Damon Knight 21 min read

Man, n.: a pentagonal, dipolar, monoplane dominant of intelligence 96, native of District 10039817, unabsorbed. So reads the galaxy's file on us.

Damon Knight's 1953 story frames its wry first-contact tale with an alien dictionary's clinical definition of humanity, following a hungry, handball-playing spacer through a vast galaxy. Sharp, ironic social SF. Read it for a clever story that measures mankind against the indifferent scale of the stars.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

E. Joseph Dreany