Erik Fennel 35 min read

The Martians never explained why they abruptly called home their emissaries, abandoned space travel, and shut Earth out, because even they weren't sure what had happened to them.

Erik Fennel's 1950 story spins a colorful first-contact space opera from a baffling Martian withdrawal. Sharp, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for a story that digs into the strange truth behind Mars closing its doors, and the madness at the heart of it.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Max Elkan