William W. Stuart 38 min read

Take a young, healthy, wealthy man, successful and secure, with a fine choice of women and 175 more years of youth guaranteed, surely the happiest man alive. Surely.

William W. Stuart's 1960 story spins a wry dystopian tale from a life that has everything and is somehow still a trap. Clever, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a story that piles on every conceivable advantage and then reveals the catch lurking inside the perfect life.

In its time

Published in 1960, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Diane Dillon