A. Earley 10 min read

An old carpenter whittles at wood in his anxiety, waiting to hear that his son has decided to go through with it.

A. Earley's 1962 story opens on a father who carves faces and fruited trees from good timber to calm his nerves, and a mother who cannot bear to see the pain in their son's eyes. A restrained, resonant piece of social SF that lets its quiet domestic scene carry a large, dawning meaning. Read it for understated golden-age SF that trusts small gestures to deliver a big emotional weight.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dan Adkins