Richard Bolton 6 min read

Zurg arches his thorax and unrolls his antennae in a show of calm he doesn't feel, briefing his officers as their ship swings into orbit around the strange third planet, 'green gem of the heavens.'

Richard Bolton's 1956 story is a wry first-contact and military-SF tale told from the invaders' point of view. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a pompous insectoid commander prepares to conquer Earth, and things go rather differently than the Court language predicted.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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