Ray Palmer 39 min read

The giant space liner settles into the blast-pit, its voyage over, but no hatch opens, no one leaves; and at the controls sits a thing with corded man-like arms, black fur, and talons, waiting.

Ray Palmer's 1952 story is a colorful, atmospheric space-opera adventure with a menacing hook. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing pulp yarn of a ship crewed by something monstrous, where the mystery of the silent liner and the creature at its controls sets a lurid adventure in motion.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

39 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).