Jack Sharkey 16 min read

General 'Smiley' Webb crushes the Secretary of Defense's hand in a hearty parody of a handshake, and 'Well, here I am' is dutifully wired to every town in the forty-nine states.

Jack Sharkey's 1961 story spins wry military and social-SF satire from brass, bureaucracy, and a very minor detail with major consequences. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a droll tale where official pomp and public complacency mask a problem no one wants to notice.

In its time

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

Reading it

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