G. G. Revelle 17 min read

Two interceptor jets scream overhead as the Captain leaps from his still-moving jeep, shouting orders to his convoy, and at last turns to look at the massive six-lane steel bridge over the river.

G. G. Revelle's 1957 story is a tense social-SF and space-opera tale that opens on a military operation. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a hard-driving officer and a great river bridge stand at the center of a conflict whose true stakes prove larger than any ordinary battle.

In its time

Published in 1957, 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

Ed Emshwiller