Henry Slesar 20 min read

In the jerry-built dressing cabins of the Omaha Spaceport, contestants primp for a beauty pageant that isn't quite what it seems.

Henry Slesar's 1957 story mines wry humor from the shared mirrors and electro-perms of a shabby contest, its pretty entrants unaware of the twist behind the competition. Light, satirical social SF with Slesar's sharp comic timing. Read it for a clever golden-age needle at glamour, artifice, and the price of looking good.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Summers