Floyd C. Gale & H. L. Gold 1 hr 30 min read

In the nightmare awfulness of hyperspace, everything is the opposite of itself, and here Len Mattern pauses before the Golden Apple Bar, his old elation gone, counting the years since he saw Lyddy.

H. L. Gold and Floyd C. Gale's 1959 story is an atmospheric social-SF space opera of a fateful return. Moody, sharp golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a man comes back to the woman and the moment that once changed his whole life, and perhaps every other life in his universe.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 30 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Dick Francis