1 h 12 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 32 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 32 pagesAbout this book
What if your best hope on Mars is a creature whose thoughts you cannot follow?
Dick Jarvis, a member of the Ares crew on the first human expedition to Mars, finds himself alone on a desert planet. Then he meets Tweel: tall, bird-like, and caught in trouble of his own. Their journey brings strange life, uncertain encounters, and the challenge of finding common ground.
In A Martian Odyssey, Stanley G. Weinbaum makes alien life more than a monster to fear. Tweel has his own habits, intelligence, and ways of making sense of the world. As Jarvis tells his tale in a relaxed, joking voice, their unlikely friendship asks how much understanding can grow when words fall short.
What you’ll discover
- A truly different mind Meet Tweel, a quick-minded, loyal companion whose thinking refuses to fit human expectations.
- Life beyond familiar patterns Travel through a Martian landscape where strange creatures stretch the limits of earthly biology.
- Friendship without shared words Follow Jarvis and Tweel as patience and goodwill bridge a gap that language cannot.
- Adventure with good humour Enjoy an explorer's relaxed, joking voice amid the uncertainty of an unfamiliar world.
- Questions that reach further Consider what intelligence looks like when bodies, habits, and ways of thinking differ from yours.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy early science fiction, clever ideas about alien life, a touch of humor, and tales of exploration and unlikely friendship told by a lively storyteller.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A crash and a long walk home
- An odd friendship with a creature called Tweel
- Strange life that follows its own rules
- The lure of the dream-beast
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Dick JarvisThe chemist of the Ares crew, who tells the tale of his long trek across Mars and the friend he makes there.
- TweelA tall, beaked Martian who leaps like a spear and speaks in whistles, and who stays at Jarvis's side.
- HarrisonThe astronomer and captain of the Ares, who doubts Jarvis's tale and teases him throughout.
- Karl PutzThe expedition's engineer, who searches for Jarvis in a second rocket.
- LeroyThe excitable French biologist who longs to see every strange creature Jarvis describes.
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A Martian Odyssey in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
A Martian Odyssey
by Stanley G. Weinbaum · 1934
A stranded chemist walks across Mars, and a beaked stranger named Tweel hops along beside him.
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In short
What would you do if you met a creature whose mind works nothing like yours, and yet you liked each other at once? A Martian Odyssey is a short science fiction story by Stanley G.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A crash and a long walk home
The story begins in the cabin of the Ares, the first crewed ship to reach Mars. Dick Jarvis, the chemist, has just come back from a scouting flight, and his three crewmates demand to hear what happened. The tale is told by Jarvis himself, with Harrison, Putz and Leroy cutting in with jokes and questions.
Jarvis flew south in a small rocket, until its motor failed deep in the region called Thyle. He had about eight hundred miles to go and roughly twenty days before the ship must leave. So he strapped a water tank to his back and set out on foot, light-footed in the weak Martian gravity.
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What is A Martian Odyssey about?
A chemist named Dick Jarvis is stranded on Mars and walks toward his ship. On the way he befriends a bird-like Martian, Tweel, and meets other strange forms of life.
Who is Tweel in A Martian Odyssey?
Tweel is a tall, beaked Martian with a flexible beak, four-fingered hands and a brain in his middle. He cannot share a language with Jarvis, but the two become close companions.
Who wrote A Martian Odyssey?
Stanley G. Weinbaum wrote it. It is a short story, told as a tale within a scene aboard the Ares.
The author
Stanley G. Weinbaum
1902–1935 · American science fiction writer
Stanley G. Weinbaum was an American science fiction writer born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1902. He lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he died in 1935. His short story “A Martian Odyssey” appeared in 1934. He wrote other science fiction stories and novels, some of which were published after his death.
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