Joseph Samachson 25 min read

Crusoe can remember only one thing, that somewhere near, a deadly danger threatens him. He has no idea what it is, or why he's in the swamp. Then he finds he can work miracles.

Joseph Samachson's 1953 story pairs amnesia with sudden power in a tense colonization-and-psi tale. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story of a man who wakes with no memory but one warning, and the strange abilities he'll need to survive it.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas