Evelyn E. Smith 25 min read

Climbing his rooming-house stairs, near-sighted Paul Lambrequin meets a man whose face is somehow all wrong, the first Earthling, the stranger says, who hasn't shuddered at the sight of him.

Evelyn E. Smith's 1958 story spins a wry first-contact and social-SF tale from a nearsighted man's encounter with an alien. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where poor eyesight makes an ordinary fellow the perfect, unwitting friend to a visitor from the stars.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

25 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Diane Dillon