Jr. John W. Campbell 58 min read

When the very atoms fail and a cosmic menace looms, a brilliant young scientist must combine science and courage to save the world, in a tale of atoms, energy, and interplanetary peril.

John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1930 story, his first published work, written while a student at MIT, is a rousing hard-SF space opera. Vivid, idea-driven, historic. Read it for the debut of the man who would become science fiction's most influential editor, an ambitious early yarn blending real physics with cosmic adventure, a fascinating first step by the shaper of the genre's golden age.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Hans Waldemar Wessolowski