Laurence M. Janifer 49 min read

Twenty-one-year-old Gloria loves helping people at the Welfare Department, only she really-but-good helps them, because she can reach right into any mind she chooses.

Laurence M. Janifer's 1959 story spins a wry, unsettling psi-and-social-SF tale from a telepathic social worker's boundless enthusiasm. Sharp, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a story where 'helping people' takes on a disturbing new meaning in the hands of a cheerful young mind-reader.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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