Planet of Mystery

by Terry Bisson

Marooned on Venus, Hall and Chang of the first Chinese-American expedition are surprised to find themselves breathing Earth-normal air; and alarmed to find themselves captured by beautiful Amazons mounted on foul-smelling Centaurs. "This can't be real!" Hall protests as he is dragged off to meet the Amazon Queen.Chang is inclined to agree (even though the arrow in his shoulder feels genuine).Then the robot rolls in ...

Genres: Science Fiction

108 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Terry Ballantine Bisson was an American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his short stories, including "Bears Discover Fire" (1990), which which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as They're Made Out of Meat (1991), which has been adapted for video often.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two astronauts land on Venus, but it's not the superheated sauna they expected - it's much more like the place Carson Napier visited. And that's impossible... They try to make sense of what's going on, and cling to the hope of getting back to Earth. There's an adorable robot, plus centaurs, UFOs, and disturbing orange panties.

Planet of Mystery is a playful, frivolous, serious and thoughtful book. If it has a flaw it's that the reader may conclude early on that he or she has already seen this episode of Farscape (or Stargate, or Star Trek), but it ends up being much more interesting than that. It's a story that operates on the subconscious level, using repetition and startling imagery to create a dream-like effect. It's also very sexy.

In my sf reading I've pretty much gone straight from reading seventies-era paperbacks to bang-up-to-date review copies like this one. I haven't read much from the intervening period, so this was my first book by Terry Bisson. I'm guessing it's fairly untypical, but I'll soon find out since it's left me wanting to read more. After this trip to Venus, a voyage to the red planet seems appropriate...

[Rod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old school, pulp adventure. Appropriately enough, I read it serialized in Fantasy and Science Fiction. A great vacation book.