Henry Slesar 10 min read

Mr. Gertz can't sleep for the brat screaming next door, while light-years away, Athra, Chairman of the War Council of Nahrla, twists his eyeless plastic face into contempt on a blood-red cushion.

Henry Slesar's 1958 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale cutting between a cranky neighbor and an alien war council. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a suburban baby's wailing and an interstellar invasion plan turn out, delightfully, to be connected.

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

Virgil Finlay