Poul Anderson 39 min read

Fifty-eight years and three parsecs from Earth, aboard a ship where nerves are worn thin, Eben Holbrook weeps at the sight of a green-and-blue world, and dares to hope it may be home at last.

Poul Anderson's 1958 story is a thoughtful dystopian space opera. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a tense Anderson tale of desperate colonists reaching a new world after a crushing voyage, only to find their troubles are far from over, in a well-crafted golden-age piece about hope, tyranny, and the high ones who rule.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller