Frederik Pohl 1 hr 2 min read

Captain O'Leary smells trouble brewing in the Jug, and he's never wrong, least of all about a well-bred young detainee named Sue-Ann Bradley, who simply cannot adjust to prison life.

Frederik Pohl's 1957 story is a sharp dystopian tale of a rigidly caste-bound future society and a riot in its prison. Pointed, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story where the breakdown of a class-locked world plays out behind bars, sparked by one woman who won't fit in.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 2 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Jack Gaughan