Mark Reinsberg 12 min read

Space trucker Bill Brack swears by Mattapenny's Galactic Guidebook like an interstellar Bible, until a stop-over and a satellite-keeper's daughter teach him that sex and space don't mix.

Mark Reinsberg's 1956 story is a wry social-SF space opera comedy. Fun, genial golden-age SF. Read it for a light, humorous tale of a lonely space trucker's romantic misadventure on a remote satellite, in a breezy golden-age piece that gently spoofs both spacefaring machismo and the trusty traveler's guidebook.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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