James V. McConnell 23 min read

Helicopters buzz overhead like fat flies as two men in bright hunting jackets watch them go, worrying only that their quarry might get airsick and hunt poorly.

James V. McConnell's 1955 story slowly reveals a chilling dystopian premise beneath its lazy morning hunt. Sharp, disquieting social SF. Read it for a story whose casual sportsmen's banter conceals a genuinely unsettling truth about exactly what, and who, they hunt.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry