Monette Cummings 15 min read

The morning gong sounds on the first day of Ool's honeymoon; he reaches for the form beside him and finds his beautiful Loris chalk-white and cold, without heartbeat, dead.

Monette Cummings's 1955 story is an eerie social-SF space opera with a chilling premise. Sharp, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a story that opens on a bridegroom's horror and unfolds the strange, cold secret of Ool and his brides, in a tale with a memorable sting.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas