Dorothy Quick, one of the most prolific women writers in pulp science fiction and horror magazines including Weird Tales, also wrote a planetary romance novel in 1938—with an emphasis on romance. Strange Awakening is the tale of Iva, a girl from Long Island who finds herself transported to Venus by the Great Mind, the planet’s despotic and sexually frustrated ruler. Coming to her rescue is Ota, the leader of Venus’s Blue People, who risks his kingdom and his immortality to overthrow the Great Mind so he can marry the Earth Girl. A blend of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and John Carter of Mars (but with more kissing), Strange Awakening is a fascinating and forgotten work by one of pulp’s premier women writers.
