Synopsis

As Earth finalizes technology for interplanetary travel, a ship from Mars crash lands on Earth.

History

First publication: Amazing Stories July 1932

First published story by Earl and Otto Binder.

Review

“The First Martian” is the first story by the Binders and the second of their stories that I have read. It reads very much like an amateur effort b y the brothers who would go on to write one of the best and most famous robot stories in the genre. Character development is non-existant. The story goes through very long explanations of metalurgy and radio technology. Unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough to say for sure, but I suspect a lot of it isn’ accurate. Also unfortunately, these discussions occupy nearly half the words of this short story. And after dealing with too much scientific mumbo jumbo and no character interest, we aren’ even left with a decent idea. The story reads like a dry news report and does not take the reader anywhere. So you don’ even get a good idea out of it. The story has never been collected. As popular as they were, none of their non-series stories have ever been collected, even though they were writing into the 1960s and Otto carried on into the 70s. But this story really should be forgotten as one of the examples of how early SF grew from the excited but unprofessional writings of the early fans. Most of the 1930s SF writers have a bunch of these early stories that deserve to be forgotten. Not recommended. -GregK