"Neutron Tide" is a short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1970 in Galaxy Science Fiction. It is among his shortest pieces of writing, consisting solely of a 2-page, detailed description of a futuristic scenario in order to use a pun as a punch-line, a play on the title of the United States' national anthem. The story was reprinted later in the 1978 Starlord summer special. Plot summary Clarke describes a space battleship flying too close to the gravitational field of a neutron star, and subsequently being torn to bits by the high tidal forces. A military commander revealing this in a meeting says the only identifiable piece of debris was from an engineer's toolkit, a star-mangled spanner. See also "Neutron Star", a 1966 science fiction short story by Larry Niven "Feghoot", a short story designed to end with a pun References External links 1970 short stories Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke Fiction set around neutron stars Works originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction