Bill Garson 43 min read

This was it, Earth's last hope, its slim bright shape built with the sweat, blood, and tears of every riveter, welder, and engineer. The ship of hope trembled in its cradle as the rockets flared.

Bill Garson's 1944 story is a stirring post-apocalyptic space opera of humanity's final gamble among the stars. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of one desperate ship carrying the hopes of a dying world, and the lone man who must fly it.

In its time

Published in 1944, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Joseph Doolin