To Each His Own

The Venusians have traveled millions of miles expecting to find humanity at its peak. Instead, they land on a silent world. Cities stand empty. Technology lies scattered like bones. The civilization they came to meet has vanished, leaving behind only echoes and questions no one alive can answer.This is the premise that makes "To Each His Own" linger in the mind. Jack Sharkey constructs a first contact story where the contact is with absence itself. The Venusians must piece together what happened to humanity while grappling with an uncomfortable possibility: they might be next.Written in the early 1960s, the novel carries surprising weight. Sharkey asks what happens when a species optimized for life encounters a world that was ideal for life but got something else entirely. The prose is lean, the atmosphere thick with unease, and the conclusion arrives like a warning no one is around to receive.