My publishers write me:
Before sending the manuscript of MARTIANS, GO HOME to the printer, we would like to suggest that you supply the story with a postscript to tell us and your other readers the truth about those Martians.
Since you wrote the book, you, if anyone, must know whether they were really from Mars or hell, or whether your character Luke Devereaux was right in believing that the Martians, along with everything else in the universe, existed only an his imagination.
It is unfair to your readers not to tell them.
Many things are unfair, including and particularly that request of my publishers!
I had wanted to avoid being definitive here, for the truth can be a frightening thing, and in this case it is a frightening thing if you believe it. But here it is:
Luke is right; the universe and all therein exists only in his imagination. He invented it, and the Martians.
But then again, I invented Luke. So where does that leave him or the Martians?
Or any of the rest of you?
FREDRIC BROWN
Tuscon, Arizona, 1955