R. R. Winterbotham 20 min read

The Venusians have one admirable trait: once they set out to do a thing, nothing stops them, and the sky above Outpost 53 is already dark with their advancing, sausage-shaped hordes.

R. R. Winterbotham's 1941 story is a fast military and first-contact space opera of Earthmen besieged on Venus. Vivid, kinetic golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of a desperate frontier defense against an implacable, unstoppable alien tide.

In its time

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

Reading it

20 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Michael Mirando