James Causey 18 min read

At nine he nearly killed a boy for scattering his jigsaw; at twenty-two he solved a crossword in a foxhole as his sergeant died. Vogel started with puzzles, and worked up to Man's greatest enigma.

James Causey's 1954 story traces a brilliant, ruthless puzzle-solver toward a dystopian reckoning. Sharp, dark social SF. Read it for a chilling character study of obsession, told through the escalating puzzles of a very dangerous mind.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Vidmer