Everett B. Cole 3 hr 16 min read

Don Michaels squirms in the darkened school auditorium, sure that smelly comedy act deserved groans, not applause, and wonders why the professionals bother slumming at a school Aud Call.

Everett B. Cole's 1959 story is a genial social-SF space opera from his Philosophical Corps setting. Clever, engaging golden-age SF. Read it for a story where an ordinary schoolboy's ordinary day is the surface of something larger, as a galactic guardianship works quietly behind the scenes.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

3 hr 16 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen