Alan Cogan 28 min read

The first thing he did with his new Grundy Projector was skip two years ahead to see his own future, everyone was doing it, students, couples, businessmen, all peeking at what lay in store.

Alan Cogan's 1956 story spins a wry time-travel and social-SF tale from a world where anyone can preview their own tomorrow. Clever, cautionary golden-age SF. Read it for a story about a man who looks ahead to check his coming marriage, and learns why some things are better left unseen.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller