"G. Stanley Weinbaum - The Best of Stanley G Weinbaum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

professional writer until, more by accident than anything else, each discovered how "easy" writing was.
Both were past thirty when their first stories were published.
 In both cases, their fame was enduring. Each continued to produce for many years, so that there were
always new stories to add to the canon and to their reputation in the hearts of new generations of
readers.
The February 1948 issue of Astounding carried the fourth and last installment of "Children of the
Lens," Smith' s last important work. Twenty years after "The Skylark of Space," he was still read avidly.
As for Heinlein, he is writing and publishing today, thirty-five years after the publication of his first
story, and he has lost none of his reputation. In a recent fan-poll, he stilt fin-ished in first place as all-time
favorite science-fiction writer.

The second nova appeared in 1934, just six years after Smith and just five years before Heinlein. In
the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories, a short story entitled "A Martian Odyssey" appeared by a
never-before-published writer, Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Observe the differences. At the time the story appeared, Wonder was not the foremost
science-fiction magazine. It was, in my opinion, third in a field of three. Its publisher was indeed Hugo
Gemsback, but Gernsback was no longer in the forefront of creative thinking in the field. The editor was
Charles D. Hornig, who, in the history of science-fiction edit-ing, is utterly undistinguished and whose
sole claim to fame, indeed, may be the recognition of the worth of this particular story.
Yet, hidden in this obscure magazine, "A Martian Odyssey 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.
The second nova differed in another important quality from the first and third.
Although E. E. Smith was a wonderful human being, beloved by all who knew him (including myself),
the sad truth is that he was an indifferent writer, who developed only mod-erately with the years. Heinlein
was a much better writer than Smith, but his first story, "Life-Line," is minor Heinlein and on no one's list
of all-time great tales.
How different the case with "A Martian Odyssey." This story showed at once a writing skill as
easy-flowing and as natural, not merely as Heinlein's, but as Heinlein's at its best. "A Martian Odyssey" is
major Weinbaum.
In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted on the best science-fiction short stories of all
time, and among those that proved the favorites "A Martian Odyssey" was the oldest. It was the first
science-fiction story every published in the magazines to withstand the critical scrutiny of profession-als a
generation later. And it did more than merely withstand the test. It ended up in second place.
Like Smith and Heinlein, Weinbaum was not a born writer. Like Smith and Heinlein, he had an
engineering background (he was a chemical engineer, like Smith). Like Smith and Heinlein, his first story
was published when he was over thirty.
And there the resemblance ends, for the tragic truth is that Weinbaum, even as he entered the field
and became at once its leader, was a dying man.
On December 14, 1935, at the age of 33, and only one and a half years after the publication of his
first story, Weinbaum died of cancer and his career was over. By the time of his death, he had published
twelve stories; eleven more appeared posthumously.
Yet even without the advantage of decades of accomplish-ment and development, he remains alive in
the memories of fans. Any new collection of his stories remains, and must remain, a major event in
science fiction,

Now what was most characteristic of Weinbaum's stories? What was it that most fascinated the
readers? The answer is easyтАФhis extra-terrestrial creatures.
There were, to be sure, extra-terrestrial creatures in science fiction long before Weinbaum. Even if we
restrict ourselves to magazine science fiction, they were a commonplace. Yet before Weinbaum's time,