Alan Cogan 13 min read

Following Mr. Hoode down a hundred corridors feels to Mr. Sims like the last walk to the gallows, until they step out into rolling parkland where colored fountains frolic before a columned palace.

Alan Cogan's 1955 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale of showmanship with a dark edge. Clever, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a story where the ultimate show demands the ultimate showman, and an anxious everyman discovers just what role he's been brought to the palace to play.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Diehl