Everett B. Cole 1 hr 20 min read

A battered, near-unidentifiable device is recovered, once, supposedly, a medium-range communicator, as investigators piece together the wreckage of a vanished, advanced civilization.

Everett B. Cole's 1955 story unfolds a thoughtful utopian and social-SF tale of reconstruction and lost technology. Sharp, ideas-rich golden-age SF. Read it for a story where the shattered relics of a fallen society hold clues to a far higher order of civilization.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 20 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).