Kris Neville 32 min read

Using live bait is the best way to lure dangerous alien game, unless it turns out that you're the bait. On a hostile world, the tyrant Extrone hunts the deadliest quarry of all.

Kris Neville's 1951 story is a taut, ironic tale of a ruthless ruler's hunting expedition that turns on its head. Sharp, suspenseful first-contact SF. Read it for a lean, tense story where the hunter's arrogance sets a very nasty trap, and not for the beast.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Elizabeth MacIntyre