Raymond Z. Gallun 24 min read

Port Laribee is a shabby scrap of Earth dropped onto Mars, and old Dave Kort, the first wilderness tramp, plods in from the red waste with carven stones to trade, a secret grin behind his air-hood.

Raymond Z. Gallun's 1952 story is a wistful, atmospheric colonization tale of a Martian frontier legend. Evocative, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story steeped in the romance of the Martian wilderness, and the craggy old wanderer who becomes its living myth.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller