Stephen Marlowe 21 min read

On frozen little Mimas, a summer resort three-quarters of a billion miles from the inner planets, the sweating Socrates 'Smitty' Smith sizes up a short, stout, bald visitor with a florid face.

Stephen Marlowe's 1952 story is a colorful space-opera adventure of intrigue in the rings of Saturn. Vivid, atmospheric golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale that opens on a chilly resort moon under Saturn's rings and carries its wry hero into danger and mystery.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Robert Fuqua