"A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum is a science fiction short story about the first human expedition to Mars. After being separated from the Ares crew, chemist Dick Jarvis journeys across the Martian landscape and encounters strange life forms, including the bird-like Tweel. It is worth listening for its imaginative portrayal of alien biology and the challenges of communication.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Transcriber's Note: This eBook was produced from the 1949 book A Martian Odyssey and Others by Stanley G. Weinbaum, pp. 1-27. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. p. 1 A MARTIAN ODYSSEY Jarvis stretched himself as luxuriously as he could in the cramped general quarters of the Ares. "Air you can breathe!" he exulted. "It feels as thick as soup after the thin stuff out there!" He nodded at the Martian landscape stretching flat and desolate in the light of the nearer moon, beyond the glass of the port. The other three stared at him sympathetically—Putz, the engineer, Leroy, the biologist, and Harrison, the astronomer and captain of the expedition. Dick Jarvis was chemist of the famous crew, the Ares expedition, first human beings to set foot on the mysterious neighbor of the earth, the planet Mars. This, of course, was in the old days, less than twenty years after the mad American Doheny perfected the atomic blast at the cost of his life, and only a decade after the equally mad Cardoza rode on it to the moon. They were true pioneers, these four of the Ares. Except for a half-dozen moon expeditions and the ill-fated de Lancey flight aimed at the seductive orb of Venus, they