Charles V. De Vet 15 min read

Seven days stranded and hopeless on Europa, his courage slipping away, Bill hears the rustle of a crinoline skirt and a scent of perfume in his bubble cubicle, the anamorph has come for him.

Charles V. De Vet's 1961 story is a haunting first-contact tale of an alien that appears as whatever a breaking mind most needs. Atmospheric, poignant golden-age SF. Read it for an eerie, moving story of a doomed man and the seductive, shape-shifting comfort that visits him in the dark.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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