Ivar Jorgensen 27 min read

A dead planet, a million years silent, and open strife between the ship's military and scientific staffs over what to make of the ancient civilization's remains. But which of them is mightier?

Ivar Jorgensen's 1958 story is a sharp hard-SF and social-SF tale of ruins, rivalry, and hubris, its title echoing Shelley. Thoughtful, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a story where explorers of a long-dead world confront the vanity of power, and the tension between the sword and the mind.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dan Adkins