The Native Soil

On Venus, the great mystery is not monsters or oceans, but a planet covered in warm, colorful mud that sustains sparse vegetation and a native people who live within it as naturally as humans live on dry land. When Piper Pharmaceuticals discovers that this strange soil hides a fortune, the company moves in fast, convinced Venus will yield enormous profit. But its grand investment soon becomes a financial disaster, and corporate troubleshooter Robert Kielland is sent to find out why. What he finds is a sinking operation, an exhausted administrator named Simpson, and the baffling Venusian "Mud-pups," whose alien customs make even simple instructions nearly impossible to communicate. As Kielland struggles through chaos, greed, and frontier absurdity, the novel becomes a sharp comic science-fiction tale of corporate ambition and the limits of human control. Beneath the satire lies a quieter theme as well: the pull of native soil, and the deep bond between people, place, and belonging. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.