The planet Venus has been used as a Setting (narrative), setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its Atmosphere of Venus, impenetrable cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface; the planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still Planetary habitability, habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early Pulp magazine, pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction. When portrayed, the native sentient inhabitants, Venusians, were generally portrayed as gentle, ethereal and beautiful. Early science fiction writers who set their stories on Venus included Otis Adelbert Kline in the 1920s; Edgar Rice Burroughs, Olaf Stapledon, and Stanley G. Weinbaum in the 1930s; Robert A. Heinlein, Henry Kuttner, and C. S. Lewis in the 1940s; and Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl in the 1950s. From the mid-20th century on, as the reality of Venus' harsh Surface of Venus, surface conditions became known, the early Trope (literature), tropes of adventures in Venusian tropics gave way to more realistic stories. The planet became portrayed instead as a hostile, toxic inferno, with stories changing focus to topics of the planet's Colonization of Venus, colonization and terraforming of Venus, terraforming, although the vision of tropical Venus is occasionally revisited in intentionally Retro style, retro stories. Modern treatments can be found in the works of authors such as Ben Bova and Pamela Sargent.

Early depictions: exotic tropics

While the earliest use of the planet Venus as the primary Setting (narrative), setting in a work of fiction was Achille Eyraud's ''Voyage à Venus'' (''Voyage to Venus'', 1865), it had appeared centuries earlier in works visiting multiple locations in the Solar System such as Athanasius Kircher's ''Itinerarium exstaticum, Itinerarium Exstaticum'' (1656) and Emanuel Swedenborg's ''The Earths in Our Solar System'' (1758), and Gary Westfahl considers the mention of the "Morning Star (disambiguation), Morning Star" in the second-century work ''True History'' by Lucian of Samosata to be the first appearance of Venus—or any other planet—in science fiction. In time, Venus became one of the most popular planets in History of science fiction, early science fiction, though never approaching the popularity of Mars. On the subject, Westfahl writes that while Mars has a distinctive body of major works such as H. G. Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'' (1898) and Ray Bradbury's fix-up novel ''The Martian Chronicles'' (1950), Venus largely lacks a corresponding canon, and quotes Brian Aldiss saying "how few have been the visitors to Venus, compared with the voyages to Mars!". Venus has Atmosphere of Venus, a thick layer of clouds that prevents Telescope, telescopic observation of the surface, giving writers free rein to imagine any kind of world below. One of the many visions was of a Tidal locking, tidally locked Venus with half of the planet always exposed to the Sun and the other half in perpetual darkness, as in Garrett P. Serviss' ''A Columbus of Space'' (1909) and Garrett Smith (writer), Garrett Smith's ''Between Worlds (novel), Between Worlds'' (1919). The absence of a common vision of Venus resulted in the less coherent mythology of Venus, particularly compared with the image of Mars in fiction. As a result of the setting's versatility, according to ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', "some of the gaudiest romances of Genre SF are set on Venus". Stephen L. Gillett, one of the contributors to ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy'', describes the situation as a "cosmic Rorschach test", with numerous authors populating the land beneath Venus' featureless clouds with exotic but usually habitable settings, and producing stories ranging from adventure to satire. A common assumption was that the Venusian clouds were made of water, as clouds on Earth are, and consequently the planet was most often portrayed as having a wet climate. This sometimes meant vast oceans, but more commonly swamps and jungles. Another influential idea was the History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses, early version of the nebular hypothesis of Solar system formation, Solar System formation which held that the planets are older the further from the Sun they are, meaning that Venus should be younger than Earth and might resemble earlier periods in Earth's history such as the Carboniferous. Scientist Svante Arrhenius popularized the idea of Venus being swamp-covered with flora and fauna similar to that of prehistoric Earth in his non-fiction book ''The Destinies of the Stars'' (1918).

Jungle and swamp

Early treatments of a Venus covered in swamps and jungles are found in Gustavus W. Pope's ''Journey to Venus'' (1895), Fred T. Jane's ''To Venus in Five Seconds'' (1897), and Maurice Baring's "Venus (Baring short story), Venus" (1909). Following its popularization by Arrhenius, the portrayal of the Venusian landscape as dominated by jungles and swamps recurred in other works of fiction and became "a staple of Pulp magazine, pulp science fiction imagery". Clark Ashton Smith's "The Immeasurable Horror" (1931) and Lester del Rey's "The Luck of Ignatz" (1939) depict threatening Venusian creatures in a swamp-and-jungle climate. Fantastic_adventures_194111

In the planetary romance (or "sword and planet") subgenre that flourished in this era, Ralph Milne Farley and Otis Adelbert Kline wrote series in this setting starting with ''The Radio Man'' (1924) and ''The Planet of Peril'' (1929), respectively. These stories were inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian ''Barsoom'' series that began with ''A Princess of Mars'' (1912); Burroughs later wrote planetary romances set on a swampy Venus in the ''Amtor'' series, beginning with ''Pirates of Venus'' (1932). Other authors who wrote planetary romances in this setting include C. L. Moore and Leigh Brackett with stories like "Black Thirst" (1934) and "Enchantress of Venus" (1949), respectively. Robert A. Heinlein portrayed Venusian swamps in several unrelated stories including "The Green Hills of Earth" (1947), ''Space Cadet'' (1948), and ''Podkayne of Mars'' (1963). On television, a 1955 episode of ''Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'' depicts a crash landing in a Venusian swamp. Ray Bradbury's short story "The Long Rain" (1950) depicts Venus as a planet with incessant rain, and was later adapted to screen twice: to film in The Illustrated Man (film), ''The Illustrated Man'' (1969) and to television in ''The Ray Bradbury Theater'' (1992). In Germany, the ''Perry Rhodan'' novels (launched in 1961) used the vision of Venus as a jungle world.

Ocean

Others envisioned Venus as a panthalassic planet, covered by a planet-wide ocean with perhaps a few islands. Large land masses were thought impossible due to the assumption that they would have generated atmospheric updrafts that would have broken up the planet's solid cloud layer. An early treatment of an oceanic Venus is Harl Vincent's "Venus Liberated" (1929). In Olaf Stapledon's ''Last and First Men'' (1930), future descendants of humanity Pantropy, are modified to be adapted to life on an ocean-covered Venus. C. S. Lewis's ''Perelandra'' (1943) retells the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on floating islands in a vast Venusian ocean. In Poul Anderson's "Sister Planet" (1959), migration to an oceanic Venus is contemplated as a potential solution to Earth's overpopulation. "Clash by Night (short story), Clash by Night" (1943) by Lawrence O'Donnell (science fiction), Lawrence O'Donnell (joint pseudonym of C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner) and its sequel ''Fury (1947 novel), Fury'' (1947) describe survivors from a devastated Earth living beneath Venusian oceans. Those two works have been called in ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' "the most enduring pulp image" of an oceanic Venus, and the former received another sequel in 1991, ''The Jungle (Drake novel), The Jungle'' by David A. Drake.

Desert

A third group of early theories about conditions on Venus explained the cloud cover with a hot, dry planet where the atmosphere holds water vapor and the surface has dust storms. The idea that water is abundant on Venus was controversial, and by 1940 Rupert Wildt had already discussed how a greenhouse effect might result in a hot Venus. The vision of a desert Venus was never as popular as that of a swampy or jungle one, but by the 1950s it started appearing in a number of works. In Science fiction and fantasy in Poland, Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem's novel ''The Astronauts'' (1951)—later filmatized as the Polish–East Germany, East German coproduction ''The Silent Star'' (1960)—an expedition to Venus discovers a barren environment and the ruins of a civilization, deducing that the cause was nuclear holocaust. Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth's ''The Space Merchants'' (1952) is a satire that depicts Venus being successfully marketed as an appealing destination for migrants from Earth in spite of its hostile environment. In Robert Sheckley's "Prospector's Special" (1959), the desert surface of Venus is Space mining, mined for resources. Arthur C. Clarke's "Before Eden" (1961) portrays Venus as mostly hot and dry, but with a habitable climate at the poles. While these inhospitable portrayals more accurately reflected the emerging scientific data, they nevertheless generally underestimated the harshness of the planet's conditions.

Later depictions: hostile inferno

In scientific circles, life on Venus was increasingly viewed as unlikely from the 1930s on, as more advanced methods for observing Venus suggested that its atmosphere lacks oxygen. Later, space probes such as ''Mariner 2'' in 1962 found that Venus' surface temperature was in the range , and atmospheric pressure at ground-level was many times that of Earth's. This rendered obsolete fiction that had depicted a planet with exotic but habitable settings, and writers' interest in the planet diminished when its inhospitability became better understood. Fiction about Venus started to mainly focus on survival in the hostile environment, as in Larry Niven's "Becalmed in Hell" (1965); devices for protection against the elements include Domed city, domed cities as in John Varley (author), John Varley's "In the Bowl" (1975), Floating cities and islands in fiction, floating cities as in Geoffrey A. Landis's "The Sultan of the Clouds" (2010), and Space stations and habitats in fiction, space stations. Stories about survival in less extreme conditions had earlier appeared in works such as John W. Campbell's "Solarite" (1930), where the surface temperature exceeds ; Clifton B. Kruse's "Menace from Saturn" (1935), where the atmosphere is toxic; and Robert S. Richardson, Philip Latham's ''Five Against Venus'' (1952), a Robinsonade. Space colonization, Colonization stories had been popular throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and became so again towards the end of the century in parallel to the rise in popularity of fictional terraforming projects.

Colonization

Colonization of Venus appeared as early as J. B. S. Haldane's essay "The Last Judgment (Haldane), The Last Judgment" (1927) and John Wyndham's "The Venus Adventure" (1932), and grew in popularity in subsequent decades. Following emerging scientific evidence of Venus' harsh conditions, colonization of Venus was increasingly portrayed as more challenging than colonization of Mars. Several writers have suggested that Venusian colonists may have to lead a Nomad, nomadic life, hiding from the extreme temperatures. Colonizing Venus is a major theme in Jack Williamson's Seetee series, ''Seetee'' series (1949–1951), Rolf Garner's trilogy beginning with ''Resurgent Dust'' (1953), and Soviet science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's ''The Land of Crimson Clouds'' (1959). In Heinlein's "Logic of Empire" (1941), the colonies rely upon exploiting labourers trapped in indentured servitude. S. Makepeace Lott's ''Escape to Venus'' (1956) depicts a colony that has turned into a dystopia. Marta Randall's "Big Dome (short story), Big Dome" (1985) features a rediscovered domed colony abandoned during a prior terraforming project. The story's jungle-like setting has been described by Gillett as an homage to the "traditional" image of Venus found in early science fiction. Sarah Zettel's ''The Quiet Invasion'' (2000) features colonization of Venus by Extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrials better adapted to the planet's conditions.

Terraforming

As scientific knowledge of Venus advanced, science fiction authors endeavored to keep pace, particularly by focusing on the concept of Terraforming of Venus, terraforming Venus. An early treatment of the concept is found in Stapledon's ''Last and First Men'', where the process destroys the lifeforms that already existed on the planet. While Venus has since come to be regarded as the most promising candidate for terraforming, before the 1960s science fiction writers were more optimistic about the prospects of Terraforming of Mars, terraforming Mars, and early depictions consequently portrayed terraforming Venus as more challenging. Anderson's "The Big Rain" (1954) revolves around an attempt to bring about rain on a desert Venus, and in his "To Build A World" (1964) a terraformed Venus becomes the site of countless wars for the more desirable parts of the surface. Other early depictions of terraforming Venus include A. E. van Vogt's ''The World of Null-A'' (1948) and James E. Gunn's ''The Naked Sky'' (1955). The terraforming of Venus has remained comparatively rare in fiction, though the process appears in works like Bob Buckley's "World in the Clouds" (1980) and G. David Nordley's "The Snows of Venus" (1991), while other such as Raymond Harris' ''Shadows of the White Sun'' (1988) and Nordley's "Dawn Venus" (1995) feature an already terraformed, Earth-like Venus. Pamela Sargent's Venus trilogy, ''Venus'' trilogy—consisting of ''Venus of Dreams'' (1986), ''Venus of Shadows'' (1988), and ''Child of Venus'' (2001)—is an Epic (genre), epic detailing the generations-long process of terraforming Venus, drawing comparisons to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, ''Mars'' trilogy (1992–1996); Robinson's later novel 2312 (novel), ''2312'' (2012) features Venus in the process of being terraformed. A terraformed Venus reverting to its natural state is mentioned in Clarke's ''The Ghost from the Grand Banks'' (1991). In the anime film ''Venus Wars'' (1989), the terraforming of Venus is precipitated by a comet impact removing atmosphere and adding water to the planet. Gillett suggests that the theme of terraforming Venus reflects a desire to recapture the simpler, traditional fantasy of early prose about the planet.

Nostalgic depictions

A romantic, habitable, pre-Mariner Venus continued to appear for a while in deliberately nostalgic and Retro style, retro works such as Roger Zelazny's "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" (1965) and Thomas M. Disch's "Come to Venus Melancholy" (1965), and Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (writer), Harry Harrison collected works written before the scientific advancements in the anthology ''Farewell Fantastic Venus'' (1968). The nostalgic image of Venus has also occasionally resurfaced several decades later: S. M. Stirling's ''The Sky People'' (2006) takes place in an alternate universe where the pulp version of Venus is real, and the anthology ''Old Venus'' (2015) edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois collects newly-written works in the style of older stories about the now-outdated vision of Venus. The role-playing games ''Space: 1889'' and ''Mutant Chronicles'' likewise use a deliberately retro depiction of Venus.

Lifeforms

Beasts

Early writings, in which Venus was often depicted as a younger Earth, often populated it with large beasts. Pope's ''Journey to Venus'' (1895) depicted a tropical world featuring dinosaurs and other creatures similar to those known from Earth's history. Jerry Pournelle noted that early science fiction was rife with images of exotic Venusian life: "thick fungus that ate men alive; a world populated with strange animals, Dragon, dragons and dinosaurs and swamp creatures resembling Creature from the Black Lagoon, the beastie from the Black Lagoon". Stanley G. Weinbaum portrayed Venus as home to a voracious ecosystem in "Parasite Planet" (1935), and his visions inspired other authors such as Isaac Asimov, whose ''Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus'' (1954) depicts human colonists living in underwater cities encountering various hostile sea-dwelling creatures. Venus is home to a dragon in Heinlein's ''Between Planets'' (1951) and to dinosaurs in the Three Stooges short ''Space Ship Sappy'' (1957), while a Venusian monster brought to Earth by a space probe attacks humans in the film ''20 Million Miles to Earth'' (1957). The Soviet film ''Planeta Bur'' (1962) features an American–Soviet joint scientific expedition to Venus, which finds the planet teeming with various lifeforms, many resembling terrestrial species, including sentient if primitive Venusians. Zelazny's "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" revolves around an encounter with a giant Venusian sea monster, and Clarke's ''The Deep Range'' (1957) presents sea creatures on Venus as a tourist attraction. Sentient plant life appears in several stories including Weinbaum's "Parasite Planet" sequel "The Lotus Eaters (Weinbaum), The Lotus Eaters" (1935), the Superman comic book story "The Three Tough Teen-Agers" (1962) by Jerry Siegel and Al Plastino, and ''The Outer Limits (1963 TV series), The Outer Limits'' episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" (1964). In the second half of the 20th century, as the hellish conditions of Venus became better known, depictions of life on Venus became more exotic, with ideas such as the "living petroleum" of Brenda Pearce's "Crazy Oil" (1975), the telepathic jewels of Varley's "In the Bowl", and the more mundane cloud-borne microbes of Ben Bova's ''Venus (novel), Venus'' (2000).

