Algis Budrys 24 min read

He had one ambition, to pilot the first manned rocket to the Moon, and he prepared himself for it as no man ever had before.

Algis Budrys's 1958 story follows a boy who declares himself a rocket pilot before rockets exist, a quietly powerful tale of single-minded devotion to the dream of spaceflight. Moving, elegant golden-age SF. Read it for a beautiful story about desiring one thing utterly, and the long reach toward the Moon.

In its time

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

Reading it

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