History Literature / TheCosmicExpress

!!Tropes appearing in this work include:

* VenusIsWet: In the story, Venus is a habitable jungle planet similar to pre-Cenezoic Earth, complete with dinosaurs.
* WishFulfillment: Eric Stokes-Harding is a prolific best-selling author (audience of over 100 million, which means he's probably sold over a billion copies of his books) whose success enables him to live in a swanky New York apartment. He's just married a beautiful and prominent poetess. At the time Creator/JackWilliamson wrote this story, he was a single 24-year-old, just starting in the business and with serious emotional and physical health problems.

* CriticalResearchFailure: In-universe, Eric and Nada both assume that it's easy to survive in raw Nature; they fail miserably on [[HungryJungle Venus]], and would have ''died'' if they [[spoiler:hadn't been rather quickly rescued by Cosmic Express beam]].

* ExtyYearsFromNow: The story was written in 1930 and published in 1931, and is set in 2432 -- which is just a bit over half a millennium from the date of publication (Jack Williamson was not yet a big enough name to be sure of an immediate sale).

* AffectionateParody: Between his name and the sort of stories he writes, Eric Stokes-Harding was almost certainly a parody of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs. Eric romanticizes the natural life in ''exactly'' the way that ERB did in his tales, especially the {{Tarzan}} series. It should be noted in this regard that Creator/JackWilliamson actually ''did'' grow up on one of the last American frontiers (rural Arizona and New Mexico in the 1910's and 1920's; while Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs grew up in Chicago but was stationed on the very same frontier as a US Cavalry trooper in the 1890's, over a decade before Williamson was born, so both men had seen truly savage surroundings -- but Burroughs had the more urban upbringing.

* HardToLightFire: Eric and Nada can't light one at all. Amply [[JustifiedTrope justified]], in that they are trying to light ''wet'' wood, ''in the rain'', by ''rubbing sticks together'' -- they have brought no matches and have apparently never heard of the concept of "tinder." Jack Williamson, who grew up on the Southwestern Frontier, would have been quite aware that what his characters were trying to do was utterly [[YouFailPhysicsForever impossible]].

* TechnologyMarchesOn: In the high-tech world of 2432 A.D., Eric Stokes-Harding turns out his stories on a "small typewriter." Granted, it's probably an electric rather than purely mechanical model.

* ValuesDissonance: The fat woman at the Cosmic Express office is worried because her ''dog has run off and been lost''. This is treated by Charley the clerk as purely amusing, and there's no sign that Eric, Nada or even Jack Williamson find anything wrong with this attitude. We care more about pets today than we did in 1930.

* CreatorCouple: Eric and Nada are both successful writers, and were even before they got marrie3d. He's a best-selling adventure author, and she's a prominent poetess.
* CriticalResearchFailure: Eric and Nada both assume that it's easy to survive in raw Nature; they fail miserably on [[HungryJungle Venus]], and would have ''died'' if they [[spoiler:hadn't been rather quickly rescued by Cosmic Express beam]].

* ScienceMarchesOn: In the story, Venus is a habitable jungle planet similar to pre-Cenezoic Earth, complete with dinosaurs. This was actually plausible, given the assumptions regarding planetology and evolutionary biology of the Interwar Era.

* WishFulfillment: Eric Stokes-Harding is a prolific best-selling author (audience of over 100 million, which means he's probably sold over a billion copies of his books) whose success enables him to live in a swanky New York apartment. He's just married a beautiful and prominent poetess. At the time Creator/JackWilliamson wrote this story, he was a single 24-year-old, just starting in the business and with serious emotional and physical health problems.