The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart Episode #391
Ron Goulart | June 18, 2025-
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The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart Episode #391
Ron Goulart
THE YES MEN OF VENUS
Episode #391 · Ron Goulart · Narrated by Scott Miller
Privileged we are to bring you this historic story—one which will warm the manly hearts of the legion of devoted admirers of that venerable fantasist, Arthur Wright Beemis. The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart.
The Yes Men of Venus is a wild, tongue-in-cheek science-fiction adventure from Ron Goulart, written in the tradition of classic pulp planetary romances. The narrator begins his story not in space, but falling out of an atomic zeppelin over the Pacific, heartbroken after being rejected by the father of the woman he hoped to marry. What follows is a chain of increasingly impossible events that Goulart delivers with a straight face and a wink.
Dragged underwater by a giant clam, rescued by a mysterious American living among island “natives,” and then treated to a tale of reincarnation, teleportation, and gladiatorial combat, the narrator is swept into a sprawling comic odyssey across multiple planets. Mars is in political and economic crisis. Venus has a hidden civilization inside it. A lost love may be a reincarnated Egyptian priestess. And somewhere deep beneath the surface of Venus, a woman is being held prisoner by a strange society known only as the Yes Men — a group whose eerie obedience hints at something more than simple loyalty.
Goulart plays all of it for fun, pacing the story like a roller-coaster: a cast of oversized aliens, heroic declarations, casual swordfighting, and moments of dead-serious romance delivered in the most earnest pulp language imaginable. It’s both a parody and a tribute — a reminder of how wildly imaginative mid-century sci-fi could be before realism and hard science took over. If you enjoy planetary adventure in the spirit of Burroughs, but with self-aware humor and sly social commentary, this one fits the bill.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ron Goulart (1933–2022) was one of the most prolific and playful writers of American science fiction. Known for fast pacing, witty dialogue, and a satirical edge, Goulart wrote hundreds of short stories and more than 50 novels across science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. He appeared regularly in Galaxy, If, Amazing Stories, and other magazines where humor was welcome alongside adventure.
Beyond fiction, Goulart was also a major historian of comics and pulp culture, writing landmark nonfiction works such as Cheap Thrills and The Great Comic Book Artists. He ghost-wrote media tie-ins, revived classic characters like The Avenger, and brought a comic sensibility to a field that often took itself very seriously.
Goulart’s stories are rarely about perfect heroes or solemn futures — instead he gives readers flawed adventurers, absurd situations, and futures that feel more like reflections of our own world than distant utopias. The Yes Men of Venus embodies that spirit: playful, fast-moving, and completely unashamed of being fun.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart — a witty vintage science fiction tale of schemes, satire, and interplanetary chaos. Hear it today!
VENUS AND VENUSIAN RELATED STORIES
Venus has always been science fiction’s most tempting lie.
For decades, writers looked at that bright point in the twilight sky and imagined a world hidden under cloud—steaming jungles, poisonous swamps, strange ruins, and creatures built for heat and pressure. Then the real data arrived. The romance didn’t die. It evolved. Venus became a test of nerve, a place where humans bargain with an environment that never bargains back.
In these stories, Venus can be a destination that breaks crews, a route that turns routine hauling into a trap, or a rumor that follows you home. Sometimes “Venusian” means a living species with rules of its own. Sometimes it means a human scheme stamped with a glamorous label and sold as destiny. Either way, once Venus enters the story, the air gets heavier.
You’ll find explorers stepping into landscapes no Earth-born body was meant to endure. You’ll find salvage crews and pilots learning that the shortest path can be the cruelest one. You’ll find satire that uses Venus as a mirror, then tilts the mirror until the joke turns sharp.
Start anywhere below. If you want the pure “planetary Venus” mood, go for the swamp-world classics. If you want Venus on the shipping lanes, pick the cargo runs. If you want a grin with teeth, try the Venus comedies.
- The Guest Rites by Robert Silverberg
- The Moon That Vanished by Leigh Brackett
- The Queen of Space by Joseph Slotkin
- The Venus Evil by Chester S. Geier
- F.O.B. Venus by Nelson S. Bond
- The Yes Men of Venus by Ron Goulart
- The Flight of the Eagle by Alfred Coppel
- Before Eden by Arthur C. Clarke
- Savage Galahad by Bryce Walton
- Double–Cross by Frederik Pohl
- In the Walls of Eryx by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
- First Landing by Roger D. Aycock
- Flowering Evil by Margaret St. Clair
- Quarantined Species by J. F. Bone
- Short Snorter by Charles Einstein
- Patch by William Shedenhelm
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