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Acolyte, v. 4, issue 1, whole no. 13, Winter 1946
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future that it is already outdated. The New Adam, unquestionably one of Weinbaum's earliest fantastic writings, is crudely done, the author fumbling throughout and appearing to go around in circles. Here and there, amazingly well-done love scenes betoken Weinbaum's abilities to come, and somehow, riven through with literary faults as it is, The New Adam does succed in making an impression on the reader. It is the tale of a superman mutation. Somehow it seems that Weinbaum was attempting to explore his own soul in fictional form. You see him funbling, vainly grasping for a thread on which to bead his philosophy of life, and never securing it. Finally you are baffled to learn that after all his mental contortions, Weinbaum has found no better solution to the riddles that befuddle him than suicide. The story received some rather ambiguous compliments from A. Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ralph Milne Farley, and others--but in the final analysis, the reading, the truth came out. Beginning with Dr. Thos. S. Gardner's scathing denouncement of the book as "the greatest disappointment of the year, it received widespread denunciation, and became a commercial failure which remaindered at 29[[cent symbol]] per copy in New York City. The one remaining unpublished story of Weinbaum's is "The Mad Brain". Inquiry reveals little about it except that it is the sexiest thing Weinbaum ever wrote, and could not be used by the average fantasy magazine. Is it a good novel? We are never given a straight answer to that question, but are told that the sex is interpenetrated so subtlely throughout the story that it would be impossible to delete it. It is now in the possession of Weinbaum's widow, and the agent has given up all hope of selling it. Frequently, in "The Black Flame", "Dawn of Flame", The New Adam, and others we find examples of Weinbaum's poetry. None of it is outstanding, though it would appear that Weinbaum had poetical aspirations One isolated poem exists, which after having been lost for several years was published in the tenth issue of The Golden Atom. It is reprinted here by permission: The Last Martian Pass, Hours and vanish. When I die, you die-- All hours and years for these are fantasy Lacking the Mind that ticks them as they fly To unreal Past from vain futurity. All knowledge, Space and Time, exist for me, Born in my mind, my Slaves, my instruments, Tools of my thought, and somewhat more sublime In that it soon must perish, and go hence Taking all concepts with it. Ages ago When our young race new hate and love and lust, Courage and fear, I might have feared to know This brain of mine should flow away in dust, A gray streak on the ruddy sand of Mars, A broken flask of knowledge, contents spilled Beyond recovery. Going from tree to seed and seed to tree, Unthinking plants surviving in my place, Not individual immortality Lives on, but immortality of race. ---Stanley G. Weinbaum In the June 1935 issue of Fantasy Magazine there appeared an autobiographical sketch of Stanley G. Weinbaum. In this sketch, he gave little of his past life, beyond revealing that he had had some editor- -- 28 --
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future that it is already outdated. The New Adam, unquestionably one of Weinbaum's earliest fantastic writings, is crudely done, the author fumbling throughout and appearing to go around in circles. Here and there, amazingly well-done love scenes betoken Weinbaum's abilities to come, and somehow, riven through with literary faults as it is, The New Adam does succed in making an impression on the reader. It is the tale of a superman mutation. Somehow it seems that Weinbaum was attempting to explore his own soul in fictional form. You see him funbling, vainly grasping for a thread on which to bead his philosophy of life, and never securing it. Finally you are baffled to learn that after all his mental contortions, Weinbaum has found no better solution to the riddles that befuddle him than suicide. The story received some rather ambiguous compliments from A. Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ralph Milne Farley, and others--but in the final analysis, the reading, the truth came out. Beginning with Dr. Thos. S. Gardner's scathing denouncement of the book as "the greatest disappointment of the year, it received widespread denunciation, and became a commercial failure which remaindered at 29[[cent symbol]] per copy in New York City. The one remaining unpublished story of Weinbaum's is "The Mad Brain". Inquiry reveals little about it except that it is the sexiest thing Weinbaum ever wrote, and could not be used by the average fantasy magazine. Is it a good novel? We are never given a straight answer to that question, but are told that the sex is interpenetrated so subtlely throughout the story that it would be impossible to delete it. It is now in the possession of Weinbaum's widow, and the agent has given up all hope of selling it. Frequently, in "The Black Flame", "Dawn of Flame", The New Adam, and others we find examples of Weinbaum's poetry. None of it is outstanding, though it would appear that Weinbaum had poetical aspirations One isolated poem exists, which after having been lost for several years was published in the tenth issue of The Golden Atom. It is reprinted here by permission: The Last Martian Pass, Hours and vanish. When I die, you die-- All hours and years for these are fantasy Lacking the Mind that ticks them as they fly To unreal Past from vain futurity. All knowledge, Space and Time, exist for me, Born in my mind, my Slaves, my instruments, Tools of my thought, and somewhat more sublime In that it soon must perish, and go hence Taking all concepts with it. Ages ago When our young race new hate and love and lust, Courage and fear, I might have feared to know This brain of mine should flow away in dust, A gray streak on the ruddy sand of Mars, A broken flask of knowledge, contents spilled Beyond recovery. Going from tree to seed and seed to tree, Unthinking plants surviving in my place, Not individual immortality Lives on, but immortality of race. ---Stanley G. Weinbaum In the June 1935 issue of Fantasy Magazine there appeared an autobiographical sketch of Stanley G. Weinbaum. In this sketch, he gave little of his past life, beyond revealing that he had had some editor- -- 28 --
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