Fritz Leiber 30 min read

Before science there was superstition; after science there will be, what? A crank's old book predicted this very century for the next reshuffling of the planets, and it's coming true.

Fritz Leiber's 1952 story unsettles a rational future world with a prophecy of cosmic upheaval, blending hard SF and creeping dread. Sharp, imaginative, superbly written. Read it for a Leiber tale that turns a discredited crackpot theory into the most final fact of all.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

David Stone