Tweel (A Martian Odyssey) Tweel (A Martian Odyssey) Tweel (also referred to as a "Tweerl", the exact pronunciation of the word is said to be impossible for humans) is a fictional extraterrestrial from the planet Mars, featured in two short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The alien was featured in "A Martian Odyssey", first published in 1934, and "Valley of Dreams" four months later. Weinbaum died of lung cancer soon after, and a third installment in the series never saw fruition. Tweel remains one of the most recognised aliens in early science fiction, and is said to be an inspiration for aliens in the
A Princess of Mars the planetary romance had become very popular in the emerging science fiction pulp magazines. The novel can also be classified as the closely related genre sword and planet, which consists of what are essentially sword and sorcery stories that take place on another planet. "A Princess of Mars" is widely considered to be the archetypal novel of the sword and planet genre. The novel also shares a number of elements of Westerns, such as desert settings, women taken captive, and a climactic life-or-death confrontation with the antagonist. Burroughs employs a literary device for "A Princess of Mars" to which he