Katherine MacLean 1 hr 43 min read

Bryce Carter has risen from Thieves Row to director of famed U.T., and Earth, Moon, and Belt await his command for the grand coup, with his star-sent cousin, a self-styled witch doctor, to help.

Katherine MacLean's 1952 story is a sharp social-SF space opera of power and intrigue. Clever, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story where an ambitious tycoon plays for control of the whole solar system, and an uncanny 'witch doctor' cousin holds the key to a scheme that could stake the stars.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 43 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).