Frank M. Robinson 21 min read

The captain has learned to hate, it is his profession and his reason to go on, but even hatred must be channeled, and no truths last forever.

Frank M. Robinson's 1958 story wakes its warrior from a dream of an Ohio home into a shipboard battle, building a taut military space opera about hatred and command. Sharp, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping tale of a fighting man forced to reexamine the enmity he lives by.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

21 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

H. R. Smith