Carl Selwyn 52 min read

'If it's going to happen, it's got to be quick,' thinks Bill Ricker, watching Neptune hang like a ghostly emerald in the void, hardly the place he'd expect an ambush.

Carl Selwyn's 1941 story opens on tense anticipation aboard a spaceliner nearing a frozen world. Atmospheric, fast hard-SF space opera. Read it for a suspenseful tale of danger and intrigue among a handful of passengers bound for the bleak edge of the solar system.

In its time

Published in 1941, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Frank R. Paul