Harry Harrison 22 min read

Being an interstellar trouble-shooter wouldn't be so bad, the narrator reflects, if he could only shoot the trouble, but the Old Man's gleeful grin means another dirty, dangerous job is coming.

Harry Harrison's 1958 story is a rollicking space-opera adventure comedy. Witty, fast, hugely fun. Read it for prime Harrison, a wisecracking repairman dispatched to fix a malfunctioning beacon on a savage alien world, where the natives worship the machinery he's come to service.

In its time

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

Reading it

22 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).