Winston K. Marks 40 min read

Ingratiating little aliens from Sirius offer humanity the ultimate gift, custom-built domestic servants, and no one asks what it will cost.

Winston K. Marks's 1954 story watches the grateful, genuflecting 'Ollies' win over a liberty-loving humanity with the one thing it can't buy, before the narrator learns to despise them. Sharp, satirical first-contact SF about generosity, dependence, and the hidden price of a perfect gift. Read it for a wry golden-age cautionary tale that sees the sting inside the favor.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Don Sibley