Laurence M. Janifer 22 min read

A word-for-word translation can be perfectly accurate and still miss the meaning entirely, and Korvin, agent among the coldly efficient Tr'en, is counting on exactly that.

Laurence M. Janifer's 1961 story (as Larry M. Harris) is a clever first-contact and social-SF tale of language, logic, and loopholes. Sharp, witty golden-age SF. Read it for an ingenious story where a captive turns the aliens' own ruthless precision into the key to his escape.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John Schoenherr