Homesick

Marilyn A. Venable, a.k.a. Lynn Venable and Lyn Venable, was a very accomplished female science fiction writer in a male-dominated industry, thus the names Lynn Venable and Lyn Venable. “Homesick” is a short story Ms. Venable wrote for one of the pulp sci-fi magazines of the 1950s.

Imagine if you will a three-year journey to outer space and back, drinking distilled water, breathing filtered air, and synthetic food. You can imagine the anticipation of returning to Earth, and then discovering you are allergic to everything on Earth from women to the air you breathe. This is the story of four aging astronauts, able only to look at Earth from their spaceship or venture out to water the geraniums wearing a spacesuit.