Jim Harmon 24 min read

Earth's foremost xenologist is asked to determine which of a dozen contradictory accounts of an interstellar Robin Hood's death is the true one.

Jim Harmon's 1959 story pits the coolly omniscient Mr. Street against the legend of Baker, a galaxy-spanning outlaw whose many reported deaths across many worlds must be sifted for the real one. Clever, wry first-contact SF with a detective's structure and a folk-hero's shimmer. Read it for a sharp golden-age puzzle about truth, legend, and the man behind both.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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