Name this science-fiction novel
September 18, 2008 9:15 PM Subscribe
Please help me identify this 50s, 60s or 70s science-fiction novel. The bad guys are evil alien jellyfish who lived in a lake, but you never see them, and the spaceships are nuclear/steam powered.
My mother brought this science-fiction novel home when I was a kid in the early 70s. It was clearly a sequel (they often refer back to the previous mission).
By the style I remember, it could have been written as early as in the 50s. And possibly it's British - I grew up in England. The style was quite "Dan Dare". It wasn't by an author I'd heard of (so not Arthur C Clarke, Asimov, etc).
Here is what I remember:
The earth spaceships all work by heating water with nuclear power to generate steam jets.
I remember that in the first chapter the heroes fly to the moon in a nuclear powered/steam spaceship, and there is drama about whether they will run out of water or not.
Then they fly to a planet (Venus or Mars) that they have been to before. The previous mission was a disaster because of the evil alien jellyfish that inhabit the lake.
The heroes need water to fuel their ship to get home, but the evil jellyfish have a nasty habit of turning the water in the lake to sulphuric acid. The heroes end up in a big deserted building with long abandoned machinery and somehow solve an elaborate puzzle that I can't remember, and manage to get water and fly home.
My mother brought this science-fiction novel home when I was a kid in the early 70s. It was clearly a sequel (they often refer back to the previous mission).
By the style I remember, it could have been written as early as in the 50s. And possibly it's British - I grew up in England. The style was quite "Dan Dare". It wasn't by an author I'd heard of (so not Arthur C Clarke, Asimov, etc).
Here is what I remember:
The earth spaceships all work by heating water with nuclear power to generate steam jets.
I remember that in the first chapter the heroes fly to the moon in a nuclear powered/steam spaceship, and there is drama about whether they will run out of water or not.
Then they fly to a planet (Venus or Mars) that they have been to before. The previous mission was a disaster because of the evil alien jellyfish that inhabit the lake.
The heroes need water to fuel their ship to get home, but the evil jellyfish have a nasty habit of turning the water in the lake to sulphuric acid. The heroes end up in a big deserted building with long abandoned machinery and somehow solve an elaborate puzzle that I can't remember, and manage to get water and fly home.
No one better than rec.arts.sf.written for finding random SF novels.
posted by Kattullus at 2:22 PM on September 19, 2008
posted by Kattullus at 2:22 PM on September 19, 2008
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posted by the latin mouse at 1:41 PM on September 19, 2008