Wilbur S. Peacock 38 min read

In a hidden gailang-gas den on Venus, thick with drugged laughter and scarred space-pirates, Val Kenton lolls glazed in his booth, a hard man sunk low, about to be pulled into deadly trouble.

Wilbur S. Peacock's 1942 story is a lurid, atmospheric horror-tinged space opera. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a colorful Planet Stories yarn of Venusian vice-dens, pirates, and menace, where a fallen tough guy is drawn into a perilous adventure, told in the rich, gaudy style of wartime pulp SF.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Morey