John Victor Peterson 27 min read

Sweeping in from perihelion toward Venus, the black destroyer's skull-faced commander spits a single word, Adrakolarn, the reckoning-cry of a reborn, vanishing Martian race.

John Victor Peterson's 1941 story opens on grim, atmospheric menace, building a military space opera of a dying world's vengeance. Colorful, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of interplanetary war and an ancient race's desperate moment of destiny.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John Giunta