Alan Edward Nourse 1 hr 19 min read

'I can break him, split his Criterion Committee wide open now, and open rejuvenation up to everybody.' In the biting cold four hours after Martian sunset, Carl Golden waits for the last light to die.

Alan E. Nourse's 1957 story builds a taut psi-and-social-SF tale around the fight to make immortality available to all. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story of one man's dangerous crusade against those who would hoard the gift of longer life.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 19 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).