“Morning Star” by Robert Spencer Carr

The Book: “Morning Star” by Robert Spencer Carr. Dated 1947, possibly published in the Saturday Evening Post, but my only source on that is Wikipedia. Read in Beyond Infinity by Robert Spencer Carr, published in 1951 by Dell.

The Setting: The New Mexico desert. Earth.

The Story: An illegal alien (from space!) infiltrates a top secret meeting of government scientists and convinces them to send a man to Venus. For sex.  Probably.

The Science: I’ll admit that I’m trying to write about this quite a while after reading it, but I can’t come up with much on the science side of the discussion. They plot some things for space travel, but it’s much less about science than men going ga-ga for a pretty lady.

The Reaction: I don’t even know where to start with this. A Venusian woman (they’re all women there, I think) comes to Earth to beg them not to use the bomb and please, oh please, send some nice young men to Venus. It’s dated and pretty sexist. Some amusing devices in the story (trying to frame it from a third perspective) but mostly… meh.

The Cover: Cover art by Richard Power. The cover is very cool. 1950s abstract sci-fi aesthetic. Not very sensical, but some nice shapes.

Next Up: Destination Infinity by Henry Kuttner.