Chas. A. Stopher 8 min read

Probos Five gazes at the white expanse rushing up, all five pairs of eyes trying to focus on a landing spot, his Interstar Runabout crippled, minutes from crashing on the deadly frigid third planet.

Chas. A. Stopher's 1958 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale told from a crashing alien's point of view. Clever, comic golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a doomed Mercurian pilot ditches on frozen Earth, and the encounter that follows goes nothing like either side expects.

In its time

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

Reading it

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