C. M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl & Robert W. Lowndes 41 min read

The heirs of space-flight mean to be the first humans on Alpha Centauri, but first they must find the lost Hartnett expedition, whose signals lead to the screwiest planetoid in the galaxy.

This 1942 story by 'Paul Dennis Lavond' (a pseudonym of Kornbluth, Pohl, and Lowndes together) is fast, inventive early hard-SF space opera. Energetic, clever golden-age pulp. Read it for a rollicking tale from three future greats writing as one, chasing a lost ship to a very strange little world.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Chester Cohen