Wallace Macfarlane 19 min read

Sparing people's feelings is deadly, it leads, the story warns, to no feelings and no people. A scientist watches swimsuit ads while he gnaws his steak.

Wallace Macfarlane's 1952 story opens on a future of crass commercial television and social conformity, sketching a satirical dystopia. Wry, pointed social SF. Read it for a sardonic golden-age tale about a society smothering itself with comfort and consideration.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

David Stone