
Part 1
Harvey Crane awakens on a pastel‑colored horizon, his back flat on an alien plain where the sky seems wrong and the horizon vanishes. A strange, tapering cylinder and a forest of triangular, blue‑and‑yellow trees surround him, and a towering castle looms in the distance. Before he can make sense of his surroundings, a confident girl named Dana appears, salvaging a massive ship that seems to have crashed nearby and then, with a casual flick, erases it altogether.
Together they wander through a palace garden, swim in a violet moat, and share a curious feast of orange, ladybug‑like fruit, all while a shape‑shifting creature keeps them company. Though Harvey can’t recall how he arrived, the world is filled with whimsical details and an undercurrent of mystery that beckons him to explore. Their banter hints at forgotten memories and a purpose that lies just beyond the edge of this vivid, surreal landscape.
Language
en
Duration
~17 minutes (16K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
Dec 3, 2023
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
b. 1945
A little-known American science fiction writer, born in 1945, published stories such as Cully and World Edge in the early 1960s. His work leans toward psychological and surreal science fiction, giving familiar pulp-era ideas a stranger, dreamlike feel.
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