Edmond Hamilton 1 hr 38 min read

As easy as opening a door, Ross Birrel steps out of his own life into cosmic mystery, a gray, commonplace stranger waiting in his apartment with official business he won't explain.

Edmond Hamilton's 1957 story is a fast, atmospheric first-contact space opera. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a rousing tale where an ordinary man is abruptly pulled from his everyday world into a hidden struggle among the stars, in classic Hamilton style, mystery, menace, and the wonder of the wider cosmos.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 38 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Lloyd Rognan