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Frost and Fire (short story)

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"Frost and Fire" is a short story by Ray Bradbury and the fourteenth in his collection R is for Rocket.

Plot summary

Placed there by past rocket ship, the people of the storied land are within sight of another rocket ship on a distant mountain plateau. The plot follows Sim, the protagonist of this story, and his apparently short life on a planet where people are cursed by radiation to live only eight dangerous days.

The people of this planet are also gifted with telepathic communication ability by the Sun's radiation. However, they do not attempt to reach the sole remaining rocket ship due to the futility of attempting to reach it in one hour, which is the longest length of time between day and night (both deadly).

Sim is then moved by the racial memory of his ancestors to meet with scientists who make halting progress towards the goal of moving to the Rocket in the distance, in spite of the warnings from his sister and the rest of the people in his collective mountain-cave network of telepathic humans.

Graphic novel adaptation

"Frost and Fire" was adapted as a graphic novel, the third in the DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel series, by Klaus Janson in 1985.

Movie adaptation

An independent short film Quest, based on Frost and Fire, was released in 1983.

Quest (1983) at IMDb