Dave Dryfoos 8 min read

The bed itself coos them awake, 'Time to get up, dears', and cups of coffee arrive borne by a mincing marionette, in a household of tiresome, dancing automatons.

Dave Dryfoos's 1953 story spins a wry social-SF and time-travel tale from a future smothered in over-eager machines. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a couple's push-button paradise of fussing robot servants grows quietly, comically maddening.

In its time

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

Reading it

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