Evelyn E. Smith 1 hr 1 min read

A professor pauses, philosophically, to consider whether the lizard-man carrying off the shrieking Miss Anspacher means to eat her or court her.

Evelyn E. Smith's 1954 story mines dry comedy from a first-contact crisis, its academic hero debating the finer points of alien intentions while his wife demands a rescue. Witty, character-driven social SF. Read it for a genuinely funny golden-age tale that treats an abduction as an occasion for donnish banter.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 1 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller