Albert Teichner 28 min read

In a world of telepathic 'paraNormal' communication, a man trying to call his wife keeps getting a very insistent commercial receptionist instead.

Albert Teichner's 1963 story opens on the comic frustration of Connor's crossed mental wires with Dallas Shipping, sketching a dystopia of thought-based commerce. Wry, inventive social SF about a future where even your mind gets wrong numbers. Read it for a clever golden-age tale that finds satire in psychic telephony gone corporate.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Lloyd Birmingham