Farmer's story was first published in two parts beginning in the December 1974 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The plot, in which Earth is destroyed by cosmic bureaucrats doing routine maintenance and the sole human survivor goes on a quest to find the "Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question", was an inspiration for the plot of the later Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

[citation needed] According to Farmer's introduction in Venus on the Half-Shell and Others, Vonnegut was initially reluctant to allow the project, but finally relented.

Most of the alien names in Venus were formed by transposing the letters of English or non-English words.

"[1] The title and paperback cover art are a reference to an Italian Renaissance tempera painting by Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, which depicts the birth of the goddess Venus as her rising from the sea on a scallop shell.