Randall Garrett 1 hr 55 min read

A single implacable alien crash-lands on Earth, and humanity must engineer a man capable of matching it, the magazine version.

This is the 1962 Analog serialization of Randall Garrett's tense duel, in which Earth, faced with one lethal extraterrestrial, deliberately builds a superman to fight it. The story opens on the dying alien ship 'like some great silver-pink fish.' Smart, propulsive SF about the cost of creating a champion. Read it for gripping golden-age adventure and a memorably alien antagonist, in its original serial form.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

1 hr 55 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).