H. Beam Piper 46 min read

The emotional moron is on no one's side, not even his own, and once such a man could hurt only a few. Now, with a nuclear plant in his hands...

H. Beam Piper's 1951 story builds tension around the danger a careless, unteachable worker poses in an age of atomic power. Sharp, thoughtful social SF about competence, trust, and catastrophe. Read it for a pointed golden-age tale about the deadly cost of the man who won't, or can't, learn.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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