Sam Merwin 15 min read

It is a lonely thing to rule a dying, terribly sick world, and in his gold-and-porcelain washroom, the exhausted Chancellor studies the red-rimmed fatigue in his own mirrored eyes.

Sam Merwin's 1955 story builds a somber dystopian tale around a ruler bearing an unbearable burden. Atmospheric, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story about the crushing solitude of command over a civilization in decline, and what such power really costs.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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