Andrew J. Offutt 49 min read

A college contest winner imagines America a century hence: one language, one religion, and a benevolent Caesar over a new Roman world.

Andrew J. Offutt's 1954 prize story (his first sale) answers the question 'What will life be like in 100 years?' with an America of 2054 folded into a global empire on the Roman model, arguing provocatively that dictatorship is the only perfect government. A striking debut of political SF. Read it for an ambitious young writer's contentious vision of the century to come.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban