The Long Winter

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

I pulled up a PDF copy of Astounding Stories (May 1940) on my tablet because I wanted to read and review a novella titled "Space Guards," the last tale written by Phil Nowlan, the creator of Buck Rogers. I clicked on something by accident and the PDF jumps ahead to the short story "The Long Winter," by Raymond Z. Gallun, a prolific writer of science fiction in the 1930s. It looked like a cool story, so I figured "What the hey." I'll review Gallun's story this week and jump back to "Space Guards" next week.

"The Long Winter" is about Earth's first expedition to the planet Uranus. A six-man team has landed, built a shelter against the incredible cold of the planet's 40-year-long winter and began doing their work of collected data.

One of the team is Jan Viborg, but Jan is not a team player. He's the meteorologist--an obviously important job when studying a planet where the methane winds blow constantly and the cold will kill a even a man wearing an armored space suit within a half hour.

But Jan wants glory. He wants to make sure he goes down in the history books as THE man who first walked on Uranus... THE man who did the job and came home. And, of course, he can't be THE man if the rest of the team is still alive.

So he comes up with a plan. He has to go outside to check some of the sensors studying wind velocity, temperature and so on. It's an unpleasant job, but if he goes directly to the instruments, gets the readings and comes directly back (using a beacon light as a guide), then its not really dangerous.

Jan intends to make a brief detour on his next trip, though. He's thought it all out. If he removes a certain bolt the exeterior of the shelter, that will allow inflammable methane snow to flow into gap between the interior and exterior walls of the shelter. IF he opens this hole in the exact right spot, a cable will eventualy spark with electricity and cause an explosion. The shelter will be torn open and the other team members, without spacesuits, will die within seconds. Jan will carry on bravely after this tragic "accident" and, by golly, he'll be famous.

Of course, anyone reading the story knows something will go wrong. But Gallun was a clever science fiction writer. The reason Jan's plan goes wrong makes perfect sense when explained--involving one small science detail that the murderous weatherman didn't think of. And Gallun hits the right notes in generating a creepy atmosphere and giving Jan a loathsome but believable personality. "The Long Winter" is a good story, well worth taking the time to read.

You can read it online HERE.