Valley of Dreams ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audio...

Valley of Dreams ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  Valley of Dreams



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Summary:

Two weeks before the Ares is scheduled to leave Mars, Captain Harrison sends American chemist Dick Jarvis and French biologist "Frenchy" Leroy to retrieve the film Jarvis took before his auxiliary rocket crashed into the Thyle highlands the week before. Along the way, the Earthmen stop at the city of the cart creatures and the site of the pyramid building creature for Leroy to take some samples. After picking up the film canisters from the crashed rocket at Thyle II, the two men fly east to Thyle I to look for signs of the birdlike Martian, Tweel.



Near a canal, the men find a strange, deserted city thousands of years old. The buildings are inhabited by birdlike Martians of Tweel's species, including Tweel himself, and Jarvis and the Martian enjoy a happy reunion. Jarvis persuades Tweel to guide them through the city.



In one building, they come across a ratlike being hunched over a Martian book. Tweel angrily chases the rat-thing away and replaces the book on a shelf, though the Earthmen are not sure whether the rat-thing was reading the book or eating it. Elsewhere in the building, which seems to be a library, Tweel shows the Earthmen a huge mural of a human kneeling before a seated Martian. When Leroy remarks that the Martian in the mural looks like the Egyptian god Thoth, Tweel excitedly repeats the name, pointing to itself and all around them at the city. The Earthmen realize that Tweel's people, the Thoth, had visited ancient Egypt and served as inspiration for the Ibis-headed god. (This is actually anachronistic, since Thoth was the classical Greek version of the god's name.)



Over the next three days, Tweel shows the Earthmen around the city, including a solar-powered pumping station designed to move water down the canal. Finally, a mile south of the ancient Martian city, the Earthmen find a valley filled with dream-beasts. As the dream-beasts mesmerize them, the two Earthmen see everything they have ever desired spread out before them, and rush forward helplessly. Tweel attacks one of the dream-beasts, momentarily freeing Jarvis. The Earthman kills the dream-beast with a pistol shot, then kills another that is attacking Leroy, and the three of them flee the valley. Jarvis and Leroy return to their rocket to recover from their encounter with the dream-beasts.



Before returning to the Ares, as a parting gift, the Earthmen take Tweel to the wreck of the other rocket, and give it the rocket's atomic power plant. In time, the Thoth will be able to master atomic power, and will no longer be dependent on solar power to run their civilization. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Dreams



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The Point of View ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audi...

The Point of View ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Point of View



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Summary:

Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story “A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including 3 stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)



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The Ideal ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook

The Ideal ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Ideal



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Summary:

Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story “A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including 3 stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)



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#ScienceFiction  #SciFi  #Audiobook  #ShortStory

#TheIdeal  #StanleyGWeinbaum  #strangerThings

The Worlds of If ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audio...

The Worlds of If ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Worlds of If



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Summary:

Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story “A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including 3 stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)



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#ScienceFiction  #SciFi  #Audiobook  #ShortStory

#TheWorldsofIf  #StanleyGWeinbaum  #strangerThings

Pygmalions Spectacles ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full ...

Pygmalions Spectacles ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  Pygmalion’s Spectacles



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Summary:

You drink, ' said the elfin, bearded face, 'to make real a dream. Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.'



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A Martian Odyssey ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audi...

A Martian Odyssey ♦ By Stanley G. Weinbaum ♦ Science Fiction ♦ Full Audiobook



Title: A Martian Odyssey



Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum



Genre(s): Science Fiction



Language: English



Read By: Gregg Margarite



Librivox Recording



Early in the 21st century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing, the four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship's American chemist, sets out south in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis' rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions. Rather than sit and wait for rescue, Jarvis decides to walk back north to the Ares. Just after crossing into the Mare Chronium, Jarvis comes across a tentacled Martian creature attacking a large birdlike creature. He notices that the birdlike Martian is carrying a bag around its neck, and recognizing it as an intelligent being, saves it from the tentacled monstrosity. The rescued creature refers to itself as Tweel. Tweel accompanies Jarvis on his trip back to the Ares, in the course of which it manages to pick up some English, although Jarvis is unable to make any sense of Tweel's language. At first, Tweel travels in tremendous, city-block-long leaps that end with its long beak buried in the ground, but upon seeing Jarvis trudge along, walks beside him.



Upon reaching Xanthus, a desert region outside the Mare Cimmerium, Jarvis and Tweel find a line of small pyramids tens of thousands of years old made of silica bricks, each open at the top. As they follow the line, the pyramids slowly become larger and newer. By the time the pyramids are ten feet high, the travelers reach the end of the line and find a pyramid that is not open at the top. As they watch, a creature with gray scales, one arm, a mouth and a pointed tail pushes its way out of the top of the pyramid, pulls itself several yards along the ground, then plants itself in the ground by the tail. It starts exhaling bricks from its mouth at ten-minute intervals and using them to build another pyramid around itself. Jarvis realizes that the creature is silicon-based rather than carbon-based; neither animal, vegetable nor mineral, but a little of each. The strange combination of a creature produces the solid substance silica and builds itself in with the by-product, then sleeps for an unknown length of time.



As the two approach a canal cutting across Xanthus, Jarvis is feeling homesick for New York City, thinking about Fancy Long, a woman he knows from the cast of the Yerba Mate Hour show. When he sees Long standing by the canal, he begins to approach her, but is stopped by Tweel. Tweel takes out a gun that fires poisoned glass needles and shoots Long, who vanishes, replaced by one of the tentacled creatures that Jarvis rescued Tweel from at their first meeting. Jarvis realizes that the tentacled creature, which he names a dream-beast, lures its prey by projecting illusions into their minds.



As Jarvis and Tweel approach a city on the canal bank, they are passed by a barrel-like creature with four legs, four arms, and a circle of eyes around its waist. The barrel creature is pushing an empty, coppery cart; it pays no attention to Jarvis and Tweel as it goes by them. Another goes by, then a third. Jarvis stands in front of the third, which stops. Jarvis says, "We are friends," and the cart creature repeats the phrase from a diaphragm atop its body, "We are v-r-r-riends," before pushing past him. The next cart creature repeats the phrase as it goes by, and the next.



Jarvis and Tweel follow the cart creatures to their destination, a mound with a tunnel leading down below it. Jarvis soon becomes lost in the network of tunnels, and hours or days pass before he and Tweel find themselves in a domed chamber near the surface. There they find the cart creatures depositing their loads beneath a wheel that grinds the stones and plants into dust. Some of the cart creatures also step under the wheel themselves and are pulverized. Beyond the wheel is a shining crystal on a pedestal. When Jarvis approaches it he feels a tingling in his hands and face, and a wart on his left thumb dries up and falls off. He speculates that the crystal emits some form of radiation that destroys diseased tissue but leaves healthy tissue unharmed.



. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Martian_Odyssey



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#AMartianOdyssey  #StanleyGWeinbaum