Randall Garrett 19 min read

On the balcony of the Grand Palace, the Autarch Bartol waves and smiles at the cheering crowds against his will, a puppet ruler under hypnotic command, until an energy bolt tears through the glass.

Randall Garrett's 1957 story builds a tense dystopian tale of a controlled figurehead and a lethal assassination attempt. Sharp, fast golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story where the man everyone hails as ruler is a prisoner of his own throne, and someone wants him dead.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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