Fox B. Holden 17 min read

A high-strung 'youth of fifty' watches an alien ship circle his colony, and doesn't like it one bit.

Fox Holden's 1956 story observes the nervous, artistic Tharn and the steadier Angelo as a stylus-shaped craft glints in the sky above their long-established colony, preparing to land at its edge. An atmospheric, character-forward piece that lets unease build around a slowly descending visitor and a society braced for change. Read it for mood-driven first-contact SF with a strong sense of a lived-in alien community.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

17 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay