Howard Browne 49 min read

A writer pounding out a Wild West serial is so lost in a Sioux war-whoop that he barely hears his wife, a joke about giving the country back to the Indians.

Howard Browne's 1954 story opens on a metafictional gag, its harried author deep in his own tale as domestic life intrudes, setting up a comic SF turn. Light, playful social SF with a wink at the writing life. Read it for a genial golden-age comedy that starts at the typewriter and takes an unexpected road.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Sandy Kossin