Stephen Arr 18 min read

George Wong has been overwhelmingly elected President in a solar-system landslide, and the messages pouring in are not congratulations but sympathy, for nothing can help him now.

Stephen Arr's 1953 story spins a wry, ominous dystopian tale from a victory that is really a doom. Sharp, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a clever story where winning the highest office turns out to be the worst thing that could happen to a man.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dick Francis