Stanley G. Weinbaum 
Pygmalion’s Spectacles 

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