Robert Silverberg 1 hr 4 min read

They were auctioning a proteus in the public square at Borlaam when the stranger wandered by, Barr Herndon, a tall man with a proud, lonely face that was not the face he'd been born with.

Robert Silverberg's 1958 story is a colorful first-contact and space-opera adventure of a driven wanderer. Vivid, fast-moving golden-age SF. Read it for early Silverberg, an exotic interstellar tale of a man with a hidden past and a purpose, moving through alien worlds and marketplaces toward his goal.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 4 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller