Charles L. Fontenay 31 min read

Two rival spaceship crews share a last friendly meal before blastoff, one flying rockets, the other a newfangled atom-drive tow-job.

Charles Fontenay's 1956 story sets grizzled Jonner Jons against the shrewd, red-faced Russo Baat aboard a spinning space station, dramatizing the changing of the guard as new propulsion muscles out the old. Solid, well-observed hard SF about progress and the men it leaves behind. Read it for grounded golden-age SF with a real feel for the working culture of spacers.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller