Stephen Barr 48 min read

No doubt about it, he had the Indian sign on him. His comfortably untidy world had suddenly, inexplicably, turned into a monstrosity of perfect order.

Stephen Barr's 1957 story spins wry first-contact and social SF from a man around whom reality organizes itself with uncanny precision. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a droll tale of an ordinary fellow who becomes, without meaning to, the center around which everything arranges itself.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Jack Gaughan