Stanley
G. Weinbaum’s mastery of character, dialogue, setting and concept made him stand
out among science fiction writers of his time, even earning H.P. Lovecraft’s
praise. His career began with the
publication of A Martian Odyssey in
the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. Sam Moskowitz credits him with having a
“pervasive influence on the attitudes of his contemporaries” and believes that
Weinbaum’s talent inaugurated “the true beginning of modern science fiction”. (See also Revisiting
Tweel and the Martian “Dream-Beast”.)
Like
Lovecraft, Weinbaum excelled at creating wholly nonhuman alien species. Neither author relied on the hackneyed
conception of extraterrestrials as essentially manlike monsters with all too
human desires and vulnerabilities.
Moskowitz notes that before Weinbaum, these monsters
“…were
bent on either eating the earthmen or coveting their women. The likelihood that a diet of human flesh
might contain the proper balance of vitamins and minerals for a growing alien
monster was rarely evaluated nor were the possible differences in aesthetics or
anatomy considered in their undeniable predilection for females of the human
species.”
But
this may be an unfair criticism. One
could argue that a truly alien species, one that is completely other, might be problematic, in fiction
at least. If such beings had no
inclination to kill and eat us, and did not want to mate with our women in
order to repopulate their dying planet, could they sustain our interest? So many of our most exciting narratives deal
with avoiding a predator or defeating an enemy that threatens our resources or
our romantic or familial relationships.
It seems there should be some commonality of purpose or motivation
between the human and the extraterrestrial—so that we can tell an engaging
story about that interaction. Weinbaum
skillfully achieves this balance of otherness and intersection with human needs
and fears.
In The Mad Moon (1935), Grant Calthorpe is
employed by a pharmaceutical company, working to ensure a supply of ferverin. This is a valuable medicinal derived from a
plant that grows on Io, a moon orbiting the planet Jupiter. The medicine is useful to combat many of
humanity’s ills; more locally it is the remedy for the “white fever” that
earthlings are vulnerable to. But living
and working on Io is difficult and dangerous.
Weinbaum imagines the lunar terrain as hazardous tropical jungle, not
unlike the terrain explored by Earth’s intrepid botanists in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The flora and
fauna that thrive in Io’s equatorial belt are at best indifferent to the
humans, and occasionally intolerant or predaceous. Most of the colonists, save for Calthorpe and
other harvesters of ferva leaf, live in cities at Io’s north and south
pole.
Weinbaum
was right about Io being a hot place, though he underestimated the actual
temperatures. Larger than Earth’s moon,
Io is known to be exceptionally volcanic, a result of the intense tidal forces
it endures as a result of its orbit around Jupiter. Its surface is frequently molten and swelled
by the gravitational pull of the giant planet; one theory is that the surface
material is liquefied sulfur and sulfur compounds, or possibly silica
rock.
An iron
core not only gives Io its own magnetic field, but makes the moon an enormous
electric generator as it passes through the Jovian magnetic fields. Io is capable of producing 400,000 volts
across its surface and an electric current of 3 million amperes. Because of this, Io is able to discharge
lightning into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. Imagine if Earth’s moon could do something
like that!
As in A
Martian Odyssey (1934), Weinbaum catalogues the exotic zoology and botany of
Io: there are slinkers, loonies, (“Lunae jovis magnicapites”), parcats, stinging
palms, bleeding grass, arrow vines, and toothers. The inventory recalls the hazardous
supernatural ecology of Manly Wade Wellman’s The Desrick on Yandro (1952), although this Appalachian horror story
was written many years later. (See also Back
Up on Yandro, Yonder.)
Complicating
the situation on Io is an outbreak of “blancha”, a fever that causes Calthorpe
and another character to have dangerous hallucinations. He must rescue the boss’s daughter, Lee
Neilan, whose vehicle has crashed nearby, before the ferverin runs out and both
fall victim to the slinkers, or worse.
Their symptoms combine with the cacophony of the natives and the
confusion of celestial spheres overhead—Jupiter, but also the moon Europa—to produce
menace and disorientation.
Sadly,
Weinbaum’s career only lasted about a year and a half following the publication
of his first story. He died of cancer at
the age of 33, and The Mad Moon may
have been one of the last of his stories to be published in his short lifetime.
In that brief period he produced a
remarkable body of work, including 4 novels and 13 short stories, much of which
was published posthumously.
Interestingly,
Weinbaum wrote the opening lines of one version of The Challenge from Beyond (1935), a “round-robin” story that
included Donald Wandrei, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Harl Vincent and Murray Leinster. These authors produced the science fiction version
of the story for Fantasy Magazine, which
was celebrating its third anniversary issue.
At the same time, H.P. Lovecraft’s team, which initially included C.L.
Moore, Frank Belknap Long, A. Merritt and later Robert E. Howard, produced the
horror version. (See also Help, I’m
a Centipede!.)
Sam Moskowitz,
in his introduction to A Martian Odyssey
and other Classics of Science Fiction by Stanley G. Weinbaum (1962) remarks
that Weinbaum may have been aware that he did not have long to live, even at
the time his first story was published.
Readers may recall that the radioactive crystal Jarvis purloined from
the subterranean drum shaped aliens caused his warts to disappear, and was
thought to have potential as a remedy for human diseases. In The
Mad Moon, Calthorpe also steals a medicinal product from the slinkers on
Io, with which he revives himself and Lee Neilan. It is implied that the colonization of space will
also involve the ongoing search for new medicines—surely this was also Weinbaum’s
personal search as well.
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