Charles Einstein 10 min read

Three paths lead from the resort hotel; two are signposted for the lake and golf links, but the third is unmarked, the path the honeymooners always take, the one Fred and Alice follow today.

Charles Einstein's 1958 story is a quiet first-contact and social-SF tale that begins on an ordinary romantic stroll. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a young couple's walk down an unmarked forest path leads gently, then startlingly, off the map of the everyday.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller