The Merchants of Venus by X Minus One - Space Westerns Magazine

“The Merchants of Venus” by A.H. Phelps, Jr. originally appeared in the March 1954 issue of Galaxy Magazine. The story answers the question: how do you sell a planet to potential pioneers? — ed, N.E. Lilly

July 6th, 2008

21:50 minutes

0 (0)

X Minus One was an early radio show that focused on Science Fiction stories. They purchased stories from authors who appeared in the pages of Galaxy Magazine and adapted them for the radio.

In the story, colonists are needed for the Venus Project to leave the overcrowded Earth to live on Venus. This leaves the Venus Project Personnel Director with a dilemma: Creative and resourceful people are needed for the colonization effort, but, anyone who is creative or resourceful does perfectly fine making a life for themselves on Earth — so they have no reason or desire to travel to Venus to make a living.

This episode originally aired on July 18, 1957.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.0MB)

♠

X Minus One was a a revival of NBC’s Dimension X (a half-hour science fiction radio series) and was broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC. It included adaptations of newly published science fiction stories by leading writers in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon, along with a few original scripts.