David E. Fisher 18 min read

The first thirty years of brilliant young physicist Henry Talbot's life were the most promising, and then, at Oak Ridge, he ran straight into a brick wall.

David E. Fisher's 1960 story traces a gifted scientist's collision with the limits of the possible, building a wry social-SF tale around 'what must be must be.' Sharp, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a clever story about brilliance, frustration, and a natural law that will not bend.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dick Francis