Dave Dryfoos 9 min read

George Main lies dying in the wreckage of the spaceship, cursing the deadly wind of Venus that killed his mates and will soon have him, the grit-laden wind that shrieks through the smashed hull.

Dave Dryfoos's 1951 story is a stark, atmospheric colonization and first-contact tale of a doomed Venus expedition. Vivid, poignant golden-age pulp. Read it for a moving story of the last survivor of a shattered mission, and the sign of life he searches for as the killing wind buries all they built.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

9 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Herman B. Vestal