George H. Smith 5 min read

An inventor whose robots advanced the world a century cowers behind his door as a mob of the unemployed comes to destroy him.

George H. Smith's 1961 story sets Jacob Clark, self-styled benefactor of mankind, against the rage his labor-saving machines have kindled, and a time-lever set too far into the future. A pointed piece of social SF about progress, automation, and the people it displaces. Read it for a sharp golden-age parable on the double edge of invention.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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