Clifford D. Simak 57 min read

A man asks the Secretary of State to recognize a new nation called Mastodonia, legitimate, constitutional, rich in resources, and located, technically, in the distant prehistoric past.

Clifford D. Simak's 1955 story is a warm, clever time-travel and colonization tale with a wry political edge. Charming, ingenious golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where would-be pioneers try to homestead the Ice Age and get the modern world to take their strange new country seriously.

In its time

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

Reading it

57 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).