Stanley G. Weinbaum. The story began as a collaboration with
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his ''Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first nov ...
; a number of his ideas remain in the final draft, mainly the use of
Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil (from Old Norse ), in Norse cosmology, is an immense and central sacred tree. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds.
Yggdrasil is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'' compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional s ...
.
*"Get a Horse!", first published in ''
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher ...
'', October 1969. Svetz is sent back in time to capture a horse, but brings back a unicorn instead.
*"Bird in the Hand", first published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', October 1970. Svetz is sent to get a
roc, but returns with an ostrich, which he reverse engineers into a roc. A co-worker swipes a prototype of
the very first automobile, causing a dangerous problem in the present.
*"Leviathan!", first published in ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
K ...
'', August 1970. Svetz is sent to capture the largest mythical creature that was ever imagined,
Leviathan
Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...
.
*"There's a Wolf in My Time Machine", first published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', October 1970. Svetz falls in love with a woman who evolved from a wolf.
*"Death in a Cage", first published in Niven's collection ''The Flight of the Horse'' (Ballantine, 1973). Svetz encounters the
archetype
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
of the
Grim Reaper
Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other b ...
.
*"Svetz and the Beanstalk", an afterword in which Niven discusses the fictional sources for ''Rainbow Mars''.
See also
*''
The Long Mars
''The Long Mars'' is a science fiction novel by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.
It is the third in a five-book series of the parallel-Earth sequence ''The Long Earth''. Originally entitled ''The Long Childhood'', it was changed to ''The L ...
'', 2014 novel written as a collaboration by
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his ''Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first nov ...
and
Stephen Baxter involving alternate versions of Mars.
Notes
External links
Annotations of the stories
{{The War of the Worlds
1999 short story collections
Barsoom
Short stories set on Mars
War of the Worlds written fiction
Short story collections by Larry Niven
Werewolf written fiction
Adaptations of works by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Adaptations of works by H. G. Wells
Tor Books books
Short stories about parallel universes
Water scarcity in fiction
Roc (mythology)
Short stories set in the future
Short fiction about time travel