Once He had Been a Star Master—Now He Dealt in Soul-Shattering Ruin... Farradyne had committed the one unpardonable error a Space Master could make. He didn't die along with the other 32 passengers when his ship smashed into the Bog on Venus. They broke him—exiled him to the rotting fungus fields of Venus. Now his only desire in existence was to return to the cool, gleaming sea of deep space. And there was a way—only one. But he would have to become the vilest parasite in the universe—peddler of a poison that stripped the spirit, before it consumed the body...." (Goodreads)
George Oliver Smith (April 9, 1911 – May 27, 1981) (also known by the pseudonym Wesley Long) was an American science fiction author. Smith was an active contributor to Astounding Science Fiction during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1940s. His collaboration with the magazine's editor, John W. Campbell, Jr. was interrupted when Campbell's first wife, Doña, left him in 1949 and married Smith. Smith continued regularly publishing science fiction novels and stories until 1960. His output greatly diminished in the 1960s and 1970s when he had a job that required his undivided attention. He was given the First Fandom Hall of Fame award in 1980. He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers.