George H. Smith 46 min read

Sweating in the humid heat of a command post on the miserable outpost world of Naraka, Terrence O'Mara curses the blasted place, who'd want it, except the enemy Rumi?

George H. Smith's 1954 story is a colorful military space opera of grunts holding a wretched frontier world. Vivid, gritty golden-age SF. Read it for a rousing tale of soldiers dug in on a hell of a planet, and the sudden turn that changes everything.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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