Joseph Shallit 20 min read

It was for his ideals that Joyce loved the alien, but ideals, her father would say, are only conditioned reflexes.

Joseph Shallit's 1952 story sets a headstrong young woman's affection for a Martian against her scowling father's prejudice, building a pointed first-contact social SF tale. Sharp, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story that turns a family argument into a meditation on love, tolerance, and what we're taught to feel.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller