“There was No Paradise,” a 1940 golden novelette by Manly Wade Wellman

Thanks to Doc Mars of the amazing French-language website Mars & la Science Fiction, you can download and read American Sci-Fi author Manly Wade Wellman’s complete interplanetary novelette “There was No Paradise” (pdf) as it was originally published in the August 1940 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine. A tale about a man from Mars who had the Midas touch but couldn’t buy the things he wanted, here are the opening lines of “There was No Paradise”:

THE windowless gray room was overcrowded. Fifty men and more sat in rows of chairs. Rakish, watchful men, with pencils and pads of papers. They were reporters.

“Here he comes,” whispered one.

And here he certainly came, between two uniformed guards, the warden ahead and a muttering priest behind. He was the tallest and handsomest man any of them had ever seen, even though he wore shapeless prison shoddy and his high skull was shaven. Though intent and alert, he had no appearance of worry. His color was good, and his step firm . . . .

C'est magnifique, Doc Mars!