Boyd Ellanby 26 min read

On an alien world where beauty means round, placid features, an ugly young man's aching tooth becomes a crisis of biology and belief.

Boyd Ellanby's 1958 story sits in a signal dome with Pehn Karn, whose too-tight skin, deep-set eyes, and swelling jaw mark him as homely by his race's standards, as a routine space-sweep and a toothache set an unexpected story in motion. A wry, humane piece of first-contact SF told entirely from the aliens' side. Read it for a clever inversion of perspective and a fresh take on what 'ugly' and 'human' really mean.

In its time

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

Reading it

26 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller