Sydney J. Van Scyoc 19 min read

With the whole world at her doorstep, what Pollony wants is out of reach, while at three a.m. the coarsening, ever-hungry Brendel pokes her awake and demands an omelette.

Sydney J. Van Scyoc's 1963 story is a sharp first-contact and social-SF tale of longing amid an automated future. Sharp, poignant golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a young woman's small, aching wants cut against a world of push-button plenty.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dick Francis