H. Beam Piper & John J. McGuire 2 hr 20 min read

In a future where literacy has become rare and reading is despised, a merchant who can still read runs a store, and stands at the fault line of a society turning violently against books.

Piper and McGuire's 1953 novel is a sharp dystopian social-SF tale of an anti-literate future in upheaval. Provocative, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a striking story of a world that has come to fear the written word, and the crisis that pits the readers against the rest.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen