Frank Riley 11 min read

Condemned by the Genetics Center that made her carry an unwanted child, a young woman holds a suicide capsule under her tongue, clinging to the last moments of life.

Frank Riley's 1955 story opens on Miryam's anguished choice in a stark eugenic future, praying to the ancient God of the Ghetto as pain and the restless child within her build. Bleak, powerful social SF about bodily autonomy and control. Read it for a harrowing, humane golden-age tale that confronts a genuinely disturbing future head-on.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban