Robert Abernathy 1 hr 13 min read

On an arid world roamed only by savage war-machines, two machine-less humans should die quickly, that they might suddenly become the deadliest things alive is some dead god's joke.

Robert Abernathy's 1949 Planet Stories tale is a vivid military and post-apocalyptic space opera. Driven, atmospheric golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale of a world of autonomous killing machines, where two lone humans defy the mechanized order in a fight for survival and freedom.

In its time

Published in 1949, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

1 hr 13 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Al McWilliams