Soviets on Venus explores a remote jeweled casket. It construes an alien neighbor as it reconceptualizes an underrated scientific breakthrough: the series of unnamed probes piloted to Venus by the USSR between 1961 and the mid-80's. The missions were called the Venera program. These fantastical spacecraft transmitted data, vivid photographs, and poetic energy back to Earth. Some piloted through the morning star's magma-hot, swampy atmosphere as balloons. A few smashed themselves into aeolian canyons or upon alien tufa. A handful simply melted away into silvery pools. And several ended in disaster. These fantastic probes form a sediment of verse from which a strange beauty emerges. Only the dexterity of a poet like Simmons could illuminate the tragic furrows where the trauma of socialist politics overtakes legitimate scientific inquiry. There is a revelation here, and a quiet restlessness. -Gregory Kipp , Geological Engineer Weaving thoughts and images and historical facts together in a poetry which maintains a sparse lyricism, Simmons' narrative is not only vastly more entertaining than most prose histories, but it gives the reader a unique advantage to imagine and reimagine the story that is being told. -Cliff Cunningham , Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland and author of Asteroids Is the verse collection Soviets on Venus good or bad? Yes. Find out for yourself! -Frank Pommersheim , Professor Emeritus, Knudson School of Law and author of Braid of Feathers Thomas E. Simmons is a lawyer and professor at the Knudson School of Law. Previously, he authored Loose-Leaf Tod Browning Encyclopedia and S is for Sentence, both published by Cyberwit. He has taught at every educational level, from Pre-K and primary school to high school, college, and post-graduate. He lives in Vermillion, South Dakota.