Jerome Bixby 23 min read

Dropping over the Central Park wall, knife in hand, an eleven-year-old drops flat and watches like a young wolf, a filthy, feral survivor named Steven, who has forgotten even his own name.

Jerome Bixby's 1954 story unfolds a stark psi-and-social-SF tale of a savage child in a shattered New York. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story of a feral boy's survival, and the strange power that sets him apart.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban