Customer Reviews

Sand Doom

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of 1500 short stories that Murray Leinster published during his writing career. It appeared in the December 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

"Sand Doom" tells the story of a ship stranded in orbit, with a crew about ready to mutiny, and a colony of laborers, steel workers, and electricians on the planet below down to their last six months of food and water. All of them have given themselves up for dead, since no rescue ship can possibility arrive in less than a year and perhaps as many as five years.

Against this backdrop, one man must somehow find a way to motivate everyone to look for a solution to their common problem before time runs out for everyone, and he must do it while fighting against his own feeling of inadequacy in the strange environment that is Xosa II.

"Sand Doom" is typical of pulp scfi in the mid 20th century, when things were pretty much black and white, with no deep moral and philosophical ideas to weigh the reader down. The writing is easy and straight forward for a relaxing evening read. I give the story 4-stars because it certainly is not a piece of classical literature, but one cannot deny that Leinster was one of the very best. Indeed, in the scifi short story business, he has to rank up there close to Asimov and Clark.