Joseph Samachson 20 min read

In a dorm room, a boy named Plato hides a forbidden book beneath his pillow and pretends to study as the dorm master frowns from the doorway, dreaming of the villain Rogue Rogan's fate.

Joseph Samachson's 1954 story is a colorful space-opera adventure of a boy, his forbidden thriller, and a runaway dream. Fun, warm golden-age SF. Read it for a genial tale that opens on a schoolboy's love of pulp adventure and carries him toward an adventure of his own.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

William Ashman