Rog Phillips 24 min read

Born after the war-that-no-one-started, the mindless 'morons' were sterilized and herded into vast wild preserves in the south, where they band into small, roaming herds.

Rog Phillips's 1957 story unfolds a bleak, humane post-apocalyptic tale among the mutated survivors of nuclear war. Sharp, poignant social SF. Read it for a story that finds unexpected feeling and meaning in the fenced wilderness where the war's victims were left to run wild.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller