Michael Shaara 1 hr 32 min read

Expendable young officer Web Hilton, bearer of a strange heritage, is sent out among the naked stars to meet the alien, and becomes the first man in history to die more than once.

Michael Shaara's 1954 story is an atmospheric first-contact space opera. Vivid, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a haunting tale from the future author of The Killer Angels, an expendable spaceman confronting an alien and the mystery of repeated death, in a moody, well-crafted golden-age story of sacrifice and strangeness.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 32 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).