Alan Edward Nourse 33 min read

Only one team ever tried to cross the sunward face of Mercury at perihelion, the 'Brightside', and a mysterious visitor knows exactly what happened to them.

Alan E. Nourse's 1956 classic frames its tale of a doomed expedition across the hottest place a human can stand as a story told in a quiet London lounge. Gripping, meticulous hard SF about hubris and the ultimate feat of endurance. Read it for one of the great man-against-environment stories, tense and unforgettable.

In its time

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

Reading it

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