Con Blomberg 18 min read

Two neat men cross the courtyard toward his door, one with a fine briefcase, the other bearing a square box that holds the Sim. To live exciting new lives, all he must do is sign away his own.

Con Blomberg's 1959 story is a sharp psi-powers and social-SF tale of a strange bargain sold door-to-door. Clever, ominous golden-age SF. Read it for an unsettling story where a slick sales call offers a lifetime of borrowed adventures at a price the buyer barely understands.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Gray Morrow