Henry T. Simmons 1 hr 2 min read

Pell flees into the black maw of an alley, breath whistling in agony, as his pursuer's blue lancet of flame turns the wall beside him to running slag, trapped, on Z-Day, at the far reach of Centauri.

Henry T. Simmons's 1948 story is a rousing space-opera adventure. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a fast-moving pulp yarn of pursuit and peril on a distant world of the Centauri system, brimming with ray-guns, chases, and cliffhanger danger, in the breathless, action-packed style of the classic space-adventure magazines.

In its time

Published in 1948, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

1 hr 2 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Al McWilliams