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or your edification lol mrozek is the top photo i have a post planned for his the elephant but who knows if it will transpire posted by mudpuddle at 7 12 pm 15 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday january 29 2022 david grinnell donald wolheim 1914 1990 in 1970 shortly after neil armstrong spoke his inspired words chet duncan found himself trudging up a steep incline swishing through the moon dust on his way to rescue a fellow astronaut jim holmes who had had a mishap with his lunar walker holmes had been returning to the lunar lander when his robotic walker had frozen up and not being mechanically inclined he d called for help after replacing a shear pin in the lower axle they both returned to the small vehicle and made preparations to return to the orbiting module their mother ship as it were before they left however they received a radio message that the russians had just landed the first cosmonauts on venus which they described as balmy and temperate with abundant and variegated flora since there was some competition between the united states and russia over first landings on alien planets and since venus was known to the u s scientists as a wasteland of dust and rocks hovering at a temperature of at least 500 degrees fahrenheit there was some debate as to what the truth was regarding the status of the inner planet it was assumed in the halls of washington that russia was ambitiously courting the good wishes of billions of their fellow asiatic inhabitants and that they would not be beyond exaggerating their spatial exploits and the discovery of a viable colonial site in order to capture the admiration of the oriental nations so nasa decided to send their own ship to the planet just to clarify the picture and to provide a bit of a challenge to the second soviet vessel which was launched at the same time chet carter and quincy were delegated as the team assigned to verify or disprove the soviet claims the three left in the module and after an uneventful trip reached an orbit around venus all three entered the landing bug as they termed it and left the module which was designed to maintain an orbit by itself around the planet they plummeted down through thousands of feet of dense clouds and only at several thousand feet above the ground were able to see the surface clearly high winds bounced the small bug around and when they finally landed they discovered that one of the legs on the machine had been irreparably damaged prohibiting take off the landing had placed them on the sheltered side of a cliff but the overhang would prevent them from being able to maneuver the bug into take off position at first they assumed they were doomed but then they remembered that the russian vessel had already landed about 100 miles away from their location so the decision was made to attempt to walk to the russian camp the three donned their servo powered suits of armor loaded up a power sled with their remaining supplies and began trudging the terrain was full of loose rocks and cracks and crevices that required them to follow a circuitous path while fighting the constant wind at the same time after struggling ahead for several days the party arrived at a cliff that seemingly blocked the way ahead but after a considerable time spent in looking for a way up they found a cave that appeared to be fairly deep and so it proved using their suit flashlights they spent days crawling and walking through tunnels all the while gradually gaining height as they went the food and water started to run low and carter who had been depressed about their chances to begin with vanished one night and the next morning they found his belongings and suit parked near a bottomless drop off with the slight addition to their supply cache the two continued on laboring their way along until they reached yet another cliff which was soon found to contain yet another cave in a few more days as their water was about to give out they found some rivulets in a dark corner but quincy was getting tired of the trek and angry at the hopelessness of their situation he opened up his face plate to end it all to his surprise he realized that he could breathe they had evidently reached an altitude at which oxygen was available they theorized that since the poles were covered with ice five miles deep and the temperate zones were so hot that when the icecaps were melted at the edges the resulting run off would be entirely evaporated freeing the oxygen to accumulate just below the cloud layer at any rate the two heartened continued on until they received a garbled message on their radio which they were able to interpret as russian they soon arrived at the soviet camp site and were given to understand that all the cosmonauts had died except one and he was very sick and that at this elevation the terrain was indeed covered with strange plants and grasses suitable for human activities after they healed the russian with some of the medicines they had brought along all three flew up to the russian module and headed back to earth this was a science fiction horse of a different color i guess it would be categorized as hard sci fi but as a variant of the space voyages of the late sixties and early seventies it was pretty interesting although i did slightly balk at the heroes finding all those caves just when they needed them wolheim was a good writer tho and even if i was hesitant about reading this effort for sci fi january due to it being the second book by the same author i was glad i did it riveted my attention more or less and provided interesting descriptions of some of the chemical and geological mysteries of venus which even if they weren t true were diverting probably next weekend i ll be back with another sort of book now that january is over posted by mudpuddle at 1 35 pm 11 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday january 22 2022 robert silverberg 1935 after a war lasting one hundred years a radioactive holocaust left much of planet earth in chaos the next five hundred years saw the establishment of feudal kingdoms in almost all countries with dukes the rulers of each of the twelve enclaves encompassing the globe these leaders had acquired immortality perhaps due to lingering radioactive influences and they reigned autocratically in the major cities the cities were also based on the feudal idea of security with a central castle surrounded by business and residential districts employment in the rural areas were principally related to agriculture and whatever mechanical or mining interests seemed appropriate in each vicinity dale kesley had been a farmer for five years that he knew of as he had no memory of his life before that period he was rather tired of the unceasing grind so when a stranger named dryle van alen arrived at his farm and informed him that he had been brain washed and that a brilliant future awaited him he readily acceded to his proposed plan of abandoning his livelihood and accompanying him to antarctica where a 13th dukedom had been established traveling by six legged horse mutations were common in this era the pair journeyed to galveston where they caught a freighter to argentina south of buenos aires they were captured by bandits after an exchange of gun fire and dale was taken back to the capital to see duke miguel van alen had managed to escape the duke a smiling exemplar of cheerful autocracy gave dale a choice he could either be imprisoned or he could go back to america and assassinate duke winslow the duke of chicago and then marry narella his adopted daughter narella s father was daveen the blind singer known for his talent and psychic abilities his location was unknown but dale thought he might be able to aid in recalling his past if he could locate him so dale goes to chicago and is captured while trying to kill the obese duke the same night however he s rescued by a seven foot tall mutant named lomark dawnspear a master of psychic manipulation who put all the guards to sleep escaping on another six legged horse he leads the duke s minions a merry chase through illinois and indiana but finally receives refuge in a mutie city an enclave of mutant humans who have been isolated by normal humanity situated in kentucky here he sees dawnspear again and through the agency of a local teleport is transported in a flash to antarctica the antarctic capital city is wildly different than what he s used to with large edifices in brilliant colors and designed in a plethora of varying styles he s taken to see the local duke who explains things to him spoilers ahead in the first place the duke has psychic abilities also and is a shape shifter his alternate physiques are daveen the blind singer van alen dale s guide and lomark dawnspear dale remains confused about the purposeless of all that he s been through until van alen his real identity informs him that he is the successor to the throne for one reason he s not sterile as all the other dukes are and that van alen is his real father he had hypnotized dale five years before and made a farmer out of him to protect him from the other dukes who were envious and fearful of how he might jeopardize their powers anyway after a struggle dale agrees to accept the dukeship and looks forward to revising the world this wasn t a great novel by any means but it had interesting action scenes including gunfights daring escapes oddly shaped humans and horses and devious plotting i found it kept my interest but i probably wouldn t read it again of course silverberg became a well known sci fi figure in his later life this was his first major novel with a unique style and perspective the majipoor cycle including lord valentine s castle have thus far been his most popular efforts i believe posted by mudpuddle at 12 22 pm 12 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday january 15 2022 john rackham 1916 1976 pseudonym of john t phillifent playgirl selena ash has just left the play planet shangri la in a hurry and she s being chased by two guys in another ship pierre lacoste and robin delamar were friends and practical jokers with whom selena had been having a great time with but apparently they hadn t had enough fun and games and were racing after her for more she had just left the world s atmosphere and she had just begun checking the instrumentation as a matter of habit when she realized that someone had sabotaged her automatic navigational equipment which hurled the ship without warning into hyperspace by the time she got the problem sorted she realized she was about thirty light years away from anything poking about in the circuitry she found a bomb which she quickly disabled thinking about her situation she realized that the navigational problem was probably pierre and robin s idea of a practical joke but the bomb was something else again maybe she was being victimized by space pirates selena wasn t actually just a playgirl she had a secret identity as an agent for the galactic security association and she was on a mission five years ago an explorer named jory jensen had vanished after finding a planet with intelligent plant life on it and selena had been recruited to find him now evidently lost in space she fixed the navigational system and it informed her that a benign world was in the neighborhood and that she was being pursued by two ships one of them was undoubtedly that of pierre and robin but the second one was a mystery arriving on the world she liked what she saw a vast plain with mountains in the distance and extensive forests bordering a large ocean debarking she went for a walk toward the adjacent woods suddenly the figure of a man appeared in the corner of one eye and she immediately drew her blaster at the same time the weeds and brambles around her began clutching her legs and sticking thorns into her skin being rapidly overwhelmed she called for help and the man told her to think friendly thoughts he was dressed in a sort of swim suit and had a kind of ivy growing around his body the end of which jutted out over his head there was a small blue bud glaring at her from the plant she struggled for a while and then managed to smile and began mentally admiring the botanical life around her after a bit the plant life backed off and resumed their normal plant life behavior the man called himself joe but selena realized that he was probably the lost jones they became friends and she learned that the whole planet was governed by one enormous tree that permeated the atmosphere with psychic energy devoted to friendship and love she persuaded him to guide her to where the tree was located and on the way they saw a battle taking place between two ships in the upper atmosphere one shot the other one to pieces and captured the two occupants then proceeded to land near the distant mountain range selena had identified the ship as one belonging to pardoe a notorious pirate and she assumed that he d followed her for the purpose of stealing the seeds of the tree which were rumored to react to mammalian thoughts growing into any sort of material object required by the local sentiencies selena and joe anxiously increased their progress but they were hampered by the indigenous wildlife mountain cats like saber toothed tigers and razor billed birds that flew in flocks and tried to stab their victims and crock beetles that lived near streams that liked animal flesh sort of resembling land based piranhas were some of the more friendly denizens but eventually they reached their destination after days of scrambling through brush and warding off hungry and hostile predators joe had warned selena that the tree would take over her mind but she approached it nevertheless it was huge with a bole about twenty feet in diameter and screened by leafy branches from every direction she felt the tree in her mind drawing her in she placed her hands on the bark and closed her eyes but immediately understood that she was aware of everything around her in full technicolor without them the tree absorbed her and after bonding with it she felt at once how comforting and warm the whole planet was in spite of its dangers but trouble was on the way pardoe and his accomplice scorpia reached the tree shortly afterwards blasting all the plant life out of the way as they came selena had learned from joe that the tree was in a way very naive and that it spontaneously bonded with any creature that approached it so when pardoe stepped up to it with his innate badness it absorbed that also but was so traumatized that it went into shock seeing as most readers won t be able to obtain copies of these old novels i ll go ahead and finish the story stop here if you don t want to know what occurred a gun battle transpired between the two parties and selena and joe were rescued at the last minute by the galactic space navy which arrived just in...