Jack A. Nelson 30 min read

Eight men stand on a hill looking west over burned, gutted land, toward a series of huge mounds far out on the rocky plain, resolved to reach them, or disappear off the face of the Earth.

Jack A. Nelson's 1955 story is an atmospheric post-apocalyptic and social-SF tale of survivors. Vivid, driven golden-age SF. Read it for a grim, purposeful story of the last free men crossing a devastated world toward a hope on the horizon, and the leader who will not let his band turn back.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban