The Lamps of the Angels

In 1960s science fiction at its most ambitious, Roberto Sanchez is about to become one of the first humans to reach Alpha Centauri. But his mother knows something the space program does not: the stars are not empty. They are occupied by ancient, terrible guardians who have denied humanity the cosmos for millennia, and her son is about to discover why. As Roberto's ship lifts into the void, he finds himself drawn into another dimension where beings of terrible radiance wait, their "lamps" burning with a light that is not meant for mortal eyes. What follows is a confrontation that will either break him or break the wall between humanity and the divine. This is space travel as spiritual horror, a Cold War era meditation on what happens when technological ambition meets forces beyond human understanding. The cost of exploration has never been more terrifyingly literal.