Encounter in the Dawn by Arthur C. Clarke - A lot of glib fiction has been written about life on other planets, with space ships dropping down among alien races, zap guns decimating the enemy, while Our Hero goes batting off after a Beautiful Princess, who is about to be ravaged by the hairy-nosed glumpfx of Pluto.
But Mr. Clarke, whose book, Exploration of Space, was a Book of-the-Month choice, takes the realistic approach and gets better results than anything by the boom-boom boys.
It was in the last days of the Empire. The tiny ship was far from home, and almost a hundred light-years from the great parent vessel searching through the loosely packed stars at the rim of the Milky Way. But even here it could not escape from the shadow that lay across civilization: beneath that shadow, pausing ever and again in their work to wonder how their distant homes were faring, the scientists of the Galactic Survey still labored at their never-ending task.
The ship held only three occupants, but between them they carried knowledge of many sciences, and the experience of half a lifetime in space. After the long interstellar night, the star ahead was warming their spirits as they dropped down towards its fires. A little more golden, a trifle more brilliant than the sun that now seemed a legend of their childhood. They knew from past experience that the chance of locating planets here was more than ninety per cent, and for the moment they forgot all else in the excitement of discovery
