Arthur J. Burks 47 min read

Trapped and facing an incredible shadow army whose lightest touch means instant dissolution, the last fighters of an invaded Earth must make a bitter choice, victory beyond death, or oblivion.

Arthur J. Burks's 1950 story is a rousing first-contact and post-apocalyptic space opera. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a colorful, action-packed yarn of Earth's desperate last stand against an unstoppable alien invasion, where soldiers face annihilation and an impossible gamble, in the breathless heroic style of the pulp era.

In its time

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

Reading it

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