Paul W. Fairman 1 hr 12 min read

A man wakes in total darkness with a lump on his head and a spiked drink still fogging his brain, and finds a city gone terribly, silently wrong.

Paul W. Fairman's 1953 story (filmed as 'Target Earth') opens on a disoriented survivor in a mysteriously emptied city, building a tense post-apocalyptic first-contact tale. Atmospheric, suspenseful golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story that opens in the dark and finds a metropolis under a nameless threat.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 12 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller