Everett C. Smith & Roman Frederick Starzl 58 min read

The ship comes close to the vast curve of a crystal city, and the Earthmen see that the part below its shining level is a dull, ugly black, hiding the secret of the metal moon.

Roman Frederick Starzl and Everett C. Smith's 1932 story is a rousing space-opera adventure of a strange artificial world. Vivid, inventive golden-age pulp. Read it for a colorful prize-winning pulp yarn where explorers reach a gleaming crystal city on an artificial moon, and uncover the dark truth beneath its glittering surface.

In its time

Published in 1932, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

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