Miles John Breuer was an American physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 writer. He was part of the first generation of writers to appear regularly in the pulp science fiction magazines, publishing his first story, "The Man with the Strange Head", in the January 1927 issue of Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...

. His best known works are his story "The Gostak

Gostak

Gostak is a meaningless noun that is used in the phrase "the gostak distims the doshes", an example of how it is possible to derive meaning from the syntax of a sentence even if the referents of the terms are entirely unknown. This can be seen in the following dialogue:In Amazing Stories, Dr...

 and the Doshes," (1930) and his collaborative work with Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson

John Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...

, "The Girl from Mars" (1929) and The Birth of a New Republic (1931).

Early life and medical career

Breuer was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in 1889 to Charles and Barbara Breuer, Czech immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The family moved to Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 in 1893 while Charles pursued a medical degree at Creighton University

Creighton University

Creighton University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1878, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by...

 in Omaha

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, and Miles grew up in the Czech community of Crete, Nebraska

Crete, Nebraska

Crete is a city in Saline County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 6,960 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Crete is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

. Miles graduated from Crete High School in 1906, and went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Texas in 1911. After earning a medical degree from Rush Medical College

Rush Medical College

Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, a private university in Chicago, Illinois. Rush Medical College was one of the first medical colleges in the state of Illinois and was chartered in 1837, two days before the city of Chicago was chartered, and opened with 22 students on...

 at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1915, Miles joined his father's medical practice in Nebraska. In 1916 Miles married Julia Strejic and the couple had three children, Rosalie, Stanley, and Mildred.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 Miles Breuer served for twenty months in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 as a first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps

Medical Corps (United States Army)

The Medical Corps of the U.S. Army is a staff corps of the U.S. Army Medical Department consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an MD or a DO degree, at least one year of post-graduate clinical training, and a state medical license.The MC traces its earliest origins...

. Rejoining his father's medical practice after the war, Breuer contributed frequent medical articles to Czech-language newspapers, as well as a monthly health column in the country's largest Czech-language agricultural monthly. In 1925 he published a handbook called Index of Physiotherapeutic Technic, cataloging a variety of methods for physical therapy. Breuer suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1942, and shortly afterwards moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, where he continued his medical practice until 1945, when he died after a brief illness.

Writing career

Breuer's first published work of fiction was a Czech-language story called "The Man Without an Appetite" that appeared in the monthly Bratrsky Vestnik in 1916. Breuer had long been interested in scientific romances, particularly those of H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

. When Hugo Gernsback

Hugo Gernsback

Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...

 founded the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, Breuer began writing and submitting stories, publishing his first, "The Man with the Strange Head", in the January 1927 issue. Breuer went on to publish a total of thirty-six stories and two novels in the science fiction magazines over the next fifteen years, including collaborations with Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson

John Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...

 and Clare Winger Harris

Clare Winger Harris

Clare Winger Harris was an early science fiction writer whose short stories were published during the 1920s. She is credited as the first woman to publish stories under her own name in science fiction magazines...

.

Several of Breuer's stories were anthologized over the years, and in 2008 Michael R. Page of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln edited The Man with the Strange Head and Other Early Science Fiction Stories, which included ten stories, the novel Paradise and Iron, and Breuer's editorial essay "The Future of Scientifiction".

Jack Williamson called Breuer "among the first and best of the amateurs whose work Gernsback began to print." Walter Gillings stated that Breuer wrote "some of the most intriguing tales that appeared in the early volumes of Amazing Stories," and John Clute

John Clute

John Frederick Clute is a Canadian born author and critic who has lived in Britain since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history."...

 described his work as crudely written, but intelligent and noted for new ideas.

Short stories

• "The Man with the Strange Head", Amazing Stories, January 1927. Reprinted in The Big Book of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1950; Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The Wonder Years 1926 - 1935; ed. Martin H. Greenberg, TSR, 1987; The Man with the Strange Head and Other Early Science Fiction Stories, ed. Michael R. Page, University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
• "The Stone Cat", Amazing Stories, September 1927.
• "The Riot at Sanderac", Amazing Stories, December 1927.
• "The Puzzle Duel", Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1928.
• "The Appendix and the Spectacles", Amazing Stories, December 1928. Reprinted in The Science Fiction Galaxy, ed. Groff Conklin, Perma Books, 1950; The Mathematical Magpie
  The Mathematical Magpie
  The Mathematical Magpie is an anthology published in 1962, compiled by Clifton Fadiman as a companion volume to his Fantasia Mathematica . The volume contains stories, cartoons, essays, rhymes, music, anecdotes, aphorisms, and other oddments. Authors include Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Mark Twain,...
  
  , ed. Clifton Fadiman, Simon & Schuster, 1962; The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Captured Cross-Section", Amazing Stories, February 1929. Reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #12, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Avon Novels, 1950; Fantasia Mathematica
  Fantasia Mathematica
  Fantasia Mathematica is an anthology published in 1958 containing stories, humor, poems, etc., all on mathematical topics, compiled by Clifton Fadiman. A companion volume was published as The Mathematical Magpie . The volume contains writing by authors including Robert Heinlein, Aldous Huxley, H. G...
  
  , ed. Clifton Fadiman, Simon & Schuster, 1958; Other Dimensions, ed. Robert Silverberg, Hawthorn Books, 1973.
• "Buried Treasure", Amazing Stories, April 1929.
• "The Book of Worlds", Amazing Stories, July 1929. Reprinted in Avon Science Fiction Reader #2, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Avon Novels, 1951; Fantastic Stories, April 1969; New Horizons: Yesterday's Portraits of Tomorrow, ed. August Derleth, Arkham House, 1999.
• "Rays and Men", Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929.
• "The Girl from Mars" (with Jack Williamson), Science Fiction Series #1, November 1929. Reprinted in The Early Williamson, Jack Williamson, Doubleday, 1975; The Metal Man and Others: The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume One, Jack Williamson, Haffner, 1999.
• "A Baby on Neptune" (with Clare Winger Harris), Amazing Stories, December 1929. Reprinted in Away from the Here and Now, Clare Winger Harris, Dorrance, 1947; Flight into Space, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Fredrick Fell, 1950; Gosh! Wow! (Sense of Wonder) Science Fiction, ed. Forrest J. Ackerman, Bantam, 1982.
• "The Fitzgerald Contraction", Science Wonder Stories, January 1930. Reprinted in Startling Stories, January 1942.
• "The Hungry Guinea Pig", Amazing Stories, January 1930. Reprinted in Science Fiction Adventures in Mutation, ed. Groff Conklin, Vanguard Press, 1955; Amazing Stories, October 1961; Science Fiction Classics Annual, 1970; The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF eds. David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Tor, 1994.
• "The Gostak and the Doshes", Amazing Stories, March 1930. Reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #10, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Avon Novels, 1949; Science Fiction Adventures in Dimension, ed. Groff Conklin, Vanguard Press, 1953; Great Science Fiction by Scientists, ed. Groff Conklin, Collier Books, 1962; Science Fiction Classics, Fall 1967; The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction Masterpieces, eds. Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg, Arbor House, 1983; Amazing Stories: 60 Years of the Best Science Fiction, eds. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, TSR, 1985; Great Tales of Science Fiction, eds. Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg, Galahad Books, 1988; The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Driving Power", Amazing Stories, July 1930.
• "The Time Valve", Wonder Stories, July 1930.
• "The Inferiority Complex", Amazing Stories, September 1930.
• "A Problem in Communication", Astounding Stories of Super-Science, September 1930. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "On Board the Martian Liner", Amazing Stories, March 1931. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Time Flight", Amazing Stories July 1931.
• "The Demons of Rhadi-Mu", Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931.
• "Mechanocracy", Amazing Stories, April 1932. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Einstein See-Saw", Astounding Stories, April 1932. Reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #15, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Avon Novels, 1951.
• "The Perfect Planet", Amazing Stories, May 1932.
• "The Finger of the Past", Amazing Stories, November 1932. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Strength of the Weak", Amazing Stories, December 1933.
• "Millions for Defense", Amazing Stories, March 1933. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "Mars Colonizes", Marvel Tales, Summer 1935. Reprinted in The Garden of Fear and Other Stories, ed. William L. Crawford, Crawford Publication, 1949; The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Chemistry Murder Case", Amazing Stories, October 1935.
• "Mr. Dimmitt Seeks Redress", Amazing Stories, August 1936. Reprinted in Amazing Stories, October 1966.
• "The Company or the Weather", Amazing Stories, June 1937.
• "Mr. Bowen's Wife Reduces", Amazing Stories, February 1938. Reprinted in Amazing Science Fiction, September 1970.
• "The Raid from Mars", March 1939.
• "The Disappearing Papers", Future Fiction, November 1939.
• "The Oversight", Comet Stories, December 1940. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The Sheriff of Thorium Gulch", Amazing Stories, August 1942.

Novels

• The Birth of a New Republic (with Jack Williamson), Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1930. Reprinted in The Metal Man and Others.
• Paradise and Iron, Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1930. Reprinted in The Man with the Strange Head.

Poems

• "The Specter", Weird Tales, March 1927.
• "Via Scientiae", Amazing Stories, May 1930.
• "Sonnet to Science", Amazing Stories, December 1930.

Essays

• "The Future of Scientifiction", Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929. Reprinted in Science Fiction Classics, Summer 1968; The Man with the Strange Head.
• "The New Frontier", Startling Stories, May 1940.

External links

— Includes the Miles J. Breuer story “A Problem in Communication”

• "The Raid From Mars" at Project Gutenberg Australia
  Project Gutenberg Australia
  Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. The site hosts free ebooks or e-texts which are in the public domain in Australia. The ebooks have been prepared and submitted by volunteers...