#eBook Parasite Planet by Stanley G. Weinbaum
"And again came a peal of hooting that sounded like laughter, while shadowy forms moved, flylike, on the sheer walls."
Tidal locking keeps one side of Venus perpetually facing the Sun. This side of the planet is a barren desert. Towards the planet's twilight region the temperature drops below the boiling point of water and the Hotlands begin: an area of the planet inhabited by native life forms, all of them parasitic to a greater or lesser degree. "A thousand different species, but all the same in one respect; each of them was all appetite."
Hamilton "Ham" Hammond is an American trader who lives in the Venusian Hotlands in the late 21st century. He makes his living collecting xixtchil spore-pods from the native Venusians, which are used to make a rejuvenation drug on Earth. When Hammond's shack is sucked under the surface by a mud-spout, he must make his way across 200 miles of hot, humid, hostile Venusian jungle to reach Erotia, a settlement in the American part of the planet.
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum, born April 4, 1902 died December 14, 1935. He was an American science fiction writer. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934; the alien Tweel was arguably the first character to satisfy John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." Weinbaum wrote more short stories and a few novels, but died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later.
In Public Domain
First published: February 1935
Ovi eBook Publishing April 2022
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