Popularity and Influence
The depiction of aliens who are completely alien mentally as well as physically and are completely bent on humanity's destruction is similar to that of the Arcturians in Brown's earlier What Mad Universe.
His short story "Arena" was voted by Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the top 20 SF stories ever written before 1965. His 1945 short story "The Waveries" was described by Philip K. Dick as "what may be the most significant—startlingly so—story SF has yet produced." "Knock" is well known for its opening, which is a complete two-sentence short-short story in itself.
Ayn Rand singled out Brown for high praise in her book The Romantic Manifesto. The famous pulp writer Mickey Spillane called Brown "my favorite writer of all time". Science fiction and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman has also expressed fondness for Brown's work, having his novel Here Comes A Candle narrated by the character Rose Walker in the collection The Kindly Ones of The Sandman.
Brown also had the honor of being one of three dedicatees of Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
Read more about this topic: Fredric Brown
Famous quotes containing the words popularity and/or influence:
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)