Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902–1935)

Wonderful to read an 84-year-old SFnal representation of *truly* alien consciousnesses, explicitly made to be so by the author. It was hokey to have a Mars setting, but 84 years ago not quite as hokey as it would be today.

Tweel's character is a hoot. I would love to meet this boop-snoot! And there's a twist at the end of the story that sums up humanity and colonialism right tidily. *sigh*

Yes the science and social conventions are defined by the era in which they were written (of course), but this collection of short stories from the 1930s is a pure delight just the same. Covering such 21st century topics as genetic modification, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence, Weinbaum spins a good yarn whether it be among the "glaciers" of Venus or an impossible island off the coast of New Zealand. And his fantastical aliens were truly alien, not just physically but show more psychologically as well. When he died at the age of 33 science fiction lost one of its most promising new authors. show less

Much of what is claimed about the SF works of Stanley Weinbaum is valid: publishing in the mid-1930s, he did create aliens that were not derivative but truly foreign; he described extraterrestrial landscapes that were clearly not studio back-lots; he tried to craft coherent intersections of those with relatable human characters. It is easy to see how he was tremendously influential to other writers in the nascent field.

Is it dated? Well, let's see. Bad biology. Poor understanding of how show more rockets work. Racism, sexism, ethical travesties. Fine; it was 1935. But....

His human characterizations suck. The (white, American, and young) characters are simply stock types, the stories are totally formulaic, and the ethos of "shoot-it-and-find-out-what-it-was-later" palls. Dialog is straight from bank-heist movies. Don't even get me started on Weinbaum's pet recurring character: the Amazing Megalomaniac Scientist who always talks of himself in the third person....and is named _van Manderpootz_. WTF, dude?

If you WANT to see where modern SF came from, by all means read this, especially "A Martian Odyssey," "Shifting Seas," and "Redemption Cairn." If you want to see what changed the field of Wells, Burroughs, & Howard into the worlds of Heinlein, Asimov, and Bester, then you should start here. ON THE OTHER HAND, if you're hoping for gripping stories and strong voices from the past, you will be disappointed. show less

I had been bowled over by the short fiction in The Best of Stanley Weinbaum, so when I saw this at the used book store it seemed like a good bet. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good book. Somewhere deep inside there is both an interesting concept about the birth of a new race of supermen, and an interesting concept of making their story a retelling of the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, Weinbaum can’t make these concepts work---unconvincing and shallow characters acting in show more unconvincing and implausible ways keep getting in the way of these concepts coming off. Not to mention the utter nonsense of the central idea from an evolutionary science point of view.

There are some original ideas (certainly for 1939) and a surprisingly substantial amount of surprisingly direct discussion of sex. The second half of the book works better than the first half. And I found the glimpses of life in 1930s Chicago moderately interesting.

The inside cover blurb of my 1969 Avon paperback says that Weinbaum worked on this novel for nine years, and it has the feel of a book where the author knew that he hadn’t quite made his idea work, so he kept tinkering away, convinced that he could fix it, but in all likelihood only making it even more of a complicated mess. show less