what to see on
oberon

For a scenic browse, and an answer-page for Guess The World...

life on oberon, sprung from fire and metal

...A half dozen vague, crouching shapes were approaching them through the smoke.

They were not men, nor did they wear any protective suits....

The creatures were quadrupeds, and looked something like big baboons.  But their bodies had a queer, metallic appearance.  And indeed, no flesh of ordinary organic compounds could have existed for more than a minute in that tremendous heat.

The faces in the brutish heads had only two features - a gaping mouth of shining metal teeth, and wide-set, unchanging crystal eyes.  The rear feet were hard metallic hoofs, but the front feet were massive, gleaming talons.  Most terrifying of all, bursting flames issued from the mouths of the creatures at each exhalation...

Edmond Hamilton, Treasure on Thunder Moon (1942)

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mineral life on oberon

"Impossible," muttered Russ.  "Life can't exist here."

But they trudged on, across the barren flat to a ridge of rock.  Here they found what they had thought to be impossible.  Clustered along the side of the ridge, in the faint light of the distant and tiny Sun, was a series of thin, blue stalks, about half a foot in height.  On each stalk was a flat scalloped top like a little umbrella.  It was sometimes bright blue, and sometimes violet.  As they drew nearer, these little stalks began to sway, and turned their tops toward them.

"They look like plants," said Burl.  "Plants made of something glassy and plastic."

As Russ studied the strange growths, something moved across the dusty tract behind them.  It was long and thin and wiggly, with a ridge of tiny crystalline hairs along its back.  It was like a snake perhaps, but one made of some unbelievably delicate glasswork.

It slid among the plants and wrapped itself around one.  The growth stopped suddenly, and then was absorbed by the creature.

Russ shook his head in amazement.  "This is a great discovery...   life designed to exist among liquid gases and frozen air - life which can't have anything in common with protoplasm.  Apparently it couldn't exist even on Saturn's moons - they were too hot for it!"

Donald A Wollheim, The Secret of the Ninth Planet (1959)

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a mining valley on oberon

Thunder Moon!  One of the most awesome and dangerous of all the worlds in the System.  Curt Newton had good reason to remember it, for on this hazardous sphere had been staged one of the most dramatic episodes of his great struggle with the villainous Lords of Power.

Thunder Moon - a rugged wilderness of mountains, valleys and gorges, illuminated now by the ghostly green radiance of the huge planet that hung in the heavens overhead, and also by the ominous red flare of countless volcano craters that seethed and smoked at innumerable places.

Wild and forbidding indeed was this unearthly moon, whose core was a mass of molten lava that was forever bursting up through the craters in violent eruption.

"Only the lure of gravium would ever induce men to stay long on this moon," muttered the Brain, staring downward.

"There're the lights of the gravium mine - down in the valley beyond that big volcano!" Otho exclaimed.

Captain Future had seen.  In a long, narrow valley at whose head a huge black volcano smoked, were clustered lights.

Edmond Hamilton, Captain Future's Challenge (1940)

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man-eating jungle plant on oberon

The vegetation around him was strange; foliage of grotesque shape, odd-looking cork-like bark on the trees, queer plants and flowers under foot. But the ground was even and firm. He had no trouble in his desperate race to overtake Hulgar – not until some sort of growth caught his to and suddenly tripped him. He lay for an instant gasping for breath, then started to pick himself up.

But he discovered that something had hold of one foot. He looked down. The green tendril of a plant had become twisted around his ankle. He reached out to free himself; but to his amazement, another green, twining creeper curled itself around his arm.

He twisted his torso erect then, a sudden fear dilating his eyes. All around him he saw more snake-like tendrils pointing in his direction. Those farthest away were bending and twisting like serpents. The nearest ones were fastening themselves upon his legs, curling over and around, reaching hungrily for the upper part of his body.

The ghastly realization dawned upon him that he had come in contact with some sort of horrible man-eating plant, that in a minute or two more he would be hopelessly trapped like a small animal in a snare.

Paul Chadwick, Crusaders of Space (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fall-Winter 1932)

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Comment from contributor Lone Wolf:
This seems like another example of the "jungle moon" archetype. I've never heard of this author before, his style is smooth and easy to read, but I only wish there were a little more details in the descriptions...
Comment from Zendexor: 
It's one way of making a small moon effectively larger - cover it with jungle!  Transportation becomes harder, journeys longer...