Jr. L. J. Stecher 18 min read

'As one god to another, let's go home,' Jack Bates says, eager to profit from a galaxy full of Homo sapiens; but his partner insists on one more stop, because it's all too much of a good thing.

L. J. Stecher Jr.'s 1958 story is a clever hard-SF space opera about explorers, humanity's spread, and a survival puzzle. Sharp, ingenious golden-age SF. Read it for a story where finding humans on every world seems like a jackpot, until the reason why proves far less comforting.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dick Francis