Fritz Leiber 16 min read

A spaceman's partner develops the most harmless psychosis imaginable, an imaginary friend who happens to be the narrator.

Fritz Leiber's 1958 story pairs Joe Hansen with Jeff Bogart on a long, routine servicing run through the Shaulan system, where Jeff's invented companion turns out to be a second Joe, an arrangement Joe finds oddly agreeable, at first. A wry, inventive comedy of isolation and identity from a master of the form. Read it for Leiber having clever fun with the psychology of the very long voyage.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

16 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Sol Dember