Old Venus

From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughss Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradburys "The Long Rain" to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewiss Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earths next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last centurys space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life. But dont despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fictions best writers - edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois - turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination. Join our cast of award-winning contributors - including Elizabeth Bear, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, Mike Resnick, Eleanor Arnason, Allen M. Steele, and more - as we travel back in time to a planet that never was but should have been: a young, rain-drenched world of fabulous monsters and seductive mysteries.