Gerald Vance 31 min read

Two days into his commission, zealous young Lieutenant Ward Harrison gets his first assignment, a first touch of action on which, his commander warns, a great deal will depend.

Gerald Vance's 1942 story sends a green officer into colonization horror against a deadly planetary menace. Vivid, tense golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of a boyish lieutenant's baptism of fire against the lethal monsoons of a hostile world.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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