Nelson S. Bond 25 min read

Four hours out of the Venus H-layer, the skipper walks into the radio room, sits down, and asks: 'Sparks, look at me, what do you see?' And Sparks fears the old man has finally gone space-nutty.

Nelson S. Bond's 1939 story opens on a wonderfully unsettling captain and builds a fun space-opera adventure with a mystery at its core. Breezy, colorful golden-age pulp. Read it for a genial tale narrated by a wisecracking ship's radioman faced with a very strange skipper.

In its time

Published in 1939, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Robert Fuqua