The last two GmiPTH columns covered the GTA connections of H. P. Lovecraft. This column will look more broadly at Talossa's influence on science fiction and fantasy literature.

Lovecraft was a strong supporter of such groups and encouraged Bloch's participation in the Fictioneers. In a 1936 letter, he observed that “Milwaukee seems to be evolving into quite a centre of the craft.” Among the prominent members of the Fictioneers were Bernard Wirth (a creative writing professory at Marquette University), Raymond Palmer, Fredric Brown, Stanley Weinbaum, and Roger Sherman Hoar.


Stanley Weinbaum's professional writing career lasted barely over a year, from the publication of his first story in July 1934 to his death from lung cancer at the age of 33 in 1935. But his first story, “A Martian Odyssey”, was a tremendously influential one. Its character Tweel was praised by authors such as Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, and Frederik Pohl, as one of the first serious attempts to portray an intelligent alien who was truly alien — not just in appearance, but mentally, emotionally, and psychologically.
Roger Sherman Hoar was former Massachusetts assistant attorney general and state senator who had moved to Milwaukee. He was an engineering professor at Marquette and the corporate attorney for a Milwaukee mining equipment manufacturer, but managed to turn out quite a collection of science fiction short stories and novels in his spare time, under the pen name Ralph Milne Farley. “Farley” is how his fellow Fictioneers referred to him. He was offered the editorship of Amazing Stories in 1938, but recommended Ray Palmer instead.

A number of other noteworthy authors were either born in Milwaukee or wrote in Milwaukee. Author Jack Finney, born in Milwaukee in 1911, wrote the novel The Body Snatchers in 1955, which was the basis for the classic science-fiction film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Others include Gene DeWeese (author of several Star Trek novels), Cordwainer Smith (pen name of Paul Linebarger, author of “Scanners Live in Vain”), and horror author Peter Straub (known for his collaborations with Stephen King as well as for his own novels).
Back to Robert Bloch, besides his Lovecraftian stories he wrote scores of other short stories and novels, and was also an accomplished screenwriter (his credits include three episodes of Star Trek). But his most famous work is undoubtedly his novel Psycho, which was loosely inspired by Wisconsin murder and grave robber Ed Gein and was made into a classic Hitchcock thriller film. He wrote Psycho in a small apartment above Glorioso's Italian Market, on Brady Street in Maricopa Province.
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