Mack Reynolds 20 min read

Stepping off the spacer on Mars, gladiator Jak Demsi is handed a yellow spacegram, and it feels good, like he's somebody important, which he's not, after a whole trip taking guff from Suzi and Alger.

Mack Reynolds's 1951 story is a wry social-SF and space-opera tale of a put-upon gladiator and interplanetary games. Fun, breezy golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a self-deprecating fighting man finds himself caught up in something bigger than the arena.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry