Albert Teichner 9 min read

The machine has stood there a long time, drawing sugar and salt from the landscape and turning out a steady stream of pink-striped taffy, for there was no machine that could produce peace.

Albert Teichner's 1961 story is a haunting post-apocalyptic and first-contact tale set among the automated ruins of a war-ended world. Eerie, resonant golden-age SF. Read it for a quietly devastating story where humanity's clever machines outlive their makers, still faithfully churning out sweets no one is left to eat.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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