Charles V. De Vet 45 min read

The sense of taste went first, for a week Buckmaster told himself it was nothing, until his sense of feeling left him too, and he knew he had the dread Plague.

Charles V. De Vet's 1952 story opens on a chilling onset of disease and builds a psi-and-social-SF tale of transformation. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a terrifying plague that strips away the senses proves to be the doorway to something else entirely.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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