Richard Wilson 4 hr 33 min read

Aliens arrive with a simple, unstoppable message, be good, and it may drive humanity insane.

Richard Wilson's 1960 satire imagines the Monolithians, invulnerable visitors who recruit an ordinary newspaperman to sell Earth on peace, love, and obedience to the law. The catch: their utopia leaves no room for choice, and a species denied the option to misbehave starts to crack. Wry, wised-up magazine SF that turns the benevolent-invasion premise into a comedy about free will and the human need to be difficult. Read it for a light but pointed take on paradise imposed from above, from a reliably clever New York hand.

In its time

Published in 1960, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

4 hr 33 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Richard M. Powers