Let 'Em Breathe Space!

Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 98K words
Chapters: 10

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Let 'Em Breathe Space! by Lester Del ReyAuthor: Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 16, 2010

Editor's review

Lester Del Rey was a major figure in twentieth-century American science fiction and fantasy. Let 'Em Breathe Space!, released free through Project Gutenberg, belongs to the public reading resources of early English-language science fiction short stories. Judging from the title and the author's consistent creative bent, the work carries a space theme and a satirical tone, often magnifying technical predicaments and human weaknesses within a closed environment—light to read yet with lingering resonance. The electronic edition is short, suitable for one-sitting reading on a commute or before sleep, and also as a sample of the margins of Golden Age science fiction. Note that the Gutenberg version is the English original, and the year in the publication information points to the electronic release rather than the work's first publication; readers should expect a historical text rather than contemporary science fiction. While reading, note how the author uses humor to defuse tension and how the enclosed space of the spaceship becomes a miniature model of social relations—techniques that still offer reference for today's genre writing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who want to read a short English-language science fiction story in fragments of time
Beginning readers interested in Golden Age science fiction and space themes
Students who need free public-domain English texts to practice reading
Enthusiasts or writers studying early science fiction satire techniques

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping for long-form hard science fiction or complex world-building
Readers who need a Chinese translation and do not wish to read the English original
Readers seeking cutting-edge contemporary science fiction themes and novel settings

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit the dialogue to savor the satirical tone
Read it as a short story in one sitting to avoid losing the rhythm by breaking it up
Skip unfamiliar words first, then look up spaceship-related terminology afterward
After reading, compare with contemporary closed-space space-themed works and note similarities and differences

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story?

Judging from its form in Project Gutenberg and the author's creative habits, this is a relatively short English-language science fiction work, suitable for reading in one sitting. Specific page counts vary with electronic formatting; rely on the actual text and do not schedule time as you would for a novel.

What English level is needed to read it?

The text is the English original, with sentences that are not overly difficult; reading ability at high school level or above should suffice. Spaceship and mechanical vocabulary may be somewhat unfamiliar; use dictionary tools, but do not look up every word—ensure comprehension of the plot first.

What is special about the Gutenberg version?

Project Gutenberg provides free electronic texts; this is a public-domain work released by the project, convenient for legal free reading and quotation. It is an electronic edition, not a facsimile of the original publication; the formatting and year information refer to the release act and should not be cited directly as first-edition bibliographic information.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993 Author

Lester Del Rey (1915-1993) was an American science fiction writer, with 11 of his works held in this collection. Public information is limited, and details of his life are difficult to verify, but the surviving works show that his writing spanned novels and short stories, often dealing with space adventure, the ethics of technology, and catastrophic crises. Representative works include Badge of Infamy, No Strings Attached, Dead Ringer, Let ‘Em Breathe Space!, The Sky Is Falling, Operation Distress, Earthbound, and Victory. These titles suggest a concern with social order, identity, and the human condition, with narratives that carry reflections on the consequences of technology through tight plotting, in a popular style that nonetheless retains tension. His works had a certain influence among mid-twentieth-century American science fiction readers, and some pieces are still selected for science fiction anthologies, offering readers a view of the genre in that era.