Poul Anderson 51 min read

In a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure, a mountain-climbing vacation may end in deep space, and loyalty may prove to be treason. But it has its rewards.

Poul Anderson's 1953 story is a sharp dystopian social-SF tale of a surveillance state and its ironies. Clever, suspenseful golden-age SF. Read it for early Anderson skewering the Cold War security obsession, where a labman's ordinary life turns dangerous the moment he steps out of line.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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