Project Gutenberg 2020-06-19 Public domain in the USA. 143 Farrell, Joseph Farrel, Joseph Black-out Blackout Produced from Planet Stories Winter 1943 Listed in magazine table of contents as "Blackout." Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Black-out" by Joseph Farrell is a science fiction story published in the early 1940s, originally featured in the magazine "Planet Stories". The narrative explores themes of desperation and the search for salvation amid the decline of a dying civilization on Mars. Through the eyes of Thak, the last astronomer of Mars, the story delves into the hope of contacting intelligent life on Earth, which represents the last glimmer of hope for his race. The storyline centers around Thak and his students as they construct a new telescope to observe signals from Earth. Thak believes that the lights he has seen on Earth are evidence of intelligent civilization, capable of providing the knowledge and guidance needed to save the remnants of Martian society. However, as they finally focus the telescope on the blue planet, despair overwhelms Thak when he realizes that the lights are disappearing one by one, indicating a catastrophic blackout that hints at the extinction of life on both Mars and Earth. The story effectively captures the longing for connection and the tragic inevitability of loss as two worlds face extinction. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 76.4 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Science fiction Short stories Martians -- Fiction Mars (Planet) -- Fiction Astronomical observatories -- Fiction PS Text Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 35164 2025-07-25T03:35:25.807431 text/html 11214 2024-10-18T03:59:36 text/html 318779 2025-07-25T03:35:27.525416 application/epub+zip 317602 2025-07-25T03:35:26.232468 application/epub+zip 72395 2025-07-25T03:35:25.977437 application/epub+zip 349506 2025-07-25T03:35:28.781462 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 342364 2025-07-25T03:35:27.323419 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 97501 2022-09-28T06:55:34.618491 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 28874 2025-07-25T03:35:25.713416 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 9174 2024-10-18T03:59:36 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 16553 2025-07-25T03:35:28.916400 application/rdf+xml 31086 2025-07-25T03:35:26.071417 image/jpeg 4930 2025-07-25T03:35:26.020420 image/jpeg 512449 2025-07-25T03:35:25.823425 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog