Fox B. Holden 15 min read

On a pleasure-cruise to a blue planet, the young space-pilot Logan sweats visibly at the controls as their yacht half-falls, half-glides into the atmosphere, its jets clogged, its descent quickening.

Fox B. Holden's 1952 story is a tense first-contact space opera. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a suspenseful yarn where a carefree space-yachting party turns to danger on an unknown world, and a young pilot must prove his mettle, in a well-turned golden-age piece that shifts from idle pleasure-cruise to survival with satisfying speed.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

15 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry