Frank Banta 13 min read

Jean's fiancée thinks a misbehaving ballpoint pen is the lamest excuse ever to call off a marriage, until he draws twelve inches of it from his pocket and it turns out to be a snake with ruby eyes.

Frank Banta's 1962 story spins genial comic social SF from a very unusual pet indeed. Light, funny, charming golden-age SF. Read it for a delightful tale of a young artist, his skeptical girl, and the living 'pen' that complicates everything.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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