Harry Harrison 3 hr 21 min read

Sweat and blood on his skin, a foil heavy as lead in his exhausted hand, Brion fights on before thousands, one thing only in his universe: the shining steel that hovers, engaging his own.

Harry Harrison's 1961 story (expanded as Planet of the Damned) is a rousing adventure and space opera, framed by Stephen Crane's famous verse. Muscular, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a driving tale of a champion drawn from his world to save another, from a master of high-stakes SF adventure.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

3 hr 21 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).