Edward W. Ludwig 21 min read

The city is enchanted, a music box blaring victory, and in a blue-bannered convertible rides Captain George Everson, the legless man whose first rocket exploded but who lived to build another.

Edward W. Ludwig's 1955 story is a stirring, poignant hard-SF space opera of a pioneer's triumph. Vivid, emotional golden-age SF. Read it for a story of the hero's welcome given to the first men back from space, and the extraordinary, broken man whose indomitable will made the conquest of the void possible.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Robert Engle