Robert Sheckley 13 min read

In a cave on a dead world, the last man on Earth finishes carving his own epitaph into the granite: 'My name is Man, and this is my last work.'

Robert Sheckley's 1952 story is a haunting, ironic post-apocalyptic and psi tale of a survivor whose thoughts become real. Sharp, unforgettable golden-age SF. Read it for a beautifully turned story where the power to make fantasy into fact is both the last man's blessing and his doom.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller