Foundling on Venus

De Courcy, JohnProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.4

Word count: 18K words
Chapters: 2

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Foundling on Venus by Dorothy De Courcy and John De CourcyAuthor: De Courcy, John,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 20, 2009

Editor's review

Foundling on Venus is an early science fiction short story by Dorothy De Courcy and John De Courcy, made available as a free electronic text by Project Gutenberg. It belongs to the PS category under American and Canadian literature. It is short and suitable as an introductory sample of mid-twentieth-century English-language science fiction magazine style. The story is set against a Venusian background and has the alien adventure and identity suspense common to science fiction of that era; the narrative is brisk, the imagined setting direct, and there is little technical exposition, so the barrier to reading is low. For researchers, it can serve as a light text for examining American popular science fiction themes, gender roles, and alien imagination around the Cold War; for general readers, it is more like an entertaining story that can be finished in one or two commutes. Note that it is a public-domain e-book, typeset and proofread from scans, so the reading experience depends on the quality of the electronic file used, and the content itself is not notable for depth; it is better expected as material for genre history than as a literary classic.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who want a quick introduction to mid-twentieth-century English-language science fiction short story style
Language learners who need a public-domain English text for reading practice or translation practice
Enthusiasts studying the themes and alien imagination of early American popular science fiction magazines

Not a good fit for

Deep science fiction readers expecting long-form worldbuilding and complex character arcs
Readers sensitive to gender and racial stereotypes in early science fiction
Literary researchers who need a strictly collated edition or scholarly annotated edition

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then look back at how the opening setup plants seeds for later suspense.
Read it alongside a contemporary science fiction short story to observe common genre conventions.
If using it for English study, excerpt sentences describing alien scenes and practice rewriting and retelling them.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story?

Judging from the Project Gutenberg listing, it is a short English science fiction work, closer to a short story than a novel. It is suitable for reading in one sitting rather than following chapter by chapter over time.

What English level is needed to read it?

The text is popular science fiction narrative with uncomplicated sentence patterns; readers at roughly CET-4 level or above should be able to read it smoothly. Alien terms can be skipped at first without affecting understanding of the main plot.

Does this electronic edition have annotations or an introduction?

According to the information, this is a public-domain electronic text provided by Project Gutenberg, with no indication that it includes scholarly annotations or an introduction. Readers need to supply background themselves or read it alongside materials on science fiction history.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

De Courcy, John Author

John De Courcy is an author about whom only limited public information is currently available; details such as nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background are not clearly recorded, and the library holds only one work by this author. The known representative work is Foundling on Venus. Judging from the alien place name and the image of a "foundling" suggested by the title, the work likely belongs to science fiction or fantasy, with a narrative tendency to place socially marginal figures in an unfamiliar interstellar setting. Because further material is lacking, it is difficult to assess the overall character of the author's writing style, nor is it possible to confirm whether the book is a novel, a short story, or part of a series. Based on the available clues, De Courcy's writing seems to concern themes of identity, belonging, and survival in a foreign land—settings common in mid-twentieth-century popular science fiction magazines. Readers and researchers seeking to learn more about this author will need to wait for additional bibliographic, copyright-page, or biographical materials.