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Setting up a colony on Venus, as you might imagine, would be something of a challenge and its harsh sulphuric atmosphere would undoubtedly affect anyone trying to live and work there. There are consequently a lot of hard bitten characters among the Venusian colonialists in Derek Künsken’s The House of Styx , the first a new series of SF books set in this hostile environment. Although this first book has a good intriguing hook to keep you reading, the tough nature of this environment and the characters provide some developments that could be just as challenging for the reader. Ideally, if you make an important scientific discovery in a place like this, one moreover that gives the first indication of intelligent alien life, you would imagine it would be carefully investigated and treated as a subject of close careful study. In reality however the truth is that any important knowledge or discovery like this is likely to be exploited for financial gains. That’s Künsken's strong point i...