Randall Garrett 1 hr 8 min read

We've all heard of the wonderful invention the Big Corporation suppressed, usually it doesn't actually work. But there's another possibility.

Randall Garrett's 1960 story opens on inventor Sam Bending surveying his wrecked laboratory, launching a tale about a genuine breakthrough and the forces that would bury it. Sharp, idea-driven social SF with a religious streak. Read it for a clever golden-age story about suppressed invention and the damned-if-you-do bind it creates.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 8 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen