Dwight V. Swain 2 hr 7 min read

Offered a fortune to command a field force and beat the Cartel to a processing unit on the unassigned satellites, spaceman Boone keeps saying no, because right now he has something else on his mind.

Dwight V. Swain's 1954 story is a rousing space-opera adventure. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a colorful yarn of high-stakes commerce and menace among the outer satellites, where a reluctant hero is drawn into a deadly race and a terror waiting in the dark, in fast-moving golden-age pulp style.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

2 hr 7 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry