Valley of Dreams

A mission to recover lost films sends two scientists across a cold and unfamiliar Mars in Valley of Dreams. Captain Harrison needs the Ares expedition ready for its return to Earth, but chemist Dick Jarvis also wants to find Tweel, the Martian companion who helped him survive an earlier adventure. Jarvis sets out with biologist Leroy, whose eagerness to collect specimens brings another purpose to their flight.

Stanley G. Weinbaum builds his science fiction around the difficulty of understanding another world. Walking growths and creatures with both plant and animal qualities challenge the visitors' familiar categories. In an abandoned city, strange books and enormous wall pictures offer tantalizing signs of a culture Jarvis can only partly interpret. Much of the account unfolds through his report to the expedition crew, mixing impatient questions with scientific guesses. The appeal lies in that combination of practical exploration, lively conversation, and uncertainty about what intelligent life might look like.