C. L. Moore 40 min read

Hunted through the time-ruined Martian city of Illar by circling Patrol ships, outlaw Northwest Smith crouches in a half-collapsed temple, and is drawn toward the deadly lure of the Tree of Life.

C. L. Moore's 1936 story is a lush, atmospheric horror-tinged space opera, a Northwest Smith classic. Vivid, hypnotic, superbly told. Read it for the incomparable Moore magic, her iconic space-adventurer ensnared by an ancient alien beauty on a dying Mars, in a dreamlike, sensuous tale of temptation and terror among timeless ruins.

In its time

Published in 1936, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

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