Winston K. Marks 32 min read

A child's ordinary toy plunges the nation into a nightmare that kills millions, and, at the brink of collapse, another toy saves it.

Winston K. Marks's 1955 story is narrated by a man who can no longer look at a department-store Teddy bear without shuddering, recalling the plague of madness a plaything unleashed. A tense, inventive piece of social SF about catastrophe from the most innocent source. Read it for an eerie golden-age tale that turns the toy shop into ground zero.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller