John Foster West 13 min read

A warp in space separates two egos from their bodies, leaving a naked consciousness adrift in black nothingness with only pure reason to know itself by.

John Foster West's 1961 story dramatizes Descartes's famous proposition literally, as a disembodied mind reasons its way toward understanding what and where it is. Cerebral, philosophical social SF built on a single striking premise. Read it for an idea-driven golden-age tale that turns 'I think, therefore I am' into a story.

In its time

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

Reading it

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