Randall Garrett 34 min read

In a small room behind his reception hall, Dr. Joachim poises his pale fingers over the electrotyper, a robed, mysterious figure whose prophecies come true just often enough.

Randall Garrett's 1961 story mines wry social SF and psi from a fortune-teller whose gift is real, if unreliable. Sharp, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a witty tale about prophecy, faith, and a seer whose fifty-percent accuracy is somehow the most dangerous thing about him.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John Schoenherr