Alfred Coppel 22 min read

An old-timer at the Mojave space yards sings 'Clementine,' a pioneer ballad learned from his grandfather, kindling dreams in a boy who hangs about listening, catching at the strangeness of him.

Alfred Coppel's 1949 story is a lyrical first-contact and space-opera tale, framed in frontier nostalgia. Warm, evocative golden-age SF. Read it for a wistful story where an old spaceman's songs and tales fire a young imagination, and something wondrous lies behind the legend.

In its time

Published in 1949, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Al McWilliams