Mike Ellis 27 min read

On the hundredth and last star of a long survey, Tom rejoices to find an Earth-type sun, but his small companion Willie, staring morosely at the spectrum screen, has a dark hunch about this world.

Mike Ellis's 1955 story is a wry colonization and social-SF tale. Clever, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a well-turned story of two weary planet-scouts and a too-perfect discovery shadowed by foreboding, building through unease toward revelation, in a well-crafted golden-age piece about hope, dread, and the catch hidden in a long-sought Earthlike world.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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