^ "Reading Room", If, June 1974, p.158
- ^ "In the Balance", If, July 1959, p.95
- ^ Pohl, Frederik (October 1965). "The Day After Tomorrow". Editorial. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 4–7.
- ISBN 978-0-385-17443-5.
- ^ Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years, Kent State University Press, 1998, p. 479
- F&SF, December 1974, p. 67
External links
- Works by Stanley G. Weinbaum in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Stanley G. Weinbaum at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Stanley G. Weinbaum at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Stanley G. Weinbaum at Internet Archive
- Works by Stanley G. Weinbaum at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- [1] Archived 2021-10-27 at the Wayback Machine A Short Biography of Stanley G. Weinbaum, by Tom Rogers
- Critical profile and bibliography in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- Stanley G. Weinbaum at Manybooks.net
- Stanley G. Weinbaum at The Lit Project
- Stanley G. Weinbaum at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Stanley G. Weinbaum at IMDb
- Planets of Peril: Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1930s Science Fiction at Forgotten Futures - 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 Grantville Gazette- copy on archive.org
- Stanley Grauman Weinbaum at Library of Congress, with 8 library catalog records (books published 1936–1974)