David R. Bunch 13 min read

There was always an easier way, and when they invade he'll be proved right, but tradition is powerful, and the ever-bigger cargo saucers keep hauling more people 'on the jag.'

David R. Bunch's 1959 story is a strange, satirical dystopian tale in his singular clipped style. Odd, sharp, unmistakable golden-age SF. Read it for an offbeat story from a genuine original, skewering conformity and habit in a bizarre saucer-borne future.

In its time

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

Reading it

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