Venusians

In contrast to the diversity of visions of the Venusian environment, the inhabitants of Venus are most commonly portrayed as human, or human-like. In his review of early (pre-1936) science fiction, E. F. Bleiler, Everett Franklin Bleiler lists examples such as winged, angelic people; Telepathy, telepaths; archaic humans ("subhumans"); humans but with wings and antennae; humans with tentacles; furry humans; blue-skinned humans; dwarves; giants; Centaur, centaurs; fish-men; catpeople; Reptilian humanoid, reptilians; rat-men; and plant-men. Bleiler also listed a number of more bizarre portrayals of Venusians, such squid-like; four legged elephantine beings; intelligent giant bees, beetles, ants and worm larvae; giant monstrous insects; and even "living colors". Some works which portrayed Venusians as humans explained this by suggesting that Venus had been colonized by an ancient, advanced civilization from Earth, such as Atlantis in Warren E. Sanders' "Sheridan Becomes Ambassador" (1932) and Ancient Egypt in Jeffrey Lloyd Castle's ''Vanguard to Venus'' (1957). Perhaps due to an association of the planet Venus with the Venus (mythology), Roman goddess of love, sentient Venusians have often been portrayed as gentle, ethereal, and beautiful – an image first presented in Bernard le Bovyer de Fontenelle's ''Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds'' (1686). This trope was repeated, among others, in W. S. Lach-Szyrma, W. Lach-Szyrma's ''A Voice from Another World'' (1874) and ''Letters from the Planets'' (1887–1893), about an interplanetary tour of a winged, angel-like Venusian, as well as in George Griffith's ''A Honeymoon in Space'' (1900), where human visitors to Venus encounter flying Venusians communicating through music. The anonymously published ''A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets'' (1873) depicts one Venusian race like this and another which is primitive and violent. The association of Venus with women manifests in different ways in many works. The planet is inhabited solely or mostly by women in works like "What John Smith Saw in the Moon: A Christmas Story for Parties Who Were Children Twenty Years Ago" (1893) by Fred Harvey Brown and ruled by women in Leslie F. Stone's "The Conquest of Gola" (1931) among others. The films ''Abbott and Costello Go to Mars'' (1953) and ''Queen of Outer Space'' (1958) feature the trope of Venus being populated by beautiful women, and ''Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women'' (1968), the second of two English-language adaptations of ''Planeta Bur'' (the other being ''Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet'', 1965), portrays the Venusians as "half-naked sex-appealing blond sirens" with supernatural or psychic powers. A theme of a Venusian visitor to Earth is seen in some works, such as Lach-Szyrma's ''A Voice from Another World'' and William Windsor (phrenologist), William Windsor's ''Loma, a Citizen of Venus'' (1897). The British film ''Stranger from Venus'' (1954) portrays a visit by a Venusian in a similar manner to the one by a Martian in the US film ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' (1951). While individual visits tend to be peaceful, some authors have depicted large scale conflicts, including warfare, between Venusians and humans (or in rare cases, Venusians and Martians). Such hostilities have been described in, among others, ''The War of the Wenuses'' (1898) by Charles L. Graves and E. V. Lucas, Ray Cummings' ''Tarrano the Conqueror'' (1925) and Farley's ''The Radio Menace'' (1930). Venusians have appeared as both heroes and villains in a number of Comic book, comic books. Several of DC Comics' Wonder Woman stories in the 1940s featured the superheroine's female allies from Venus, while Marvel Comic's Sub-Mariner defended Earth from an invasion by amphibious Venusians around the same time. Also from that era comes a supervillain originating from Venus, Mister Mind, a sentient Venusian worm. Superhero Tommy Tomorrow in "Frame-Up at Planeteer Academy" (1962) has a blue-skinned Venusian sidekick called Lon Vurian. James William Barlow and John Munro (author), John Munro penned descriptions of Venusian civilizations, in ''History of a Race of Immortals without a God'' (1891) and ''A Trip to Venus'' (1897), respectively. However, as with the description of the climate and geography, there is no real consistency in depictions of the Venusian society and culture. Depending on the work, the cultural and scientific level of Venus has been described as both inferior (ex. ''Last and First Men'', ''Between Worlds'') and superior to human (ex. ''Letters from the Planets'', ''To Venus in Five Seconds''). Likewise, Venusian governance has variously been portrayed as Utopia, utopian, Capitalism, capitalist, Feudalism, feudal, Monarchy, monarchical, or Matriarchy, matriarchical, among others. Homer Eon Flint's "The Queen of Life" (1919) depicts an Anarchism, anarchist society on Venus, and Stanton A. Coblentz's ''The Blue Barbarians'' (1931) is a satirical depiction of a Venus ruled by Plutocracy, plutocrats.

References

{{Venus Fiction set on Venus, Fiction about terrestrial planets Venus-related lists, Fiction Lists of astronomical locations in fiction