Parasite Planet - Weinbaum, Stanley G.

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Résumé :
This is a classic science fiction short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum that was originally published in Astounding Stories in 1935. Set on Venus, the story focuses on Hamilton 'Ham' Hammond, an American trader who lives in the Venusian Hotlands in the late 21st century. After his home is destroyed he sets out to reach the American settlement of Erotia. On his way he becomes involved in an altercation with Patricia Burlingame, a British woman who accuses him of poaching. Their fight is interrupted though by a Doughpot, a giant blob of plasma that devours everything in its wake including Patricia's home. The homeless couple decide to travel together until Ham discovers that Patricia has destroyed his bounty of Xixtchil pods. He leaves her but then feels guilty and turns back to follow her. Unfortunately danger is waiting for them both. This work is part of our Vintage Sci-Fi Classics Series, a series in which we are republishing some of the best stories in the genre by some of its most acclaimed authors, such as Isaac Asimov, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Robert Sheckley. Each publication is complete with a short introduction to the history of science fiction.

Biographie:
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum (1902 - 1935) was an American science fiction writer. His first story, A Martian Odyssey, was published to great acclaim in July 1934, but he died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later. He is best known for the groundbreaking science fiction short story, A Martian Odyssey, which presented a sympathetic but decidedly non-human alien, Tweel. Even more remarkably, this was his first science fiction story (in 1933 he had sold a romantic novel, The Lady Dances, to King Features Syndicate, which serialized the story in its newspapers in early 1934). Isaac Asimov has described A Martian Odyssey as a perfect Campbellian science fiction story, before John W. Campbell. Indeed, Tweel may be the first creature in science fiction to fulfil Campbell's dictum, 'write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man'. Asimov went on to describe it as one of only three stories that changed the way all subsequent ones in the science fiction genre were written. It is the oldest short story (and one of the top vote-getters) selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America for inclusion in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964.