Sci-fi luminary Stanley G. Weinbaum first broke through with the hugely influential story "e;A Martian Odyssey,"e; one of the first to depict an alien being in a somewhat sympathetic light. Written in 1935, the short tale "e;Pygmalion's Spectacles"e; is no less innovative: it centers around the implications of a technology that's surprisingly close to what we now call virtual reality.