James Stamers 20 min read

The man ahead of him had a dragon curled up in a thermos, and customs confiscated it, because there are only two ways to smuggle a dragon nowadays, and that wasn't one of them.

James Stamers's 1960 story opens on wonderfully deadpan interstellar-customs comedy before its space-opera plot unfolds. Witty, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for a droll tale narrated by a smooth operator who knows exactly how the galaxy's contraband really moves.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Diane Dillon