J. A. Taylor 25 min read

'Far' is strictly relative, half a world away can be no distance at all. When the service rocket Able Jake Four fails to reach Space Station One, the newshounds come baying.

J. A. Taylor's 1958 story builds a taut first-contact tale from a routine space mission gone mysteriously wrong. Sharp, well-paced golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a lost rocket opens onto a strange truth about just how far, or near, home really is.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller