Frank Banta 6 min read

James Ypsilanti swings a steak-cuber at his own hardwood door, for he doesn't need the door but he does need heat, and beating it to kindling will keep him warm besides.

Frank Banta's 1962 story opens on cheerfully absurd logic before its first-contact and social-SF premise unfolds. Light, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a droll tale that begins with a man demolishing his own door for firewood and gets stranger from there.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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