Joseph Samachson 24 min read

The sensation he's most conscious of is loneliness, not the open hostility of his enemies back home, but the chilling indifference of the strange creatures who buffet him at a street corner.

Joseph Samachson's 1953 story is a poignant first-contact and colonization tale of an outsider among aliens. Thoughtful, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a quietly affecting story where a fugitive finds that among beings who look like him but feel nothing for him, indifference is a colder thing than hatred.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

E. Joseph Dreany