F. L. Wallace 1 hr 1 min read

What sort of world wouldn't help its victims find out whether they'd been murdered or had killed themselves? A man sits before a police counselor, unable even to remember his own name.

F. L. Wallace's 1954 story opens on total memory loss in a strange society, building an intriguing psi-and-social-SF mystery. Sharp, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story about a wiped-clean man piecing together an identity, and a crime that may have been his own death.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 1 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller