Robert Sheckley 1 hr 5 min read

On a dead world of powdery sand and dying memories, the last of the Quedak watches a spaceship descend, a golden jet of light bringing new minds to conquer, or to join.

Robert Sheckley's 1960 novella is a gripping first-contact and psi tale of an ancient alien intelligence and a human ship. Sharp, imaginative, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a superb story where the last survivor of a lost civilization reaches out to bind the minds of unwary Earthmen.

In its time

Published in 1960, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

1 hr 5 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Dick Francis