Edson McCann 4 hr 4 min read

In a world made rigidly risk-free by the all-powerful Company, a claims adjuster on edge lands in Naples, and begins to wonder just how dangerous perfect safety can be.

'Edson McCann' (Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey) won a major contest with this 1955 dystopian novel of an insurance-run world. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a taut thriller that asks whether a society engineered to eliminate all danger is a paradise, or a trap.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

4 hr 4 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Sandy Kossin