John Silletto 51 min read

'Good morning, Daddy,' says Mike-One, very formal and solemn, a bad sign, thinks the man behind the desk, on a colony world where the caretaker is 'Daddy' and recess means ice cream.

John Silletto's 1958 story opens on a curiously childlike colonial society, building a wry social-SF tale of a planet called Fairyland. Intriguing, offbeat golden-age SF. Read it for a story whose gentle nursery surface hints at something more complicated underneath.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Richard Kluga