Robert F. Young 13 min read

Hack writer Harold Smith, stuck at the climax of yet another rejected Martian potboiler, Tharks attacking, bosomy princess clinging, suddenly finds his wish-fulfillment fantasy becoming very real.

Robert F. Young's 1962 story is a witty, affectionate social-SF spoof of pulp SF. Fun, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a delightful send-up of Edgar Rice Burroughs-style planetary romance, where a frustrated writer's clichéd daydreams come to life, in a genial, self-aware golden-age comedy that lovingly ribs the whole sword-and-planet tradition.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Summers