Stephen Marlowe 2 hr 37 min read

When May's first strong sunlight greens the avenues of Center City, the Riots begin, angry crowds, back-alley plots, and police who know to make themselves scarce.

Stephen Marlowe's 1959 novel is a fast space-opera adventure of a strange future ritual and a fateful conscription. Vivid, driven golden-age SF. Read it for a rousing tale that opens on seasonal civic chaos and sweeps its hero toward a mysterious mission to the stars.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

2 hr 37 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).