Venus

:This article is about the planet. For the Roman mythological figure, see Venus (mythology); for other meanings, see Venus (disambiguation).

Cultural references

Until it was penetrated by probes, Venus's opaque cloud layer gave science fiction writers free rein in imagining the planet's surface, and they frequently imagined it to be Earthlike. There are some religious sects who believe that Hell may be located on Venus. Its extremely high surface temperature and impenetrable cloud cover cause people to believe that the fires of Hell burn on the surface, obscured from our earthly view. Conversely, other sects consider Venus to be some form of paradise or an advanced secret base for angels/aliens to operate from.

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Hell

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• In Olaf Stapledon's epic Last and First Men (1930), Venus is an oceanic idyll where humans evolve the power of flight.
• In the mythology of Middle-earth (1937), by J. R. R. Tolkien, Venus is the Star of Eärendil. The star was created when Eärendil the Mariner was set in the sky on his ship, with a Silmaril bound to his brow. In fact, Tolkien chose the name directly from the ancient Old English word for the planet Venus.
• In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos (1928–), there are mentions of the 'Lords of Venus', and conflicting indications that the Serpent People originated there.
• The H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling short story 'In the Walls of Eryx' (1939), takes place on Venus, but is not considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos.
• The second book of the Space Trilogy (1938–1945) by C.S. Lewis, Perelandra 1943) takes place on Venus (called by the natives Perelandra), the site of a second garden of Eden.
• In the military SF classic Clash by Night (1943) by Henry Kuttner (writing as Lawrence O'Donnell) and C. L. Moore, underwater city-states hire mercenary companies and their battleships to fight their wars on the surface.
• Venus was the home planet of the Mekon, arch-enemy of the 1950s comic book hero Dan Dare.
• Many science-fiction movies and serials of the '50s and '60s, such as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and Space Patrol, have used Venus' namesake goddess and her domain to contrive planetary populations of nubile women welcoming (or attacking) all-male astronaut crews.
• Venus is the location of several Starfleet Academy training facilities and terraforming stations in the fictional Star Trek universe (1966–).
• In Jacqueline Susann's Yargo (1979), Venus is inhabited by bees that are as big as horses.
• Venus is briefly mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's ' (1997).
• A presumably terraformed Venus was the setting of one episode of the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998). In the show, Venus was revealed to be an arid but habitable world. Much of the population lived in floating cities in the sky. In the cartoon Exosquad, terraformed Venus was portrayed as one of the three habitable planets in the solar system (the others being Earth and Mars).
• A more scientifically accurate depiction of the planet is offered in Ben Bova's novel Venus (2000, ISBN 031287216X)-