Mike Lewis 35 min read

The Oren are one mind and legion strength, cold parasites with everything figured out, except for one fierce, gold-bronze she-cat of a girl.

Mike Lewis's 1953 story opens with a man clubbing a fat 'Orenian prowler' and discovering the beaten woman is more than she seems, launching a tale of resistance against a hive-minded invader. Fast, colorful dystopian space opera. Read it for pulpy golden-age SF about a collective menace and the individual who won't be absorbed.

In its time

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

Reading it

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