Laurence M. Janifer 2 hr 57 min read

On a world where humans hold intelligent alien natives in bondage, a moral reckoning is coming, a tale its author dedicated, pointedly, to a friend 'who will probably find it disagreeable.'

Laurence M. Janifer's 1963 novel is a serious colonization and dystopian SF tale of slavery and conscience. Thoughtful, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a story that refuses easy comfort, a hard look at an empire built on the enslavement of another race, and the cost of setting it right.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

2 hr 57 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).