Gerald Vance 1 hr 8 min read

Grounded to starve on a hostile world, Ramsey gives most of his money away, gambles off the rest, picks a fight with the Chief of Police, and the stakes are a planet or two.

Gerald Vance's 1957 story sends its reckless Earthman careening through a colorful, dangerous space-opera caper. Fast, pulpy golden-age SF. Read it for a rollicking tale of a man who solves an impossible predicament by doing everything exactly wrong.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 8 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).