Dave Dryfoos 23 min read

In a dusty California tomato field, six weary old pickers wait in a truck's shadow for their pay, and tallest, oldest Ollie Hollveg watches the rancher overacting his role of harried proprietor.

Dave Dryfoos's 1955 story grounds a social-SF and space-opera tale in the hard realities of migrant labor. Sharp, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story that finds its science fiction in the dust and sweat of a field, and the dignity of the men working it.

In its time

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

Reading it

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