Edwin K. Sloat 36 min read

Aboard the liner Western Star, bound for Mars, a century-old Martian cabin boy whispers of Captain Halkon and a secret treasure, as a giant spider streaks down from a pinnacle of rock.

Edwin K. Sloat's 1932 story is a fast, colorful space opera of Martian pirates and hidden loot. Vivid, breathless golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of interplanetary treasure-hunting, ancient secrets, and menace among the red planet's wastes.

In its time

Published in 1932, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

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