Ray Palmer 19 min read

Take two men, one girl, and an oscilloscope gone haywire, the eternal triangle mixed with lab science, and out comes adventure, terror, and romance.

Ray Palmer's 1953 story frames its hard-SF tale with lab-bench banter and a jealous edge, following an experiment that goes strange. Light, brisk golden-age SF. Read it for a genial tale where a love triangle and a misbehaving instrument tip over into real danger.

In its time

Published in 1953, 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

Harold W. McCauley