George A. Whittington 38 min read

A patrol captain, homeward bound with a memory of red-gold hair, answers a visa-phone call from his commander's daughter, and steels himself against her plea.

George A. Whittington's 1945 story opens aboard the battle cruiser Avenger, its captain torn between love for Almira Denton and the hard demands of a Solar System at war. Colorful, romantic military space opera in the grand pulp manner. Read it for atmospheric golden-age SF where interplanetary duty and the heart pull hard against each other.

In its time

Published in 1945, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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