Roger Dee's "The Obligation" (novelette, free, first contact): An alien's adventures at a human camp on Venus

A shape-shifting surveyor ("Cseth Abrii of Pselpha from the binary suns Kornephoros") from an alien elder race saves a human fisherman on Venus in a storm. Alien's later friendly gestures at the human camp drive another man mad with fear - so we have a madman hunting the alien & other humans of the habitat trying to save the alien. Eventually, the madman will die & so will the saved man's wife, but does the man need to know his wife is dead? Alien thinks he has an obligation towards the friendly man who lost his wife trying to save him...

Collected in.

1. Donald A Wollheim (ed)'s "Adventures on Other Planets".

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, September 1952.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Roger Dee.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Carson of Venus" (novel, adventure, free): Hero helps win a war

This is #3 in author's Venus series. I've not read the earlier books, but it's pretty much an independent adventure. And very readable if you can keep plausibility aside.

Story summary.

Carson Napier, hero of the story, along with his ladylove Duare, is homeless & wanted in many jurisdictions on Venus. But he has an airplane he built that can stay up in the air without maintenance or refueling for 50 years! But he needs to land for food. The duo are seeking a home where they will be wanted.

They'll end up on a large island (Korva) with war going on - a common soldier has usurped power & has imprisoned the king. All of Korva has fallen except one holdout, the walled city of Sanara. The city is now under seize.

Carson will end up befriending the holdouts, & help them win the war by bombing enemy from his plane & by playing a spy in usurper's city.

Notes.

There is also an unrelated short story length adventure at the beginning of the novel - tribals kidnap Duare & Carson will rescue her.

Fact sheet.

First published: As a serial in 6 parts in Argosy, Jan 8, 15, 22, 29, & Feb 5 & 12 issues, 1938.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg of Australia or Feedbooks.
Rating: A.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in novel category.

Clifford D Simak's "Tools" (novelette, free): Introducing very weird radioactive gaseous aliens

Key parts of this story involve Radon-222 gas, a natural radioactive decay product of radium, & the biggest cause of lung cancer among non smokers on earth. It also is the heaviest gas on earth, though its own decay products aren't gaseous. It's highly toxic.

Story summary.

Humans have been mining radium on Venus, where it's available in vast quantities. It's a key source of energy, & this mining business is a monopoly of Radium, Inc.

Someone discovered strange life-like properties in radon gas found there. In a lab, they've succeed, via special electrical sensors, to communicate with a bottled concentration of it. They've robotic mining devices whose brains are small confined concentrations of gas.

When the bottled gas intelligence in lab that has learned a lot about the human civilization leaks, gas all across Venus learns the things we know. So we have an adventure fighting an elusive omnipresent alien with completely unfamiliar thought processes.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Clifford D Simak.

Ray Bradbury's "Eat, Drink and Be Wary" (flash fiction, humor, free)

A "Venusian banquet lasts a week or ten days, sometimes more, with eight meals a day & twenty courses to a meal." That's normal for Venusians with their ultra-fast metabolism.

But when a human diplomat is invited to one of these banquets, saying no is not an option & going there is death sentence. So our diplomat will seek some scientific help...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Ray Bradbury.

Harry Walton's "Subcruiser" (short story, action, free): Foiling a warship hijack

This is a "spy aboard a warship" story. Earth & Venus are at war, earth has a new type of space ship whose sample Venusians want for reverse engineering, & they've recruited an officer of earth to help get the ship. Hero, will, of course, foil the conspiracy.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1941.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.

Vic Phillips & Scott Roberts' "Fish Story" (short story, fishing adventure, free)

It's hunting adventure in the jungles of Venus, told by an unreliable narrator. I completely missed the details of the scientific technique in the story - a chemical process (something about crystallization of salt) to entomb "fish" wholesale in a lake, fish that cannot be caught by normal methods. And the sensibilities here are disturbing, though probable - hunting an animal species nearly to extinction in one shot, over a couple of days, rather than over hundreds of years that has been the norm!

"Fish" in the story are "Porgill", larvae stage of "Nordiff" - a land animal that lays eggs in the lake.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1941.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.

Miles M Acheson's "The Apprentice" (short story, adventure, free)

This could really have been from Planet Stories rather than Astounding - an action packed adventure in the jungles of Venus. But it does have a funny punchline - a test to determine if you are smart enough!

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1950.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding (British ed), June 1951.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.

Charles R Tanner's "Tumithak of the Corridors" (novella, adventure, free)

While the ideas here are familiar, may be this was one of the stories that originated some of them? And there is obvious influence of H G Wells.

Story summary.

Shelks, of Venus, conquered earth thousands of years ago, driving humans into vast underground warrens that are now the natural habitat of humanity. Tumithak, hero of the story, is a human from these warrens who has vague dreams of humanity overcoming the shelks & reclaiming earth.

To this end, he will undertake a journey to the surface to slay a shelk. Story is mostly of his adventures during this journey.

See also.

1. A Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer": An intelligent rat from an "underground" rat colony will kill a "giant" (a man).
2. William Tenn's "Of Men & Monsters": Man living as rat-like pests in a world (earth?) now owned by giant aliens.

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, January 1932.
Download full text from The Writings of Charles R Tanner. [via James W Harris @ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B. 

Harl Vincent's "Neutral Vessel" (novelette, kinetic weapon, free): NY WTC attacks' style plot from several decades before

Bad men don't hijack a plane here. They hijack a spaceship. And target is the destruction of an entire world. Accelerating a huge spaceship to unbelievable speeds & ramming it into a world.

According to Johnny Pez's introduction to the story, this story features "science fiction’s first kinetic weapon". He also talks of parallels of the plot with then about-to-start WWII & popular perceptions in the US then.

Story summary.

Venus & Mars are both inhabited. There is intermarriage across worlds - so presumably both are settled by humans. There has been a war going on between Mars & Venus. Earth has stayed neutral so far.

In this background, the drive & communications systems of a large passenger ship on earth-to-Venus run are sabotaged by Martian agents in a way that makes the ship accelerate uncontrollably to eventually hit Venus.

Can the captain & his crew be able to save themselves & a world...

See also.

1. Pat Forde's "In Spirit" (download): A collection of 9/11 stories where one of the culprits is forced to experience the event from victims' perspective.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, January 1940.
Download full text from Johnny Pez's blog (story is distributed over 5 pages; links to other pages available with the story).
Rating: B.
Among the stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.

A H Phelps' "The Merchants of Venus" (short story, free): Recruitment & attrition problems of a startup

I'm not sure how well this applies to corporate attrition & recruitment problems, though I kept getting reminded of office issues when reading it. This one really applies what the author claims is the model of settlement of Americas & Australia to the problem of finding colonists to settle Venus.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, March 1954.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.

Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds" (novella, adventure, free): Ordinary man foils genocide conspiracy

Actually, you've probably read this story before; it's just umpteenth retelling of the same story. Interesting thing is: it's one of the few Nebula nominees this year in novella category that I could actually finish. There is constant action, so no boredom.

Story summary.

Dr Leah Hamakawa & David Tinkerman, because of their experience studying Martian ecology, are invited by Carlos Fernando, the heir who will own practically all of the 1000s of orbiting human habitats of Venus. Only, several habitats don't owe him allegiance, & he's hatching a genocide conspiracy that David will foil.

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, September 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2010 in novella category.

Eric Frank Russell's "The Star Watchers" aka "Sentinels from Space" aka "Sentinels of Space" (novel, free): Humanity's guardian angels get involved in its petty troubles

While the story is generally quite readable as an adventure involving political intrigue, it's unusual for a Russell story in that it includes pretty much every known genre trope: telepathy, teleporting, mutants, pyrotics (ability to physically burn someone by thought!), body snatchers, shape shifters, energy beings, bug-talkers, levitators, aliens, Martians & Venusians, ... you name it. It's as if author wanted to dedicate it to the wide-eyed fan happy with funny sounded names.

I like to be surprised by a story's twists, but this one uses magic rather than logic for this.

Story summary.

It's a complex story with a lot of threads, but the main plot involves David Raven, an alien disguised as human. He's one of the two guardian angels on earth of unnamed god-like energy beings, primarily to guard against possible interference in human development by Denebs, another advanced alien race.

But much of the story involves only humanity. Human colonies on Mars & Venus want freedom Earth is denying them; so they've started a sabotage campaign on earth. Earth cannot stop them from coming in, or it will have to recognize them as non-citizens!

David will unofficially help the government put out the rebellion.

Quotes.

1. "All wars go on for too long".
2. On governmental secrecy: "What constitutes legitimate news was decided by the type of mind that insists that matters of major public interest must not be divulged in the public interest."
3. "the most effective technique is not to fight a thing but set its own parts fighting one another."
4. "The public will swallow anything providing it appears to bear the seal of official approval & is sufficiently long sustained & plays upon their fears".

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, November 1951.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
This story was later expanded into the novel "Sentinels from Space" (1953), also sometimes titled "Sentinels of Space".
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell (annotated & ranked list).

Eric Frank Russell's "The Army Comes to Venus" aka "Sustained Pressure" (novelette, Christianity, free): Persistence pays

Army of title refers to The Salvation Army, a Christian sect. Story is about pressure groups - how they come into being & shape society.

Story summary.

An unnamed frontier town on Venus, the only one there yet. Mankind has recently reached Venus & is busy mining the place. This is a rowdy men-only town; Annie's brothel is about the only place that has women.

That's when Miranda Dean arrives to start her church. This is the story of her persistence, & patience, bringing religion to the town of sinners.

Collected in.

1. "Major Ingredients" (ed Rick Katze). 

Fact sheet.

First published: Nebula Science Fiction December 1953. [via Robert Wilfred Franson]
Download as part of the scans of the Fantastic Universe, May 1959 where it was reprinted.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell (annotated & ranked list).

Henry Hasse's "One Purple Hope!" (short story, drug addiction, free)

A good samaritan helps a serious drug addict who was once a competent man shed addiction & start getting his sanity back.

Story is set on Venus.

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, July 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Hasse; fiction set on Venus; fiction from 1950s.

Lester del Rey's "Over the Top" (short story, war, free): Men go to war, unless distracted!

This is of a class of war stories that don't have an actual war - just a build up towards it. Then a wise man, or circumstances, create a distraction so people can channel their excess energies in a different direction! Probably the best I've seen of this class so far is Fritz Leiber's "Wanted--An Enemy".

Story summary.

Dave Mannen, a midget, is the sole man aboard the first human ship to Mars. He will land, but with a minor shipwreck that makes take-off impossible but life support systems intact. He has a few weeks of air, after that end. Oh, and he'll soon befriend a "Martian farmer" too.

This event - a man in distress in a dramatic situation - brings enemies together on earth. So a repurposed Soviet missile will land supplies for this US man - so he can fix the ship & return.

But the man in distress is seeing more than all humanity is seeing back on earth, & has a plan that will keep humanity distracted a little while longer...

Collected in.

1. John W Campbell, Jr (ed)'s "The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, November 1949.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding issue it originally appeared in.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey; Mars in fiction; Tuesday Classics.

Eric Frank Russell's "Three To Conquer" aka "Call Him Dead" (novel, alien invasion): Invasion by intelligent microbial parasites of Venus

This is one sitting reading material. Fast paced, unputdownable, action story. But based on much written about ideas: ghosts & alien forms "possessing" a victim, & inhuman beings masquerading as humans quietly on their way to replacing humanity.

Story summary.

US government has sent a secret manned mission to Venus with 3 astronauts: William Gould, Cory McDonald, & Earl James Langley. With two expected dates of their return, depending on whether they find the locate hostile & need to immediately return, or if they get some time to explore. First date is past but not the second - so officialdom is happy exploration is happening.
Note: I'm puzzled by stories even from 1950s assuming manned space travel is easier than space communications!

Actually, officials are wrong. The ship has returned. Only, its three astronauts are now possessed by a parasitic intelligent life form of Venus that by itself has the form of microbes inhabiting the nervous tissue of its host. It's happy in its human hosts, & has quietly set about multiplying itself by infecting more people.

Then we have the hero - Wade Harper. Only known human telepath, & a far better detective that ordinary cops & FBI men. He will stumble upon the secret of aliens, & persuade the powers-that-be in Washington to mount the concerted government effort to rid the world of menace. And succeed, after much drama.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, August/September/October 1955 as "Call Him Dead".
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John W Campbell, Jr.
Buy at Amazon.com.
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell (annotated list).

Henry Kuttner's "Beauty and the Beast" (short story, irony, free): Appearance can be deceptive. And dangerous when coupled with prejudice.

Telling style is very pulp-era, but I liked the story as a whole. And there is a distinct similarity with some parts of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein".

Story summary.

An ordinary farmer has come into possession of a hibernating alien & some seeds of pretty flowers the first human explorer to Venus (who returned dead) brought back. Farmer brought the alien to life & planted the seeds.

Pretty flowers that resulted were very popular & easy to grow, & their cultivation spread throughout earth.

The alien who emerged was actually of the now extinct Venusian dominant race. Huge dinosaur sized reptilian ("Beast" to humans), very intelligent & full of gratitude for humanity. Communicating with humans, however, is tricky because of their prejudices about his appearance, but the warning he must give them is urgent...

Very Kuttnerian ending.

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1940.
Download full text.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner; Tuesday Classics.

Real science: Seas of Venus!

@CBC News: Preliminary interpretation of data from Venus Express probe hints at ancient ocean there, 4 billion years ago - back when sun was a bit cooler!

[via James Nicoll]

Related: Venus in fiction.

George Oliver Smith's "Instinct" (short story, free)

This is more a juvenile story than for grown ups.

Story summary.

Six times during the human history, all powerful aliens bludgeoned human civilization to savage stage just as they were about to reach the critical stage for galactic adventure.

Now is the seventh time. Bull-headed humans have again reached the same stage through the same process. Worried aliens now want to understand what makes the humans tick.

To this end, Jerry Markham is kidnapped. He was piloting the first ship to Venus & got picked up on the way. While the aliens are "studying" him, magic happens...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding Science Fiction, March 1959.
Rating: B.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks, or Scribd.
Listed among the stories from John Campbell's Astounding/Analog.

Brian W Aldiss' "Let's Be Frank" (short story, free): How humanity became a hive intelligence

Once upon a time, a man called Frank Gladwebb lived in England. He carried a weird chromosome that manifested in some of his progeny of both sexes. When it did, the individual became essentially Frank in a different body - Frank 2, Frank 3, etc! Over the centuries, it spread across the world - so humanity became a single hive entity.

OK - not one but two hive entities; a mutation happened early during the spread. No prizes for guessing the people included in the two hives - Americans vs everybody else.

Notes.

1. Story is narrated by a Venusian, whose presence in the story is completely unnecessary.
2. Story references history of English royalty at many places; so should hopefully be more interesting read to English readers, assuming they know more of their country's history than I do of mine.
3. Going by references at a couple of places to war, I guess the motivation might be to present a method of avoiding war - something shared by many stories. A hive cannot fight itself. Two hives in the story also don't seem to be fight each other; may be hive is supposed to make the entity wiser.
   

Collected in.

1. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Issac Asimov Presents Great SF Stories 19 (1957)".

Fact sheet.

First published: Science-Fantasy, #23 (June 1957).
Rating: B.
Download full text from Internet Archive.
Included in Ellen Datlow's SciFiction's Classics.
Related: Stories of Brian Aldiss.

* Paul Preuss's "Arthur C Clarke's Venus Prime, Volume 1" of 6 (novel)

Main post. Why this dummy post?

* Arthur Clarke's "History Lesson" (short story)

Main post. Why this dummy post?

James Van Pelt's "Of Late I Dreamt of Venus" (novelette, science fiction): Terrafarming Venus!

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

This is the story of a very rich woman Elizabeth Audrey, & her lover Henry Harrison. She has decided to terrafarm Venus & make it a world that is better than earth.

Since the project is likely to take a 1000 years or more, she has arranged herself & her lover to be put to hibernation for several hundred years at a time - so they can periodically emerge & examine the progress!

A small parallel thread tells us she's not happy with the physical appearance of her lover. So every time they hibernate, she arranges to have some physical aspect of him changed while he's hibernating - without his consent. After a while, he's very angry.

Anyway, the story comprises of 3 or 4 awakenings over the entire terrafarming period. During the final sleep, something went wrong. She barely made it - & woke up as an old woman. Her lover has generally been coming out of hibernation many years before her - so now he's old too.

What she finds after final awakening is that Venus is habitable but nowhere near as good as she wanted. Her lover is very angry because of her tinkering with his body. All her huge properties & corporations are long gone. While Venus is now very alive, she no longer is a heroine; she's now merely a historical curiosity.

Collected in.

1. Gardner Dozois (Ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Eric T Reynolds (Ed)'s "Visual Journeys" (anthology), 2007.
Rating: B

Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" (short story & short movie, science fiction): Some jokes can be very costly

I found this one, thanks to Rusty.

Full text of this story is available for download. Movie version (25 minutes) is directed by Ed Kaplan. This movie version is also available on YouTube, probably with lower quality; but this online version is the only one I've seen. It's available in 3 parts: part 1, part 2, & part 3.

I personally found the movie incomparably more interesting than text version.

Note the movie is accessible even to those not comfortable with US accent. There aren't a lot of dialogs; it's close to a silent movie, though there are some dialogs. And voice is provided by superb artists; I found them far easier to follow than many Hollywood movies.

Story summary.

Imagine a world where it always rains, & heavily. It's dry & you see sun only for 1 hour every 7 years! In this story, Venus is imagined as such a world.

Now you have a classroom full of 9 year olds. Sun is due to be visible soon, but none of the kids remembers it - they were only 2 years old last time.

Except one kid - Margot. She arrived only 5 years back from earth. She has vivid memories of sunlight.

Just before sunrise, she's being teased by classmates & is locked up in a room as a joke. And forgotten. Until the sun has risen & set, & it's back to all rains.

Everyone is contrite when she's released. But how do you repair the damage?

Fact sheet.

First published: F&SF, March 1954.
Rating: A for both movie & original text version.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Iron Standard" (short story): When "man-hour standard" replaced "gold standard" for currency valuation

In spite of a fantasy setting on Venus, I think this funny & somewhat frivolous story is better classified as non-genre. An imaginary island in the tradition of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" would have worked as well.

The story is about jolting a static civilization out of its slumber. Circumstances have made this jolting a survival issue for the heroes.

I kept getting the impression the author was satirizing some political aspect of his era. May be you can see the political issues if you are familiar with the US of 1940s; they didn't mean anything to me.

Story summary.

There is a group of 5 humans stranded on Venus, outside "the capital city, Vyring" of its world state. Year is "1964, three years after the first successful flight to Mars, five years since" moon landing. Moon "was uninhabited, save by active but unintelligent algae." "Martians ... had been friendly, and it was certain that the cultures of Mars and Earth would not clash." This expedition, on spaceship "Goodwill", was the first to explore Venus.

They found a very habitable world, & a thriving civilization controlled by professional guilds (locally called "tarkomars"). Since most political power is in the hands of these guilds, those who control them have been thwarting all attempts at even minor social changes.

Humans initially were warmly welcomed. They received a lot of hydroponically-grown local food as gift, & returned the welcome with earth-grown food they were carrying. The locals are so close to humans that each other's food is edible. And food available in the wild is utterly inedible - the reason locals have hydroponics in the first place. Don't ask how they evolved there!

But "Earthmen meant change." So, after an initial honeymoon, there is "a boycott of the Earthmen." Locals will not be gifting food anymore. "They had no intention of harming the Earthmen; they remained carefully friendly. But from now on, it was pay as you're served."

Humans don't have enough food left to return to earth. Local hydroponic food they have received till now spoils fast & is not suitable for long term storage; gifts they had received have already rotted away.

Humans have gold, silver, etc. But they are abundant metals there. But iron is rare, & has the value that gold enjoys on earth. "Venus was on the iron standard" - hence the title.

Explorers cannot contact earth for help. "Venus has a Heaviside layer, so we can't wireless" earth!

Local administration doesn't discriminate against humans. You can earn there & then buy food. But law requires that all workers be part of some guild; begging is legal, but even for that you need membership of Beggars' Guild! And membership requires an upfront payment in local currency!

Jorust, sort of mayer of Vyring, is sympathetic to humans, but is helpless. She only enforces laws; she doesn't make them!

Our heroes try a lot of tricks, all thwarted. One of them even builds an X-ray machine to sell to locals in return for money. "they were permitted to sell a self created device without belonging to a tarkomar". Even that is found to be illegal because it violates, in ways that only a lawyer can argue, local patents - owned & suppressed by guilds! One of these patents is on "sensitized film". When told the X-ray machine doesn't use film, another patent is produced - this one on "Machines employing vibration... Light is vibration"!!

Ultimately, our heroes figure out a way to game the system. By replacing iron or gold standard with man-hour standard! Idea is: if a man earns X amount in an hour's work, & I suddenly make some men in the economy capable of earning 2X, I have introduced an instability into the system. I can then bargain with those who don't want such instability.

So someone concocts stamina-enhancement "Power Pills". Eat one, & if you are in a labor intensive job, you can do twice the work! Only problem is - humans cannot sell the pills unless they become guild members. So they would, instead, gift them! Now, gifting is an old tradition, & even Venusians had been gifting them food when they arrived - so there is a precedent.

So we get a kind of fair at the "main plaza of Vyring". One member of the human contingent is showing stamina by digging a hole fast in the ground for long hours, other juggling balls, third stitching cloths, fourth typing/distributing pamphlets advertising the virtues of pills, ...

Soon there is a crowd. And a cop. Then they are handing out the pills; more can be had at their camping site later. There are objections from cop & a visitor from guild, but they aren't really violating law by giving free gifts.

Over the next few days, economy begins seeing changes. If two men were earning the same, & one was paid on hourly basis & other on number of units produced, second one is now suddenly earning more! Discontent among the former.

Eventually, humans will make a blackmailing deal with the a guild president. Guild will pay them a certain amount of protection money, & they will stop distributing their free gifts!

The stranded earthmen.

1. Captain Rufus Munn
2. Steve Thirkell
3. Barton Underhill - "supercargo and handy man"
4. Mike Soaring Eagle aka Redskin
5. Bronson - the engineer

Related.

1. All stories by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner & C L Moore).
   

Collected in.

1. "The Best of Henry Kuttner".
2. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 5 (1943)".
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding Science Fiction, December 1943. Under the joint pseudonym Lewis Padgett - of Henry Kuttner & his wife C L Moore.
Rating: B

Stanley G Weinbaum's "Parasite Planet": Very filmi romance - on Venus

This very dated-in-facts story is still quite readable.

There was one aspect I found a bit irritating - advocacy of East India Company style colonists, & the assumption that the big colonial powers of early twentieth century will always be the only ones that count. Ignore that, & it's an enjoyable story.

Full text of this story can be downloaded here.

Story summary.
Story is based on the assumption that Venus always shows the same face to sun; it's only local movement is a kind of wobble that produces 15 day seasons at the edges where day-side meets night-side.

And that its atmosphere is thin enough on planetary surface for naked humans.

And that it is teeming with local life that is biochemically compatible with earth life - so you can eat local food, & they can eat earth food. And that it has sentient life that humans can verbally talk to & trade with!

And that it has enormous amounts of water. I am not sure if this assumption is also dated now.

Based on this, the author has cooked up quite an adventure & romance in jungle.

Hamilton Hammond is a 27 year old trader from US - living alone in desolate frontier, & "trading with the natives for the spore-pods of the Venusian plant xixtchil, from which terrestrial chemists would extract ... the xixtline ... that was so effective in rejuvenation treatments... the treatments didn't actually increase the span of life, but just produced a sort of temporary and synthetic youth. Gray hair darkened, wrinkles filled out, bald heads grew fuzzy, and then, in a few years, the rejuvenated person was just as dead as he would have been, anyway."

We are told the Venus is full of subterranean rivers - some boiling hot, some icy cold. They often produce mudspouts - kind of landslide where the land under you caves in, & a kind of quicksand is produced - taking in everything on surface.

Mudspout of boiling hot nature occurs under Hamilton's hut, forcing him to leave. He survives with a few supplies & heads for the dangerous 200 mile trek to "American settlement Erotia". Trek is dangerous because the place is crawling with carnivorous plants & other life.

Mid way through, he comes across another hut. After a very filmi first encounter, he finds the owner is Patricia Burlingame, 22, a biologist, & the first human born on Venus. She is living alone "classifying Hotland flora and fauna".

While he is there, her hut is attacked by "doughpot" - a blind mindless creature that can grow very big & exists simply to eat everything in its path. Her hut becomes uninhabitable. So they will trek together to safety.

Rest is predictable romance. They think they dislike each other for a while. Meet many dangers together. Then fall in love. And a happy ending.

Fact sheet.
Parasite Planet, short story, review
First published: Astounding, February 1935
Rating: B

See also.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica": Another story that has very extensive & malevolent plant life on an alien planet.
2. All stories where Venus is a major element: part 1 & 2.

Larry Niven's "Becalmed in Hell": An accident on Venus

Story summary.
Narrator Howie & cyborg Eric Donovan make the entire crew of a team exploring the thick atmosphere of Venus.

They need 3 kinds of propulsion to get back to earth: a pair of ramjets to go to a certain height where atmosphere is thin enough to use rockets; rockets take them to "atomic ion engine" that will take the ship back home to earth.

Deep in atmosphere, Eric loses control of ramjets. They are hooked directly into his nervous system, as is much of the rest of the ship. He can no longer feel ramjets - it's a kind of paralysis.

Tests cannot locate the fault. They go all the way down to surface where Howie goes out to check some connections, but air pressure is too high. They rise a bit, & Howie goes out again to physically pour ice on some electronics accessible only from outside. No luck.

Eventually, Howie presents a hypothesis: "I think you've got a case of what used to be called trigger anesthesia. A soldier who kills too often sometimes finds that his right index finger or even his whole hand has gone numb, as if it were no longer a part of him... Subconsciously you've stopped believing that the rams can feel like a part of you, which they were designed to do. So you've persuaded yourself that you don't feel anything."

Eric doesn't see it that way, but agrees to think it over. Later, he can intermittently feel ramjets, & is able to get them high enough up after some drama.

Real cause of loss of sensation will be revealed only near end of the story - after they land at earth, & experts can examine the problem.

Fact sheet.
Becalmed in Hell, short story, review
First published: F&SF, July 1965
Rating: B
Series: "The Coldest Place" (B), "Becalmed in Hell".