His series of pages on the Venera program[1] just blows all other resources away, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

He mentions on his copyright page[2] that he studied Russian books/papers, befriended & interviewed Russian scientists, dug up rare photographs, and even processed original spacecraft data with custom C++ code to create some of the images!

I look forward to his book; does he have an ETA on the publication date?

[1]: http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm [2]: http://www.mentallandscape.com/Copyright.htm