Synopsis
An astronaut is the Guest of Honor at the Harvest Festival in the small town he grew up in.
History
First publication: New Worlds SF, November 1966
Review
An example of the British New Wave SF from Moorcock’s New Worlds. The story is interesting in that it really doesn’t need to be considered speculative. I doubt any real astronauts behaved the way this one did, but there is nothing about this story that couldn’t have really happened. What it does is show the way people were glamorizing the astronauts in the 60s. making them national heroes and throwing parades. Operating those early capsules wasn’t as simple as the story suggests, but still the vast majority of people had no clue what going into space was about and they did fall back on their simple ideas based on experience with war heroes in the past. That too is another area where we threw young men into combat with a rifle. The only way they came back was to start shooting. The rest didn’t come back. Good story. Recommended.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
New Worlds No. 224, Vol. 66, edited by Michael Moorcock, magazine, Jayde Design/Multiverse, Inc., 2024-10-00
