Trying för att spåra en sci-fi-historia om Venus

Det är "Parasit Planet" (aka " The Parasit Planet"), en novelette av Stanley G. Weinbaum , den första historien i hans Ham Hammond serien; De andra berättelserna i den serien är "The Lotus Eaters" (också satt på Venus men på "nattsidan" ") och " Tvivelplanen " (inställd på Uranus). "Parasit Planet" har dykt upp i ett antal antologier och samlingar och finns tillgängligt på Projekt Gutenberg Australien . Utdragen nedan är från 1949 Weinbaum samlingen En Martian Odyssey och andra .

Historien skrevs med att Venus var täckt av vattniga moln, så det måste vara varmt och fuktigt där.

Luckily for "Ham" Hammond it was mid-winter when the mud-spout came. Mid-winter, that is, in the Venusian sense, which is nothing at all like the conception of the season generally entertained on Earth, except possibly by dwellers in the hotter regions of the Amazon basin, or the Congo.

Jag kommer ihåg att huvudpersonen var tvungen att hantera mögel eller sporer som skulle spira omedelbart på allt som utsattes för utomhusluft.

One breath of unfiltered air anywhere near the warm edge of the twilight zone was quick and very painful death; Ham would have drawn in uncounted millions of the spores of those fierce Venusian molds, and they'd have sprouted in furry and nauseating masses in his nostrils, his mouth, his lungs, and eventually in his ears and eyes.

Breathing them wasn't even a necessary requirement; once he'd come upon a trader's body with the mold springing from his flesh. The poor fellow had somehow torn a rip in his transkin suit, and that was enough.

Jag tror att det fanns också fientliga träd som kunde skryta med sina grenar för att fånga och äta allt som kom i närheten. "Jack catch catch trees", kanske?

Ham trudged along, keeping always to the clearings about the Jack Ketch trees, since these vegetable omnivores kept other life beyond the reach of their greedy nooses. Elsewhere progress was impossible, for the Venusian jungle presented such a terrific tangle of writhing and struggling forms that one could move only by cutting the way, step by step, with infinite labor.

Från Bleiler granskning av "Parasite Planet":

Most of Venus is either impossibly hot or cold for humans, but the libration zone offers a treacherous possibility of existence. It is filled with parasitic forms, notably carnivorous fungi of horrendous reproductive rate that make life outside a special suit impossible. There are also horrible creatures like giant amoebas. The landscape, too, is a threat, being perpetually unstable, what with underground boiling and frigid rivers that burst into destructive mud eruptions and resultant sinkholes that swallow up huge areas. * Politically, the libration zone is partly British and partly American, although the traders that wander about in search of xixtchil pods do not worry about boundaries. Xixtchil is highly prized on Earth for its ability to restore youth and sexual potency. * Ham Hammond, American trader, is dispossessed when his hut is swallowed by a mud upheaval. Planning to make his way to the closest American settlement, he comes upon another outpost maintained by Pat Burlingame, a Briton who is studying the flora for the Royal Society. But Pat is a woman. They set up a battle-of-the-sexes relationship, but when her establishment, too, is swallowed, they set out together for civilization. Along their unfriendly way they encounter expectable perils, and at the moment of decision discover that they love each other. A mean trick that Pat seems to have performed turns out to have been a hoax. * Miscellaneous: Among the curiosities are Jack Ketch trees that try in a clumsy way to lasso their prey and friendly quadruped natives that speak a complex language. There are also fiercely hostile, semi-intelligent creatures (trioptes) from the cold side who wander into the libration area.

Det finns också " Sultan of the Clouds " av Geoffrey A. Landis. Geoffrey Landis är en NASA-forskare och skrev den här berättelsen 2010 så att det inte går att slå för teknisk noggrannhet. Här är en partiell sammanfattning från en Goodreads-recension:

Humanity has extended their civilization to other planets, but the strangest and most exotic society is the floating cities of Venus. Over half of the cities are owned by the titular "Sultan," who is now merely a twelve year old boy awaiting his inheritance. He will only capture this inheritance when he marries, and, by Venus tradition, he will marry an older woman who will teach him the ways of society, commerce and, yes, sex. When a visiting delegation from the outer planets arrives, the narrator is shocked at the age disparity in Venusian marriage, and even more shocked when the Sultan begins a courtship with one of the female delegates.