James R. Adams 30 min read

'I have a formula,' the little man says too loudly in a Martian musk-parlor full of cutthroats, and the narrator hustles him to the back room before someone slits his throat for it.

James R. Adams's 1945 story opens on danger and intrigue in a seedy Martian dive, launching a fast space-opera adventure. Colorful, hard-boiled golden-age pulp. Read it for a rollicking tale of a mysterious formula, a dangerous crowd, and a narrator who smells profit through the musk.

In its time

Published in 1945, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

A. Murphy