Henry Hasse 29 min read

Joel Latham, Earthman, space drifter, and dedicated tsith drinker, wakes face-down in the brackish mire at the edge of a Venusport swamp, on the most momentous morning of his life.

Henry Hasse's 1952 story is a colorful, atmospheric space-opera adventure of a down-and-out spacer on Venus. Vivid, fast golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale that hauls its dissolute hero out of the swamp and into peril, with one purple hope to cling to.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

29 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).