Richard Rein Smith 26 min read

Bounding across the Sea of Serenity in low lunar gravity, an explorer faces a problem with no solution, the trick being to solve it anyway, when the only way out is a snare.

Richard Rein Smith's 1956 story is a sharp colonization and first-contact puzzle tale. Clever, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a taut problem story set on a vividly rendered Moon, where survival hinges on ingenuity against a trap that seems to admit no escape, in classic engineering-SF style.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Weiss