Prospector's Special

On Venus's blistering Scorpion Desert, prospector Tom Morrison is running out of everything except hope. Crushed by heat, thirst, and debt, he pushes his sandcar toward a rumored goldenstone strike, dreaming of the fortune that will win him Janie and a quiet farm back on Earth. But a crash leaves him stranded, injured, and cut off in a world ruled by cash-and-carry cruelty, where no company will extend credit and every service has its price. Forced to continue on foot, Morrison is shadowed by sandwolves, haunted by feverish visions, and kept alive by a stubborn refusal to quit. A mail robot named Williams 4 brings letters from home, warnings from a wary old hand, and a birthday package he can't use to save himself, while the telephone and utility companies enforce the same merciless logic as the desert itself. When Morrison finally stumbles into a ravine of solid goldenstone, triumph turns instantly ironic: the fortune he needs is worthless without water, transport, and a way to call for help. In this sharp, darkly comic tale of survival, greed, and bureaucracy, the harsh frontier of Venus tests whether a man's dream is worth his life. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.