Murray Leinster 1 hr 12 min read

As his Survey ship kills its momentum and flips end-for-end, Hardwick's inner ear insists he's turning head-over-heels though his feet stay planted, the queasy prelude to a very strange landing.

Murray Leinster's 1956 story is a clever colonization and hard-SF tale. Sharp, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for a well-turned puzzle story of a survey team confronting a genuinely disorienting alien environment, where careful observation and reason must make sense of a world that seems upside down, in idea-rich golden-age problem-solving SF.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 12 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas