Arthur G. Hill 16 min read

Seven greedy men land on Mars ahead of the rest, each with empire in his eyes, and look first at the grinning, green-skinned Martians, sure this new world is theirs for the taking.

Arthur G. Hill's 1957 story is a sharp, ironic colonization and first-contact tale. Clever, pointed golden-age SF. Read it for a mordant story of would-be conquerors meeting the placid natives of Mars, in a wry golden-age fable about greed, arrogance, and the terrible answer a patient world can give to those who come to plunder it.

In its time

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

Reading it

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