Mark Clutter 26 min read

A spacecaptain comes home from ten years away to find his native planet wrecked by war, and promptly gets very, very drunk.

Mark Clutter's 1953 story opens with Jan Obrien hurtling a stolen aircar down a Rocky Mountain canyon at dawn, tasting Terran liquor for the first time in a decade and reeling from a homeworld ruined by its worst war. Boozy, bitter, fast-moving social SF about a soldier's disillusioned homecoming. Read it for a hard-edged golden-age tale that leads with a hangover and a heartbreak.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas