Roger Kuykendall 27 min read

A meteor the size of a matchhead wrecks a lone colonist's generator on the Moon, two days before a sunrise he may not live to see.

Roger Kuykendall's 1959 story opens with the cosmic journey of the tiny stone that destroys Evans's steam turbine, stranding him in the lunar dark with dwindling odds and a stubborn refusal to give up. Taut, well-built hard SF about survival and sheer human obstinacy. Read it for gripping man-versus-vacuum suspense with a granite core of persistence.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

27 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen