H. B. Fyfe 9 min read

Charlie Holmes claws back to consciousness through pain and blackness, and opens his eyes on a bulbous, grape-red-tentacled creature squatting beside his pallet, rasping 'Hel-lo!'

H. B. Fyfe's 1961 story opens on a jarring alien awakening after a crash, building a wry hard-SF space-opera tale of survival and first contact. Sharp, vivid golden-age SF. Read it for a story that drops its battered hero into strange company and lets the dark comedy and danger unfold.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Summers