Frank Belknap Long 16 min read

In the great northwestern desert, Steve digs a Martian mirror from the sand, its surface a lake of fire, its craftsmanship beyond any Earthly hand, and its nature, the narrator knows, destructive.

Frank Belknap Long's 1951 story spins an atmospheric colonization space opera from a dangerous alien artifact. Evocative, moody golden-age SF. Read it for a haunting tale of a Martian mirror that shows a hopeless vision of loveliness, and the ruin it brings.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Herman B. Vestal