Alan Mattox 17 min read

Renner had a purpose in life, and the Purpose in Life had Renner. His star ship makes its last landing on a scrubby little world, controls seeking a response the captain knows will never come.

Alan Mattox's 1958 story is a thoughtful first-contact and space-opera tale of duty and destiny. Sharp, reflective golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a stranded starship captain's iron sense of mission carries him toward a strange purpose on a lonely, forgotten planet.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Summers